Astraware PublishingPublishing & Promotion
Starting in 2002 (with our first launch in January 2003), Astraware has been working with other skilled developers as a publisher for their products.
Online Publishing as part of Astraware's long term strategy
While Astraware has an excellent development team, working on original development and licensed titles, our customers and web site visitors are always looking for new and updated content. By taking on products from other developers, we are able to provide fresh content and monthly updates to our pages.
Astraware's main pages have gone from 20,000 visitors per month in 2000, up to over a million visitors per month at the end of 2005. We aim to continue this rate of growth, but also to continue to improve our site and services so that those visitors to our site are able to find the products and services that they want, and to keep coming back.
From 2003 through to 2005, we became the dominant online publisher of PDA games, by combining strength of our own licensed and original products, with products from external developers that were optimised with our assistance. Our brand recognition has improved such that the name Astraware is synonymous with quality and fun titles.
Astraware Branding
From the time Astraware incorporated, we have been very conscious of our own brand and image. We have strived to always produce very high quality games, providing great fun for the players, and often using technology at the cutting edge of hardware possibilities. As a result, the Astraware brand has become synonymous with products that will be sure to impress.
Hardware Manufacturers have for several years been using Astraware software to demonstrate the capabilities of their new technology, and Astraware is often involved early in the hardware development process, providing input, as well as software ready for the time of launch. Because of this, we have some excellent links with the major hardware manufacturers, who enthusiastically bundle Astraware software with their products.
In all of our products we prominently display our logo and company name - and we strive to have key featuring on product packaging
Co-Branding with Licensors/Partners
Where a product is either an existing title which Astraware have recreated for PDA, or a title developed externally but published by Astraware, we work to maintain equal branding weight to titles/logos of both companies.
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We feel it is important not just to have placement of the Astraware badge to show that it meets our own quality standards, but also to equally show the logo of the partner too, to show that it is a partnership between two companies to bring the product to the user.
New Developer Partners
If you're a developer wishing to work with Astraware, you'll want to know what Astraware can do for you! We've put together a separate page focused on all of the aspects that Astraware can provide, which go way beyond what a normal publisher would be capable of, on our "Developer Take-away" page.
We're always interested to hear from third party developers who:
- Produce very high quality game products
- Provide software which is relevant to the PDA platforms
Publishing Options
There are various options of how much you want us to do as a publisher - whether you need development assistance, additional , Alpha, Beta, and QA testing, whether you need us to supply devices etc. If you're able to provide web graphics and promotional materials and documentation, then that's less that you need us to do.
It is also possible for us to arrange royalty advances and/or guaranteed royalty minimums, but this is of course depending on the game. We have considerable experience at marketing and selling many types of games, and we're in the privileged position of having had products right throughout the strata of sales from the best selling game product. This means that we're able to realistically estimate sales potential for a product - which means we can set realistic expectations from the outset, and then both companies are able to use the information to come to the best business decision.
Two options for payments from online sales are either profit based or license based. With a profit based royalty option, the developer takes a percentage share of the profits from the game. With a license fee structure, the developer gets the same license fee per copy of the game sold online. Because some sales channels are more expensive, the license option generally means less per sale, but that may be preferable for some developers who have further licensing considerations. Retail sales are slightly different, in that the total profit per sale is much smaller, but the volumes may be larger. We normally make additional arrangements for retail sales.
Typical Royalty Structure
Online sales have a much higher profit margin than retail sales - which is one of the reasons why it is such a compelling way to sell to the end user. When calculating the actual profit for royalty payments, there are three main costs : Vendor costs, Support & Admin costs, Advertising costs. Our royalty reports sent to our partners show all of this fully, so that accounting is accurate and complete.
Vendor costs depend on the channel that the game is sold through. The Astraware shop serves only Astraware published products, and so the costs associated are only those for processing charges and tax, which average to 15%. Other online vendors have to take higher margins for their business, and so their costs are typically 30-50% of the gross price.For some of our Astraware managed shops the percentage is slightly higher, because another company takes a percentage of gross sales.
The main Astraware site also runs an affiliate program for our partner developers and licensors, and also some other major web sites. They get an affiliate commission for pushing additional traffic to us, and hence increasing sales across our entire product range.
On average for 2002, the vendor costs for Astraware product sales across all vendors have been 35% of gross
Support & admin costs account for around 20% of our gross revenue. Providing support for PDA users can be much more time consuming than it is for PC products, and unlike many other companies, we pride ourselves on the quality of our customer support, often years after the first purchase. We have many returning customers as a result!. This support overhead is the same whichever channel purchases come from.
Advertising costs are kept to a minimum by using only the most effective advertising - which can often be obtained by link and promotion swaps, and by providing short term exclusives and special offers to other vendors. Additional advertising costs are paid for from the profits from a game. Our advertising expenditure over 2002 accounted for approximately 5% of our gross revenue.
Our most common arrangement is then to split the Net Profit between the Developer and Astraware. The split depends on the game, and other questions like how much support we have to do before and after release.
New Licensor Partners
If you have an existing title - for instance as a PC, Mac, or Web based game, and would be interested in having Astraware develop and publish the title for you onto PDAs, then you may be interested to read our Development section.
When we work with a licensor to create the game onto PDAs, we obviously have a greater development cost to recoup. We use the same royalty calculations as above, but the royalty split will be different because we take on the development.
We normally complete the development at zero up-front cost to the licensor, covering the development costs ourselves. Our share of the revenue has to cover this cost once the game is released, as well as providing the profit margin for Astraware to publish the game. Hence, for games we develop, we have to take a higher percentage from the net profits.
