I am curious as to how much a publisher usually pays for the rights to a board game. I know it would vary somewhat from game to game and publisher to publisher but I am looking for a general ball park figure. If any of you have sold a game to a publisher would you mind giving us at least a ballpark figure.
Thanks,
Jason
3% to 10% of sales in royalties (usually 4% to 6%, unless you're an established name). sometimes with a static, non-refundable "advance" on the royalties.
occasionally they'll buy the rights completely for a static sum with no royalties, but the figure for that varies wildly depending on author's prior games and what the publisher's intended use is.
Well, there's plenty of publishers here, but a straight answer can be compromising...
Let's rephrase it. For up-front:
a) Less than $1000
b) 1 to 5k and
c) more than 5k
d) more than 10k (lol)
If you run a $50k print, 5% royalties out of that is $2500 tops. You calculate royalties out of final price? well, thats $7500, in about 18 months....
I say 25-33% up-front is more than ok.
Don't quit your job, man!!!!!!!!!!!!
KT!
Let’s say your contract if for 5% of Gross sales.
The publisher prints 5,000 copies with an MSRP of $40.
They will get 40% from the distributor for the games. So you’re taking your 5% from $16 or $.80 per game. If they all sell you will earn $4000.
Keep in mind that this typical 5% of gross sales to wholesale will only be given after you are a lucky chosen out of many prototypes they are reviewing - oh yeah, a nice looking prototype has to be made, that means you're selling a completed game that they will maybe retheme but definetly will redo all the artwork.
In short, if you want that 5% you better have a finished game for them to review and join the 100's of others out there hoping they'll get picked by a company.
Being a small company and proud to support indies, we do things a bit different at our shop (you chip in a bit of $ and we give large % on net profit) - feel free to inquire if you're interested.
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