Chapter 130: Foreign Agents
International distribution of Dark Souls?
Alex nodded after hearing Lynn's report. The company that contacted them was a relatively well-known national distributor: Stellar Software. It was clear that, as a major PC game, Dark Souls had attracted the attention of foreign distributors.
After all, Dark Souls was incredibly popular in the Western market. While Nebula Games did not publish the sales figures, some third-party data companies had collected them. While there would undoubtedly be discrepancies, they could serve as a useful reference. Finally, Dark Souls was a fantasy game and would have a significant audience in foreign markets.
As for the supposed difficulty problem, it was not a big issue. Both in the Western market and in others, there were players who enjoyed fast, easy-to-play games, as well as those who preferred extreme difficulty. Additionally, in terms of player base, the foreign market was significantly larger.
"Answer them and schedule a meeting to discuss this collaboration," Alex told Lynn.
International distribution. It's not that simple. Mirror was initially launched on official international platforms, but it was just a facade. A game of the magnitude of Dark Souls clearly cannot follow this path.
Furthermore, international distribution does not refer to a single country, but to several, which implies various channels for game promotion. Approval, advertising, and other necessary paperwork are handled by the distributor.
Additionally, some countries require foreign games to enter their domestic markets through a local distributor. Letting Nebula Games handle this channel on its own would not be possible in the short term.
Nebula Games plans to develop its own international distribution channels in the future, but for now, finding a more established distributor is clearly the most cost-effective option.
Lynn informed the other party and, the following afternoon, Alex met with the company's representative in Nebula Games' office. At the conference table, both discussed matters related to international distribution.
"Alex, we don't have a big problem with the revenue split, but regarding the modification and operation rights of the international version..." the representative said.
However, Alex interrupted him with a wave of his hand: "This is the point."
The words that were beginning to climb up his throat were stifled upon hearing Alex's words. Other aspects, such as foreign promotion and operations, including the game's revenue split, had gone smoothly. Basically, they followed basic industry standards.
However, the issue of modification and operation rights for the international version presented some problems.
Stellar Software wanted some operation and modification rights, but Alex was blunt: they would only be responsible for international distribution, translation, and dubbing, providing his company with promotion channels and ensuring the game's launch, and then waiting for their share of the revenue.
As for management rights, forget about them.
The so-called operation and modification rights were simpler. For example, Dark Souls is an exclusively single-player game with a buy-to-play model, with multiplayer as a bonus.
However, if the distributing company believes that a free-to-play model with in-app purchases might be more suitable for the local market. If they get the rights, they could offer the game for free, with an initial deposit of $1.20 that would grant players a Dark Sword +4.
Of course, this is an exaggeration, and it's unlikely that a game company would cede such great rights. Generally, it is a mutual negotiation between both parties, or some rights related to profitable content.
The Stellar Software team was in a dilemma because Alex, clearly, was not willing to cede any control over it.
"Alex, that's not my decision," the manager on the other side replied, shaking his head at Alex's determination. Alex smiled and nodded: "It's okay, but I hope your company can give me an answer soon. After all, in addition to yours, there are several foreign distributors who have shown interest."
And whether it was true or not? Believe it or not, he was not the one under pressure.
After seeing off the Stellar Software manager, Alex logged into the official Nebula Games forum. Thanks to the user base generated by Three Kingdoms Tactics and Fall Guys, Nebula Games' activity reached its peak after the launch of Dark Souls and its promotions.
Alex also attached great importance to the Nebula Games community forum and created a dedicated department to manage it. After all, given that the Nebula Games platform initially had a limited number of games, adopting this social forum model was one of the best ways to foster user engagement.
And the results were an initial success.
In the Dark Souls forum, players continued to debate various strategies, game methods, and tactics. Alex was also delighted with the already launched Workshop, where some players had already created mods.
The most downloaded mod was a text mod that changed the player's death message from "You are dead" to "You are a coward." There were also sound mods that replaced the eerie underground prison.
Of course, the mods approved through the official Workshop did not affect the game's balance. If players did not use the Workshop, they had to create a separate save file backup and play offline. Otherwise, accessing the game online involved cheating and being reassigned to a dedicated server.
However, a mod thread piqued Alex's interest. Since Dark Souls also has a Workshop, many players enthusiastically discussed the exciting mods that could appear in the future.
Although many of the current participants in the discussion have not even fully understood the game, much less completed it, they have not even reached the Royal City. They are still stuck in the phase of figuring out if they are almost finished with the giant tree.
This has not prevented these players from imagining Dark Souls. Alex saw an interesting suggestion: wouldn't it be fun if all the bosses and minions of Dark Souls were randomized? For example, in the Cemetery of Ashes, instead of facing Gundyr with the Coiled Sword, they would face the Abyssal Watcher. Wouldn't that be exciting?
There is also the possibility of changing the boss's weapon, such as making Gundyr's halberd disappear, leaving him only with kicks, punches, and the Iron Mountain Stance. How exciting would that be?
Of course, most of the ideas are just a product of the players' imagination. Some are completely unfeasible, but they did give Alex some ideas.
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