Game authors FAQ
by Bruno Faidutti, www.faidutti.com
 
As a game author with a strong internet presence, I often get emails from would-be game designers who don’t know how to step into the marvelous world of game publishing. Among the many questions they ask, there are three or four that come up regularly, and which I’m a bit tired of answering. Let’s answer them here, once and for all.
 
How can I protect my idea and be sure some dishonest game publisher won’t steal it?
Don’t worry. None of the game authors I know ever patent or protects anything, be it name, rule or components. I don’t know if it’s legally possible, and I don’t care. Game publishers are first game geeks, like you and all authors, and therefore honest people. It’s difficult enough to select the few games to publish among the hundreds which are submitted to them every year, it would be time wasting and suicidal to steal an idea and become alienated from the gamers and game authors community. Even worse, if when contacting publishers you tell them that you have patented your rules and trademarked your game name, they’ll think, probably rightfully, that you are paranoid and will rather publish games from other authors with whom relations should be easier.
 
Is it useful to pay a professional artist to make a nice looking mock-up of my game?
Non. Graphic and artistic choices are the publisher’s job, and many publishers don’t like to have an author trying to force an illustrator or a graphic style. You can give your opinion, but the decision is not yours, and publishers need a neutral and sober prototype so that they can imagine the game in their own style. Your prototype must be clear, clean, efficient, but it doesn’t have to be elegant and highly graphic. A few cliparts from the web are usually largely enough to suggest the setting and make cards and tokens easy to recognize. Furthermore, a good game doesn’t need good graphics to be interesting – if yours does, it’s not good enough. I’ve seen a few prototypes by Wolfgang Kramer or Reiner Knizia, they are graphically as poor and bland as mine.

Rather than wasting time in making gorgeous components for your prototype, take time to read, reread and proofread the rules. Many games are rejected because the rules are unclear or incomplete, because the game has never been playtested without the author explaining it.
 
How can I get in touch with publishers?
It’s difficult for me to answer this question, because it’s certainly much easier for people who, like me, already have many contacts in the gaming world. Visit game fairs with your prototype, have as many gamers as possible play it, and if it’s really great, there’ll be some buzz and publishers will come to you. If it doesn’t work, visit the publishers’ booth, try to find who’s in charge of selecting games, make a short and simple explanation of the basic idea of your game, and try to get an appointment to show it in detail. Anyway, never send a prototype or a ruleset unless you have been asked for it, and be patient after doing it – answers can arrive months later.
 
Can I submit the same game to more than one publisher?
Yes, you can. Publishers need time to look at all the submissions they get, and if you wait for the answer from a publisher before showing it to another, you’ll probably wait twenty or thirty years before your game gets published, if it ever does. This means that, if you really want your game to be published, you must show your game to several publishers simultaneously, starting with the ones who seem the most likely to be interested in it. On the other hand, it’s fair to inform them that you have also contacted other publishers, and to inform them again when you start serious discussions with one of them. In some very specific cases, when a big publisher looks really interested in one of your games and specifically asks for it, you can let him the exclusivity of a prototype for one or two months, but never more.  
 
The publisher wants to give me XX% of his gross sales price. Is it fair?
Publishers will usually give you between 5 and 12% of the cash flow they make on your game, but that’s not the most important. The most important is to deal with someone you like and trust, and someone who shares your idea of the game. Don’t waste time discussing 1% more, but be sure the publisher and you agree on the game theme, on the gamers it’s targeted at, on the way it will be published, on how you’ll stay in contact, on what control you'll have on the game.

Anyway, game authors, like book writers, have no serious and convenient way of controlling the print runs and sales, so you must be ready to trust your publisher on this. This simply means that what’s important is not what is in the contract, but with whom you sign it.
 
The publisher wants to change everything, it’s not may game anymore… What can I do?
Here is the real issue. The few serious arguments between author and publisher are usually not about money, but about games.
Publishers usually won’t ask you for major changes in the game systems, but they often want to change, sometimes drastically, the game theme. It’s a shame, since my experience is that they are most times right about the mechanisms, and wrong when changing the game setting. I deeply regret a few theme changes I finally accepted for some of my games.

When a publisher wants to change a rule, it’s usually because in-house playtesting showed some problems. If you disagree with the suggested change, discuss it, explain your point of view, and usually one of you will finally admit that the other is right.

It’s different with the theme, because there’s nothing you can answer to a publisher who tells you “I know the market, I know the gamers, I know what theme will sell best” – even when you’re sure he’s wrong. If you think the new theme doesn’t fit, protest, try to convince, and if it doesn’t work  and it’s still time, get your game back and look for another publisher. If you think it can work, make sure you’ll have the time to rework the game and adapt it to its new setting. Many game theme that could have worked didn’t because the change was made in a hurry, just replacing a card name with another, a character name with another, when a few minor changes in the card or character effect could have saved the critical synergy between theme and mechanisms.
 
I think I've covered the most critical issues. Now, good luck, and see you soon on some game fair.
 
This article was first published in issue 51 of the french game magazine Des Jeux sur un Plateau.
October 2008