Dear CEO Crystal Interactive:

Maybe you want to take some of this discussion and place it on your web-site as maybe a basic FAQ. That way you can refer people to it and also have it on hand to cut and paste to any person getting off-target. You''re always going to have people "discover" that e-games yada yada yada blah-blah-blah.

Already received your contract, thanks

ZoomBoy
Developing a 2D RPG with skills, weapons, and adventure.
See my character editor, Tile editor, diary, 3D Art resources at
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Dear Readers,

pro rata means simply a shared royalty percentage. So 1 game on a 5 game collection will mean 2% of the royalties per game if there''s a 10% pro rata rate. This 10% is of the trade price of the product. This 10% was by the way just a rounded off figure for the sake of showing you how it works. We pay 15% or 20% on collections like this.

And for the person with the name I do not care to repeat I must admit that this leaves the developer with just a $5.000, $10.000 or perhaps $15.000 check after 2 years. But then again a poor little budget game that''s so simple that it needs 4 other games to add value to it to justify selling it shouldn''t take that much effort to write. Writing a Frogger, Pac-man or even Space Invaders clone in a month is soooooo easy!!! So is $10.000 for something like that not worth the trouble? Then concentrate on games that ARE good enough to be stand alones!

Take care,

Alex de Vries
http://www.crystal-interactive.com

P.S.: Good idea on that FAQ section! I''ll definately pass this on to our webdesign team.

Mr de Vries,

You didn''t replied on all the question.
Is the contract for 2 years? Will it be continued after 2 years? Have the developer the right to give it to another publisher after 2 years without continue of the contract?
If developer is specialized only in FP shooters. And works with several publishers is that possible. Publisher Crystal publishs FPS title A, publisher GTI publishs tiltle FPS B,
publisher Infogrames publish title G etc etc.
So he let publish his different FPS titles by different publishers.

With what retailers do your work in europe, benelux.

Could you let us see a photo of the package of a cd rom game, sold in the retail channels. Of your bracnche.

Dear Friends,

It seems I only generate more questions with my previous answers... I''ll try to answer them one at a time:

Anonymous 1: Yes, the contract is for 2 years, but we can negotiate a longer or shorter period of time if the developer so desires. But 2 years is really the ideal time frame to work in. Any publisher will tell you. Also after the contract ends you''re free to sell your game to another publisher. We simply retain the right to clear our inventory of said product. In our contracts the developer always retains 100% of the copyrights. So a sequel is not automatically ours to market.

Anonymous 2: We use all of the major chains like Dixons, HMV, Vobis, Free Record Shop, Bart Smit, Intertoys, Karstadt, Game and of course many independents. Our distribution is partly handled by local wholesalers and distributors and partly by a large Canadian company who export into Europe. I hope this answers your question?

Anonymous 3: How am I supposed to do that on this message board? If you E-mail me with your request on alexdv@nutridata.com I''ll gladly send you a picture of our latest releases.

Granat: Trade price is the price we charge to the retailers. So a game like Rayman 1 would sell to you, the consumer, for $30, but the retailers would buy it from us for $20 or $25. The difference is their profit margin. A percentage of this trade price is for the developer. So 10% would be $2 for each copy sold. Even though that''s not "a lot" (we pay more like 15% or 20% though) it''s necessary to cover production, advertising, warehousing, shipping and sales expenses, as well as giving us a decent profit margin to live on. So you''d get a $4 piece from a $20 cake. I''d say that''s not bad. Especially if we sell 50.000 units. 50.000 x $4 = $200.000. That''s in case your Rayman game does not sell that well. At least 100.000 units should be an achieveable goal.

Take care,

Alex de Vries
http://www.crystal-interactive.com

Mr. de Vries,

I just wanted to thank you for being so patient and answering all of the questions that everyone has. I don''t think I would be near so kind after answering similar questions over and over and over.

Unfortunately, I also have a question to ask. I was wondering what sort of advertising is done to promote a title? Is there anything done or are sales mainly dependent on the consumer seeing a title on the shelf or the website and deciding that they want it on the spur of the moment?

Thank you in advance.


----------------
Go Blazers.

Mr. de Vries - quick question: would Crystal have any interest in publishing a game that requires 3D acceleration? I''m not talking requiring Quake III Arena level horsepower, just about any Direct3D compatable 3D-capable hardware would do. The game will be fairly easy to approach for the average consumer (it''s not a "hardcore gamer" title). I''d rather not discuss the details much yet, as it''s early in the development cycle, but the concept has proven successful on console platforms and I have yet to see any *quality* products like it on the PC. I realize that the decision to publish would be based on many other factors, but I''d like to know whether it would be rejected based only on the fact that it requires 3D acceleration.