Does Anyone Know a List of Indie Game Publishers?

[Rossfellow]

Something about this thread has been bugging me for a while.

Doesn't Indie, by defenition, refer to projects that are independent of corporate backing? I thought it means self publishing, or published by the group responsible for making the game. Isnt it sort of a paradox to have a company or group funding indie games? Its less about the scale and more about the source of resources, I thought.

Where does Kickstarter and similar crowdfunds fall in this?

[Green Glasses Girl]

There's the Game Dev Map if you're looking for a particular region: http://www.gamedevmap.com/ (includes AAA)

And Wiki gives you a long list with links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_i ... developers

[Taleweaver]

Doesn't Indie, by defenition, refer to projects that are independent of corporate backing? I thought it means self publishing, or published by the group responsible for making the game. Isnt it sort of a paradox to have a company or group funding indie games? Its less about the scale and more about the source of resources, I thought.

If I take music as an example, there are "indie record labels", often founded by actual musicians to publish their own music without having to rely on the big corporate publishers. Then, as time progresses, these labels often start publishing music by other artists. A&M Records, for example, later publishers of artists such as Joe Cocker, Cat Stevens, Sting, Bryan Adams and Sheryl Crow, was founded by a brass musician and his promoter as a literal two-people company. (The story has no happy ending, though; the A&M label was eventually bought by Universal after going through a period of financial dire straits.)

I suppose we see the same thing with video game publishers.

[Rossfellow]

If I take music as an example, there are "indie record labels", often founded by actual musicians to publish their own music without having to rely on the big corporate publishers. Then, as time progresses, these labels often start publishing music by other artists. A&M Records, for example, later publishers of artists such as Joe Cocker, Cat Stevens, Sting, Bryan Adams and Sheryl Crow, was founded by a brass musician and his promoter as a literal two-people company. (The story has no happy ending, though; the A&M label was eventually bought by Universal after going through a period of financial dire straits.)

I suppose we see the same thing with video game publishers.

I see. That makes perfect sense.

[CrazyHussar]

Woah there, I have some questions.

May the revenue split is better for me if I choose a publisher to bring my game to Steam instead of publishing myself via Greenlight?

[papillon]

Why would the revenue split be *better* for you if you were required to split it with more people?

If you go through a publisher a chunk of all your sales will belong to them.

That may in some cases be a good deal, if they can help you get more overall sales, but the revenue split is by definition going to be worse for you.

[CrazyHussar]

I admit, it's painfully obvious, tough. I just heard scary rumors like Valve can take up to 70% of the sales and I imagined to get trough to Steam with a publisher what for example has 30% split to Valve - and it would be nice if they just take 30% too. In the end, I have 40% of the sales instead of 30% if I stay independent.

I don't know if the indies can discuss the revenue slit on public but I might be more calm if I know that Valve will stay around 40-50%.

[firecat]

I admit, it's painfully obvious, tough. I just heard scary rumors like Valve can take up to 70% of the sales and I imagined to get trough to Steam with a publisher what for example has 30% split to Valve - and it would be nice if they just take 30% too. In the end, I have 40% of the sales instead of 30% if I stay independent.

I don't know if the indies can discuss the revenue slit on public but I might be more calm if I know that Valve will stay around 40-50%.

none sorry they are after people's money:
https://partner.steamgames.com/document ... yment_info

Generally, a foreign person is subject to U.S. tax on its U.S. source income. Most types of U.S. source income received by a foreign person are subject to a U.S. tax rate of 30%. A reduced rate, including exemption, may apply if there is a tax treaty between the foreign person's country of residence and the United States. In order to exercise the benefits under the tax treaty, you will need to complete a Form W-8BEN and that requires either a foreign TIN or a US TIN. Countries that have tax treaties with the U.S. can be found here:

http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Internati ... s---A-to-Z

If your country of residence is France, Japan or Luxembourg, you will need to provide a US TIN in completing the Form W-8BEN to claim tax treaty benefits and apply an exempt withholding rate. A foreign TIN is not sufficient.

thats where the mystery 30% comes from but i know for a fact that us residents are given less. thats where the real number 70% comes from and thats why not many developers dont want steam.

[papillon]

That has nothing to do with publisher percentages. That is about international tax laws. Steam does not write the tax laws, and not using Steam does not mean that you no longer have to pay taxes.

to CrazyHussar:

I just heard scary rumors like Valve can take up to 70% of the sales

Most likely you got your rumor numbers the wrong way around. While obviously I haven't read every single person's contract, it's much more likely that someone was talking about a 70/30 split and someone else got confused about which direction it went.

There used to be sites that would take up to 65% of your money and leave you with only 35%. Steam was not one of them.

[firecat]

That has nothing to do with publisher percentages. That is about international tax laws. Steam does not write the tax laws, and not using Steam does not mean that you no longer have to pay taxes.

to CrazyHussar:

I just heard scary rumors like Valve can take up to 70% of the sales

Most likely you got your rumor numbers the wrong way around. While obviously I haven't read every single person's contract, it's much more likely that someone was talking about a 70/30 split and someone else got confused about which direction it went.

There used to be sites that would take up to 65% of your money and leave you with only 35%. Steam was not one of them.

no you read it wrong that is all there requirements to even pass a game. steam is require you to have a real bank, real contract to sign, pay tax for real, real information, and real fees.

. What other fees come out of my revenue share?

There are some specific adjustments made depending on such things as fraud and returns and these are outlined more fully in our distribution agreement that we will send to you if your game is going on Steam. We do not make deductions for marketing or bandwidth.

everything you know about steam is a lie, the whole give us $100 for greenlight, and easy steam upload is a lie.

[Rossfellow]

Steam requires you to have a real bank, to sign a contract, to pay taxes and other fees, and give real information.

I'm pretty sure OP is willing to do all that if he's looking for a publisher for his work.

[HiddenCreature]

Thanks again, everyone for the continued suggestions. I'm still looking, but now I have more options to search through than I did before.

[E-l337]

There is a very simple reason why Steam 'takes' so much of a 'percentage'. Of course, most people simply don't understand the way small businesses tend to work, and with Indie 'studios', this is becoming readily apparent in recent years.

Steam witholds a Publisher percentage, as they are distributing your game for you. This makes sense. That's how publishers make their money. But in addition to their Publisher fee, they offer an additional service, which is important for them as a publisher - they also withhold taxes.

Now how much tax is withheld will vary depending on where you live, but it's one less thing that you as a small business need to do, which is a very important thing when you consider Steam distributes worldwide. Taxes are a headache to navigate to begin with, and if you live in the US, the taxing doesn't stop there. After you finally get your cut (anywhere from 40% or more based on what I'm seeing, and depending on your tax agreement), then you split that with your 'team'.

Are you the sole proprietor? Congratulations! Your job is easy. Now you just get to pay taxes yet again on the income you've earned - Federal, State, and Local if applicable, which is likely another 25% of whatever is left over. Meaning... your take-home at worst is 30% of the total sales, up to maybe 45% if you get lucky on the Sales Tax that the US government takes (which isn't likely at all).

So in conclusion: Yes, for a US-based developer, it's entirely possible that you'll only see 30% of your total sales, but not all of that money is going to Steam - a good portion of it is also going to the government because those are the laws for doing business here. If you don't like it? Then don't submit your work to the most popular online software distribution platform on the planet.

Taxes are a hell of a thing, and they are a little bit harsh - particularly with content creators on the Internet. YouTube monetization is a good example: Even if you are just one person making money off your videos, you need to pay double taxes - one for being a business, and one for being you.

So yes. You will not directly receive most of the funds of your project, but on the other hand, it also makes having to deal with taxes just that much easier.

**Disclaimer: I am not a taxitician. Therefore all tax advice given by me should be taken with a shaker of salt and not taken as gospel but as an estimate by a non-taxitician. Actual tax rates may vary by your region of origin and bank of choice. Side effects of salt may include but are not limited to drymouth, itchy or irritated skin, watering eyes, high blood pressure, dehydration, and may diminish one's sense of taste. If you begin to experience any of these symptoms you should discontinue use of salt immediately and consult a physician. I am not a physician. Any medical advice should be regarded with great caution, considerable suspicion, and a healthy helping of humor. This paragraph is both an informative disclaimer and intended for comedic effect. I am not a comedian, and some users may find the humor in this statement distasteful. Please exercise caution when encountering large blocks of text on the Internet as prolonged exposure to tiny text can cause considerable eye strain. Discontinue use if you fail to derive even a chuckle from this entire tirade. Ask your doctor if you experience lightheadedness or nausea if humor is right for you.

On topic however: Sorry, I know a lot of things but possible publishers isn't one I'm familiar with. That said, I do wish you the best of luck!

And since it was never really answered for CrazyHussar: Publishing a game yourself will see your revenue percentage increase, sure. But you also have to spend time promoting your own title, and time is money. Time spent promoting your game and sending it to people to review/sell is time not spent doing other things - like dealing with post-release bugfixes, customer support, so on and so forth. While a good Publisher does these things for you, and takes a cut of the profits, their job is also to maximize your potential sales, so your actual revenue might be increased by dealing with a publisher. Or it might not. *shrug*

Apologies for having gone on for so long. I'll shut up and let people actually help the OP instead of derailing things further.

[Tempus]

Taxes are a hell of a thing, and they are a little bit harsh - particularly with content creators on the Internet. YouTube monetization is a good example: Even if you are just one person making money off your videos, you need to pay double taxes - one for being a business, and one for being you.

Upfront disclaimer: I only know about Australian taxation laws (and even then I may be very off!). Are you sure those double taxes aren't one for being a company (rather than a business), and then personal taxes? Here in Australia if you run a company its income gets taxed at around 30% (regardless how much income there is). Then the company pays its employees and each one of them is taxed for their individual earnings. Unlike the company tax rate, the individual tax rate varies based on income—there's a fixed amount, plus a percentage based on your tax bracket. Also, there's a tax free bracket; if you're an individual and you earned $18,200 or less in the last financial year you don't need to pay tax on it.

In Australia at least, you can operate a business as an individual (i.e., you're operating as a sole trader rather than a company) and income from the business is treated like the rest of your personal income. In other words you get taxed once. And just because I feel like it, an example (we're ignoring other fees and obligations here for simplicity):

Let's say you release a game on Steam as a company operating in Australia. Your game makes $40,000 in sales in a financial year. Steam takes 30%.

• $40,000 * 0.7 = $28,000

Companies in Australia are taxed at 30% unless the business has an aggregate turnover less than $2,000,000 in which case they're considered to be running a small business and taxed at 28.5%. For the amounts we're talking this would be a small business.

• $28,000 * 0.715 = $20020

Now, it's illegal to use company funds as your own. The only way to get money out of a company is to pay yourself a wage... which is also taxed. I won't list every bracket, but if you (as an individual) earn between $18,201 - $37,000 you're taxed at 19%.

• $20020 * 0.81 = $16,216

And if you were a team of two.

• $16,216 / 2 = $8108

You each have $8,108 to spend on your next game! Wooooo~ Lucrative game dev XDDD let's roll in all that cash prior to spending it on all that crazy stuff like rent! and food! and clothes!

---

Anyway, if you're a sole trader things would be different since you don't have that 28.5% company tax hitting you before personal taxation. However, as a result your personal income will be higher and thus you may be taxed a little more... but nowhere near as much. So. Steam takes 30%.

• $40,000 * 0.7 = $28,000

Your personal income still falls in the same tax bracket ($18,201 - $37,000), so that'd be taxed at 19%.

$28,000 * 0.81 = $22,680

I'm not sure how employing someone works when you're a sole trader, but it can be done. It may be compulsory to make superannuation contributions for them or pay for worker's compensation. Both of those are compulsory for companies — an expense I didn't include above. Even if you're the sole employee of your company you still have to pay for worker's compensation, super, etc etc for yourself.

Either way, if you're a sole dev in Australia selling on Steam and make $40,000 you'd net around $16,216 using a company structure, and $22,680 if you operate as a sole trader. That's a big difference. Not to mention companies cost a lot to start.

And of course I may be totally wrong.

[PyTom]

Can you deduct business expenses in either case? You can (IIRC, in both cases) in the US.