We're getting a lot of email from independent game developers about publishing their games on TotalGaming.net. This Question & Answer sessions will hopefully answer some of the more common questions satisfactorily.

Q: How do I get my game on TotalGaming.net?

A: Your best bet is to snail mail (not email) a kit to:

    Stardock Entertainment
    CO: Brad Wardell
    17292 Farmington Rd.
    Livonia MI 48152

Why not just send an email with a link to your game? Because one easy way to determine the overall quality of a game developer is to see how organized they are. Can they put together competent documentation? Can they present their game in a reasonably good way? Are we dealing with a real business?  Each year, tens of thousands of games get released and it's impossible to sift through them all. There's just not enough time. 

Q: What kinds are of games is TotalGaming.net looking for?

A: We're looking for all kinds. But particularly, we are looking for games that can be electronically distributed and have a single price (i.e. no monthly fees). Quality is paramount, however. We're not looking to have hundreds of games available. We want to keep the number of games reasonable.

Q: What is the royalty model for it?

A: Games on TotalGaming.net can be sold stand-alone as well as part of the TotalGaming.net subscription.  The royalty for the stand alone depends on a number of issues and is separate from the royalty one receives for sales of the TotalGaming.net subscription. Developers do not have to have their game as part of the subscription.  But the stand-alone royalty is doubled when it is.  Developers gets a % of each new sale of a TotalGaming.net subscription or on their stand alone game.

Q: What kind of royalty levels are there?

A: The stand alone game royalties are in the double digits (typically 25% to 50% depending on the circumstances). The royalty from sales on the TotalGaming.net subscription are in the low single digits. But bear in mind, a TotalGaming.net subscription is nearly $100.

Q: TotalGaming.net Subscriptions, why would I want my game part of this?

A: The quick answer is that having your game as part of the subscription won't have a negative net impact on your stand alone sales. Gamers who purchase TotalGaming.net are usually purchasing it because of one, maybe two games that they really want (i.e. would buy stand alone) but all the other games on there help convince them to just buy the entire subscription. As a practical matter, it's a question of whether it's better to receive a few dollars in royalties or none at all.

For example, Galactic Civilizations has been the primary mover of subscriptions. The gamer would have just purchased it stand-alone.  But additional games such as The Corporate Machine and LightWeight Ninja and such were enough to encourage the gamer to get the whole thing.  That gamer wouldn't have purchased The Corporate Machine stand-alone. The Corporate Machine didn't lose a sale, rather, it gained a piece of the subscription royalty.

That said, developers can opt-out, but it will change the stand-alone royalty amount.

Q: What does TotalGaming.net, as an electronic distributor, do that other distributors do not?

A: In a word: Promotion. One of the reasons why we are so selective in our titles is because we want to be able to promote each and every title on there.  That comes in the form of sending out copies to the media, interconnecting with the millions of Stardock.net users, and promoting it in other venues.  But that's not the only value-add.  TotalGaming.net isn't just a store. It's a community. With its integration with JoeUser.com, users can help each other out on games, learn about other games, and more.  As a result, support costs are dramatically reduced for developers/publishers and developers have a place to point their customers to to interact with each other lowering their overhead.  There is also one benefit of TotalGaming.net that bears mentioning: Stardock pays its bills. Anyone who's been in the game development industry long enough knows the pain of getting paid.  Stardock pays its developers promptly and reliably and has a 10 year track record of doing so.  We also don't pay accounting games with royalties. That is another issue that long time game developers are familiar with. Our royalty rates aren't, on paper, as high as some others, but you can track your sales in real time and know that your X% royalty isn't really X/2% because of various "charges".