A Business Propsal To All Published Game Designers

If you look at it from the published designer's perspective, the only way this would be a good deal is if (a) the designer was completely out of ideas to propose (which is, based on the designers I know, utterly unlikely), or (b) the designer felt that your design was simply amazing and had huge potential and that a publisher would snap it up instantly (and not to slight you, but the odds are slim).

If you were a published designer with a backlog of stuff you'll get 100% of royalties on, stuff you'd like to see published and limited time to present to publishers, why would you want to promote this other designer's game?

Obviously if a published designer is interested, that's great, and I do wish you well! I just don't see it as being very likely.

-- Matthew

Now that's the funniest sentence ever to appear in BGDF!

SAZ is the German game author's professional society ("S" is spiel, "A" is autoren, not sure what the z is). There's a yahoo group you could check out for more info: groups.yahoo.com/group/saz.

The membership in the society costs, I think, 50 Euros, but I'm not sure it really works as an agent in the way Dralius seems to suggest; I think what he was saying was more that they could put you in contact with an agent, not that they would act as one. There are other benefits to joining, I'm sure, but I'll let the info in yahoo group speak for itself.

As for faartknocker's idea, probably the SAZ group would have a higher bandwidth of published designers. I do think that Dralius is right, you'll have a better chance with an agent than with a designer. It sounds to me like you're asking a designer to misrepresent himself as having actually designed your game, in exchange for money. That sounds a lot like a bribe, and it's ethically questionable. I don't suspect many designers will want to go there (particularly since it won't be for all that much money anyway...). The agent route is more aboveboard. Or, if your game is intended for the hobby market, you can just pitch it to the publishers directly. If it's a good enough game, they'll be just as happy to put your name on it as Alan Moon or Reiner Knizia, unless of course "faartknocker" is your actual name...

Good luck,

Jeff

Just submit it to publishers yourself!

As I've found out recently, many publishers (not mass-market ones, but most of the ones that publish euro-type games) accept submissions, and consider the game on its own merits, regardless of if you're a published designer. I've never had a game published, but have had good experiences dealing with publishers.

Just check out the major german and american game publishers. A great way to find them is the "gone cardboard" section on www.gamefest.com/news . That covers most of the American companies, and there's a link there for all the German companies too (most people at these companies speak english so that's not a problem). Check out their websites, and read their submission guidelines. You'll find most of them very helpful and friendly.