Has anybody submitted a game to Days of Wonder?

We're only at the first stage. I think what Seth wanted to know was whether we'd be left hanging about waiting for an answer, before we started hawking it round everyone else! (I realise that they do state that they try to be prompt, but so do lots of other people ;-)

Hmmm. I'd never thought of that... ;-))
(Seth and I have been compiling a list of potential publishers, but we did think that if we started off aiming high, then we'd worry about everything else when we missed!)

Hmmm... 2 non-responder of 5 is an opitmistic number. :)
My experience is that at least 50% not respond at all.

We've "launched" 2 batch until now and we sent out the Query Letters in groups of 10 in each. (about 20 publishers were contacted, maybe a bit more. I sometimes sent 1-1 lonely wolf Query Letter...) We waited about 3-4 weeks between the 2 batch "launches".

4 of them showed any interests but 1 asked for the website link but stated that they only want to take a look at the website but very unlikely to publish it (the theme excited them probably). 3 asked (or downloaded) the rules from our sites. 1 seems very serious now, so at the moment we are very excited. ;) We don't know anything about the other 2 since. About 3-4 rejected us in a polite manner (not in their line, they are full until 200x etc-etc). 12-13 haven't answered at all, probably their backlog of submissions is huuuuuge.

(sorry about the very-very few details, I don't want to tell anything without any permissions, but probably the numbers make sense)

so: from 20-21 submission

1 seriously interested (talking about contract details)
2 interested
1 interested but wouldn't publish
3-4 rejected us
12-13 haven't answered at all

:) That's all at the moment.
Please note: I am not experienced at all, I only started to attend bgdf.com (and started reading about this "biz") about september.
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Beside I also self-publish a game called: DogsDo, designed and copyrighted by Simon Spearing (UK) through my www.easternraider.com site, so any experience I gain there, will be published here naturally.

At the moment, I can only help you how to make a PDF smaller :) (thanks for all who helped, and Seo personally), or how idiotic that the same HTML displays differently in different browsers. Another experience is that free install-package creators are not that easy (drag+drop) to use! :)

DogsDo schedule looks something like this:
It will be published in PDF form in a week at maximum. A computer game version is on the way and probably will be launched 1st quarter next year, and a small print run of 1000 units is also planned around next April, May (2nd quarter) what is all depend on money. The 1000 units is the smallest I found at a reasonable price. I get them manufactured probably here (in Hungary) because the prices are only 5-10% higher as for example in India, and here I have a way more control over everything than 8-10000 kms away... :)

We all want our games published by the best companies possible. Yet I think that since it is good form to only submit to one at a time the main thing to consider is weather the game is something that they might be interested in. First do they have a gap in their product line? Let’s say your game is for 2-7 players, if they don’t have any games for that number it might be a plus. Other things to look at are what it is going to take to publish it. Some companies only do card games and other won’t bother with them, too big or too small can be an issue. I suggest you look at each company’s complete line and submit to the ones that are the best match for your product first.

Unfortunately DoW has this listed on their web page right now

Yes, sure. We considered their needs. All of them had similar product line and similar audience as our game. Your suggestion makes sense, but in my opinion, it is still a market. If you send 1 by 1 and wait 30 days for a reply then you'll be 80 years old until you get published! :D

So I just use the batch method, if they don't want me its their problem.

Hmmm. That's only changed in the last couple of days then. :-(

Bummer, guys. It's very disappointing that Days of Wonder has shut down the submissions pipeline. I've always liked that companies like Days of Wonder and Alea have had open submissions; one assumes that their standards are impossibly high and that it's very difficult to actually get published, but the opportunity to at least know your game will get looked at seemed to be a great state of affairs. With so many companies refusing to even look at unsolicited games, it seems like there's no way to get any kind of resolution one way or the other on one's game, and that is just frustrating. It also doesn't seem like very good business, but I suppose it's the reality of being a successful company; they probably get flooded with submissions and evaluating them all takes time and resources that could be better spent on developing games that are sure to be winners.

My knee-jerk reaction was to bemoan the industry trend to only publish games by the Knizias and Moons of the world, but that doesn't seem accurate to me; there are no-names who are getting published, so it's clearly possible. And while companies like Uberplay and Days of Wonder claimed to have open submission policies, in practice all of their published games (with the exception only of Tongiaki, I believe) came from established designers. So perhaps these companies closing their doors won't really affect one's chance of getting published after all. It may just be a matter of perception.

Anyway, there are other fish in the ocean; you guys will find a publisher. Or maybe fire off a small print run to drum up some support for the game? I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes the new publication strategy. Keep at it!

-Jeff

You're probably right, but what this shows, to me, is that there's a lack of awareness on the part of companies of the desperation of amateur designers. If someone said to one of us "we will publish your game, but not till 2008", most of us would be happy to wait. (*) Of course, it makes sense that a company wouldn't want to tie themselves down too far in advance. I guess it just seems that from a business standpoint, a company should always be accepting submissions, because you never know when the next breakout game will end up on your desk, or who will design it. And, you are always able to make room in your schedule for the next breakout game. If you close down submissions, it simply guarantees that you won't get to look at that game should someone design it and want to pitch it to you. However, it's my strong suspicion that my list of "things I would do if I ran a game company" are based on my own fantasy-land notion of how a game company should work, and that reality works much differently!

-Jeff

(*) If a company said "we'll publish your game, but you won't get any money for it and we won't put your name on the box", I bet most of us would accept that as well. Of course, as Alan Moon mentioned at PowWow, this would be a very bad thing for the industry to do, but it doesn't change my suspicion that companies could probably get away with doing it.

A way to decrase the signal to noise ratio is to charge for the review. Not a lot let say 25$, if you think you game is the next best thing in the world, get ready to promote it.This should cut your junk comming in that are not inline with your products.

For this 25$, in the other hand you must provide a real service. You can develop review sheets, test group, some small suggestions. The idea is to charge for a service of game reviewing, but you must answer back within a certain time.

Implementing this is a question of balance of fees and the services offered. You don't want to have people not submitting their games because they can't pay up, but you want to cut down you junk.

For this 25$, in the other hand you must provide a real service. You can develop review sheets, test group, some small suggestions. The idea is to charge for a service of game reviewing, but you must answer back within a certain time.

A company that has stopped taking unsolicited submissions is a company that doesn't believe they need unsolicited submissions. To the company, this means that reviewing unsolicited games has to be a profit center, or at least close to break-even. You'd have to pay them enough to make it worth their while to review your game. Unfortunately $25 is only worth about one hour of one person's time; it would cost a couple of hundred, minimum, to pay for a thoughtful review with feedback, plus playtesting.

And we all believe we've got great games to show, right? So all you're doing by charging submitters is to separate the rich ones from the poor ones, not the good ones from the bad ones. The company will see fewer submissions, but not better ones. They still aren't going to see it as the likely source of the Next Great Game(tm).

I really wish I could get the attention and feedback of a good game reviewer; I'm sure it would improve my designs. I did manage that once, by submitting a game to the KublaCon design contest. The results were damaging to my ego, but very educational -- and the good designs in those contests can get noticed by publishers. Unfortunately they don't hold such contests every week, and they limit the number of submissions they accept. (*sigh*)

OK Seth, I'll do the banner...