I''m sure its not only me when I say this but
why the hell doesn''t everyone just shut up and concentrate on making some fun games?

I''m personally really sick of seeing these threads all over the place knocking down more worthy posts.

Notice the title of the forum guys, ''The business of game development'' not ''Bitch at Alex weekly''. Now I must admit, from the first set of posts I remember seeing them I too was confused but after reading every bit afterwards I''ve actually stopped caring.

Personally, Alex it looks like your doing a good job and my bit of advice would be either report these type of posts to a moderator (where are ya David RM?) or just ignore them because your posts (while not intentially) add more fuel to the fire.

Its a shame you couldn''t sue for slander on the forum, heck you probably could live from that money!

Remember guys... chill... and play nice

Philip Lutas
Optical Realities

Anonymous: You really need to give some concrete evidence. I am not the only one feeling that Alex is sounding more believable since you don''t come up with anything but anonymous accusations.

Anonymous from Cosmi: If you are really from Cosmi, this does NOT make your company look good.
Although I agree with a lot of points you raise, joining this anonymously makes Cosmi look like a company that''s not the professional entity you probably would like it to be. I wouldn''t sign with a company that posts anonymously in publisher<->publisher arguments, even if you make; I admit, some valid points.

Alex, in your case I think a lot of these problems stem from the fact you haven''t got everything sorted out yet.
And that''s ok, most people running a business are twice your age. A few suggestions though:

- You''ll find out actions will speak louder than words.
If the claims of this anonymous poster are unfounded, in the future you had better just reply once denying the claims and saying you will not engage in replying to anonymous postings.

By continuing to reply you''re feeding the whole thing to go on and on. The Crystal-Interactive period will haunt you until you will have a range of developers saying they did good business with you. If you lose signing a developer because of a discussion like this, so be it. If you know you are in the right now, it will become obvious over time and you''ll have a range of people supporting you. I think this is already happening.

- I would remove the mention of 25K-100K from your website. I know that developers ''could possibly'' earn this much and they want to hear that, but it provides too easy a target. Also, these amounts are too high for most of the games you are selling.

Publishers never talk about money up front and doing so will only make your developer''s expectations grow. I suspect that a lot of developers who sign with you are young and they think any game you take will pay them that kind of amount within weeks. This may be the cause of exactly this problem.

- You do not need to defend yourself in detail against anonymous posters. You don''t need to give out details about who is signed with you, etc. even if you think this helps your case. React like above and avoid all this.

Overall, I suspect all this is is a friend or the actual developer thinking they''d receive 25-100K within weeks or a month or two of signing, but after reading this whole thing, I have to admit Alex sounds more believable than you.
Provide some facts or you will see that most people simply do not believe you. And this is already happening.


Mark

quote: Original post by Xing Interactive
Pool Wars - Now this could be the one you''re talking about. This guy E-mailed me a week ago that he was angry and disappointed that he had not been paid yet. It turned out he thought his product had been released a month earlier then in reality and I cleared things up. Now if this is the one: contact him again please.

You did make a lie

On your website is mentioned that pool wars sold 1000 units at dynabyte.

There are also other lies, but you will get a reply soon or later.Also I agree for an important part with Mark Tanner on some points. I am a glad that you Alex told things here, so for me and the developers I got enough prove about your lies.

P.S $25000 IS REALLY A JOKE TO ATTRACK DEVELOPERS!

YAWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Please leave alex free to do his job rather than defend himself on here. after all, he is publishing one of my games...

thanks!

http://www.positech.co.uk

He told a lie Mr Cliffski.
That is something different.How can I be sure that I got the same treatment like you. Also he tells that someone is paid and that isn''t right. The person in case told me something different. I asked him to give a reply and that will clear everything up.

Also there are no friends involved. I am also an independend developer, like everybody else. And defending himself is his free right. He can choose for it. And he did and I am happy about it.

Also Mr. Cliffski he told you also lies a long time ago. But I will not repeat it because that was related with CI and not XI.
You know exactly what I mean.

This is really getting ridiculous... What lie??? Pool Wars did sell 1000 units and the Dynabyte logo is merely there to point out where people COULD buy the game. You need glasses or a reading course as it states nowhere that we sold 1000 units at Dynabyte. Just that we sold 1000 units, which is true + a Dynabyte logo. But you are not the first to think like this so I don''t blame you for the misunderstanding.

The developer of Pool Wars lives in China. We sent him a cheque in the last week of February just like we promised him. Now the fact that it takes longer for him to cash something like that I can''t do very much about. International money transfers can take anywhere from 7 to 30 days depending on banking relations and routings. The gentleman who developed Pool Wars knows this and therefore it would be quite odd for him to complain.

Now with regards to the $25.000 it is something a developer CAN make. We sell any product to our customers in our database (3.000 customers in there) and we sell flat fee licenses, finished product and OEM licenses to companies all over the world. Now a typical 9.99 Euro product will sell 10.000+ units in Germany over the course of 2 years. This means at least 5.000 to 10.000 Euro is made by a developer. In the Benelux we sell at least 3.000 units of any product = between 1.500 and 3.000 Euros added to this, in the U.K. we sell at least 5.000 units so that is another 5.000 to 10.000 Euros for the developers and we do licensing and finished goods deals to Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Portugal, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Bahrain, United Arabian Emirates, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, South Africa and of course North America and South America. It''s AT LEAST $25.000 a developer gets. It has to be a rally poor product if it doesn''t make that marker...

Now what you are probably getting at is that developers expect $25.000 in cash right away. It''s however divided over 2 years of the contract that we close all of our deals.

Now please think before you write more allegations as you have just lost your last ounce of credibility...

quote: Original post by Xing Interactive
This is really getting ridiculous... What lie??? Pool Wars did sell 1000 units and the Dynabyte logo is merely there to point out where people COULD buy the game. You need glasses or a reading course as it states nowhere that we sold 1000 units at Dynabyte. Just that we sold 1000 units, which is true + a Dynabyte logo. But you are not the first to think like this so I don''t blame you for the misunderstanding.

The developer of Pool Wars lives in China. We sent him a cheque in the last week of February just like we promised him. Now the fact that it takes longer for him to cash something like that I can''t do very much about. International money transfers can take anywhere from 7 to 30 days depending on banking relations and routings. The gentleman who developed Pool Wars knows this and therefore it would be quite odd for him to complain.

Now with regards to the $25.000 it is something a developer CAN make. We sell any product to our customers in our database (3.000 customers in there) and we sell flat fee licenses, finished product and OEM licenses to companies all over the world. Now a typical 9.99 Euro product will sell 10.000+ units in Germany over the course of 2 years. This means at least 5.000 to 10.000 Euro is made by a developer. In the Benelux we sell at least 3.000 units of any product = between 1.500 and 3.000 Euros added to this, in the U.K. we sell at least 5.000 units so that is another 5.000 to 10.000 Euros for the developers and we do licensing and finished goods deals to Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Portugal, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Bahrain, United Arabian Emirates, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, South Africa and of course North America and South America. It''s AT LEAST $25.000 a developer gets. It has to be a rally poor product if it doesn''t make that marker...

Now what you are probably getting at is that developers expect $25.000 in cash right away. It''s however divided over 2 years of the contract that we close all of our deals.

Now please think before you write more allegations as you have just lost your last ounce of credibility...

Also he tells that someone is paid and that isn''t right.

Okay here it is:


Reply-to: "Mark Sheeky" <mark@treality.freeserve.co.uk>

From: "Mark Sheeky" <mark@treality.freeserve.co.uk> | Block Address | Add to Address Book

To:

Subject: Re: Publishing

Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 13:00:08 -0000


I still have an agreement with Arcangel and want to keep it. As Alex said Arcangel is due for release in Germany in April. Before he accepted the game 8 months ago it had done completely zero with another publisher for about a year. Alex isn''t a crook or dishonest unless he''s some criminal genius. Yes I get peed off from time to time because yes I haven''t been paid. Until I know how much I''ll get for my games with Alex then I''m not going to sign anything more to him. This is not a reflection of his performance, it only makes sense. Alex knows that if he peforms well then I''ll sign future games with him.

If you want to copy this message to the forum, do so.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From:
To: Mark Sheeky <mark@treality.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: 10 March 2002 09:15
Subject: Re: Publishing


>Hi Mark,
>
>Do you still are in agreement or is the agreement
>over. Can you reply in the forum on gamedev please. To
>make the things more clear.
>
>http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=2&pagesiz
e=20&topic_id=83960
>
>This is one of the replies of Alex:
>Alien Infestation - This game hasn''t even been
>completed since 2 weeks ago so they definately have no
>reason to complain.
>
>Arcangel - This guy knows that his game is difficult
>to place but we have a release for Germany in March so
>if you care to ask him he''ll confirm this. Can''t
>imagine Mark would complain.
>
>Also Alex lied about one of the other games, he said
>the developer was paid. But it isn''t. I will ask
>him to reply in the forum. People need to know this.
>
>Regards,
>
>
>
>
>
>--- Mark Sheeky <mark@treality.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>> No. Sorry I cannot recommend them. In two years of
>> having games signed with Alex de Vries I haven''t had a single >> payment.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> To: mark@treality.freeserve.co.uk
>> <mark@treality.freeserve.co.uk>
>> Date: 09 March 2002 18:07
>> Subject: Publishing
>>
>>
>> >Dear Mark,
>> >
>> >I want to inform if Xing Interactive is a good
>> >publisher to work with?
>> >
>> >Best Regards,

Read "Before he accepted the game 8 months ago". "yes I haven''t been paid"

That isn''t "tuesday"


I hope the other developer also gives me the right to give the information free. That kind of information is on the subject [paid - not paid].

Yes, so what is the problem here? The guy hasn''t been paid because he signed with Crystal Interactive before and that is his reference to "I have 2 years of dealings with Alex de Vries". Not exactly accurate as he has dealt with me in a capacity of 3rd part development manager at Crystal Interactive AND as the owner of Xing Interactive. I signed his game in August or September of 2001 when we just started out. It is true that I have been unable to sell his game until now, and Mark knows that Arcangel is simply a very difficult game to market. It''s too complex in nature for a casual game and it simply cannot match high end games in quality, even though it is a substantial enough game. All I can say is that I am still trying my best with this one and that a release for Germany in April has been confirmed.

Now the fact that he hasn''t been paid by Xing Interactive has to do with one simple thing: we did not manage to sell any copies of his game yet. That''s why we do not owe Mark Sheeky anything except 100% of our dedication and energy to still try our very best.

Now I don''''t know which other developer you are referring to but if he hasn''t been paid then we simply don''t owe him a cent due to no sales whatsoever. Most of the people we work with understand that when you bring us a game in November that we cannot start moving again until February. That''s 3 months lost because no retailer will buy stock in November and even if by some miracle they do it''s too late to produce and ship it in time anyway. Count to that the fact that we started our company in August and took September and October to sign games and get artwork done etc. So what are we talking about??? Like I said before, we are a publisher not Merlin the Magician, Inc.!!!