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Bob the Hamster
OHRRPGCE Developer
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 2526
Location: Hamster Republic (Southern California Enclave)
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 Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:33 am Post subject: Own a piece of Hamster Republic History? |
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I ran across this link this morning.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/ca/i:Games%20from%20the%20Hamster%20Republic%20Dos%2FWin95%20sealed%20a04:86630947
I am amused to see a copy of my old CD for sale. I didn't think there were any of these floating around anymore, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all, they sold enough of the things that I earned about enough royalties for one really nice dinner, or fast-food for a week ;)
Ah, the memories! Ah, the fast paced big money world of the small-time shareware DOS game developer. Wow am I glad I got a day job :) |
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TwinHamster
♫ Furious souls, burn eternally! ♫
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Posts: 1352
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| If I had more than a dollar in my paypal account, I would totally bid on that. |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Cool! It seems James left more of a mark on the world than he thought! |
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Valigarmander
Bye-Bye
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 750
Location: Nowhere
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Heh! |
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Blue Pixel
SPY SAPPIN MAH FISH SANDWICH
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 621
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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i like the cover art, its looks very porfessonal.
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Bob the Hamster
OHRRPGCE Developer
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 2526
Location: Hamster Republic (Southern California Enclave)
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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| the_dude257 wrote: | | i like the cover art, its looks very porfessonal. |
It was drawn by an artist attached to the publisher. It was meant to parody this image. Fortunately Blizzard never sued me over it, as that would have really eaten up my 7 hamburgers worth of royalties ;) |
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Onlyoneinall
Bug finder
Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 746
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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Wow. To think they're actually floating around!
So, you sold the CD's for... $10? if you made enough to get fast food a week, how much is that exactly?
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | So, you sold the CD's for... $10? if you made enough to get fast food a week, how much is that exactly? |
$10? |
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Bob the Hamster
OHRRPGCE Developer
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 2526
Location: Hamster Republic (Southern California Enclave)
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| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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I had a box of 30 of them, which I sold for $10 each (minus about $2.50 shipping)
The publisher payed me like 20 cents per CD they sold (I don't remember exactly) and they sent me one smallish royalty check before they folded. I forget how much it was, but it wasn't a whole lot. Over $100, but well under $200. (I was exagerating about the burgers... or maybe I just like really fine burgers) |
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FyreWulff
Still Jaded
Joined: 02 Apr 2005
Posts: 406
Location: The Internet
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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Royalties aren't that hot. I'm looking at publishers for Sword of Jade still, and Cafepress still looks good at around 5$ per CD after charging 15$ for it.
I wish more publishers would let you use DVD-style cases instead of ugly Jewel Cases
I still have my copy of the Hamster Republic CD somewhere, except it's an official bootleg that James burned. It's like a double rare collectable! |
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Bob the Hamster
OHRRPGCE Developer
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 2526
Location: Hamster Republic (Southern California Enclave)
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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| FyreWulff wrote: | | I still have my copy of the Hamster Republic CD somewhere, except it's an official bootleg that James burned. It's like a double rare collectable! |
Ooh, I remember the official bootlegs! I only made like 10 or 15 of those, and most of them were unique, since I kept losing my iso file and having to re-build it |
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Camdog
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 606
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| Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| FyreWulff wrote: | Royalties aren't that hot. I'm looking at publishers for Sword of Jade still, and Cafepress still looks good at around 5$ per CD after charging 15$ for it.
I wish more publishers would let you use DVD-style cases instead of ugly Jewel Cases
I still have my copy of the Hamster Republic CD somewhere, except it's an official bootleg that James burned. It's like a double rare collectable! |
Why not self publish? CD cases of pretty much any style are cheap, and you can print on printable CDs and make pretty high-quality inserts at Kinko's for pretty cheap. My band did that, and it came out costing us about $3 per CD. You can also use Paypal to process credit card transactions, and they'll only take out a certain percentage per actual sale (as opposed to monthly fees). I forget how much exactly, but I think it'd probably work out to more than $5 per $15 sale, and you'd have complete control over the packaging. |
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FyreWulff
Still Jaded
Joined: 02 Apr 2005
Posts: 406
Location: The Internet
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| Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 8:36 am Post subject: |
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It was working out to about 11$ per CD for me.
around 4$ per Jewel Case
around 5$ per materiel for instruction manual and CD label
around 2$ per CD (accounting for bad burns and defectives)
also considering at the time it had to be done on my free time from work, the shipping costs, the gas, and whatever, it's easier to just get a publisher.
I'm working up the courage to hit up Valve and other virtual publishers about distribution over Steam/internet. I'm waiting until I get a windows version all stable and purty. |
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Rinku
Joined: 02 Feb 2003
Posts: 690
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| Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:15 am Post subject: |
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That CD looks great!
| Quote: | | Why not self publish? CD cases of pretty much any style are cheap, and you can print on printable CDs and make pretty high-quality inserts at Kinko's for pretty cheap. My band did that, and it came out costing us about $3 per CD. You can also use Paypal to process credit card transactions, and they'll only take out a certain percentage per actual sale (as opposed to monthly fees). I forget how much exactly, but I think it'd probably work out to more than $5 per $15 sale, and you'd have complete control over the packaging. |
This works if you have fewer than 100 sales a month. But as soon as you reach several hundred sales a month, the time you will spend on this will be enormous: you'd be looking at 3-4 hours *per day* just for doing all the packaging, burning, printing address lables, keeping track of the accounting, shipping, etc. -- that IN ADDITION to making the games and marketing them and doing customer service (answering technical questions and problems about the game).
Granted SoJ would probably not reach 100+ sales a month, but it's possible; many indie games do reach that, even relatively bad ones. Alphasix got ~28,000 downloads in 2 months, and if I were selling it, and even if it only got 1% of that (which is the average ratio of downloaded demo to purchasing a full game), that would have been 140 sales a month.
And in order to make a living as an indepenent game developer, you really need to sell at least 200 games a month; assuming 5$ profits each that would put you at the poverty level range of 12,000$ a year (poverty in America, anyway), so full self-publishing isn't really an option; and for people who don't intend to live off of it, they wouldn't care about the extra money they'd get from self-publishing anyway, so using things like CafePress (or other alternatives, like Lulu.com) is much easier and superior for both types of independent (but commercial) game developers: "professional indies" don't have 3-4 hours a day to spend packaging and shipping their games even if they'd make twice as much money on sales if they did that, and "hobbiest indies" don't really care about the money enough to want the little bit extra they'd get by self-packaging them.
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Bob the Hamster
OHRRPGCE Developer
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 2526
Location: Hamster Republic (Southern California Enclave)
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| Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:41 am Post subject: |
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| FyreWulff wrote: | | I'm working up the courage to hit up Valve and other virtual publishers about distribution over Steam/internet. I'm waiting until I get a windows version all stable and purty. |
Hey, talk to Brian@HamsterRepulic.com He works for Reflexive Entertainment now, and he knows a lot about selling indie games through online distribution. He could probably give you some good tips. |
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