I made game like civilization. How can I earn money with this game? Any idea?

[gumuso]

I made a very funny game in Delphi3 (Visual Pascal).It got the "Best Game" & the "Best Programme" awards in my country. But i have no idea about how can I sell my game. It is 200Mbs and need 200Mhz Pentium, it has nearly 15000 line code.(It took my two year to finish game and all codes are mine.(no code from any civ adress like freeciv.))It is more strategic from Civilization serie.Its graphic quality is between Civ2 and Civ3.It has an intalligent ArtifficalIntelligence. And a lot of new idea about turn base games, for example you can shoot away squares with arrow and wind effect in my game like in worms game serie. Also PCWorld Turkey will give this games demo in December and will explain the game and screenshots.If you have got idea or imformation about game selling or joining a team like civ team please give me information about it.

I used unit pictures of civilization2 (with changes).Is it legal? If I ask Civilization team, are they allow me to use these unit pictures or must I draw new unit pictures?It is really so hard work to draw pictures,codding,making sounds,testing alone.Please understand me civilization team, I used your unit pictures, but I will change them before sell my game.

www.istila.oyunu.com
there isnt enought information for now.

Thanx to all replies.

[TheStinger]

do the Greeks automaticaly do badly

[Urban Ranger]

If your game is that good, just contact a publisher such as EA or *cough* Infogrames &*cough*

[Winston]

Sorry, I have no experience with marketing, but from your description it sounds like you've made an impressive effort with the game. Good luck!

[Az]

I think you should consult a lawyer which specializes on copyrights, and stuff like that. But I know about such a thing as much as the next guy, if not less.

[DaShi]

First, you're going to need a lot of lawyers.

[axi]

You should post this in the "Alternative Civs" section. This section of Apolyton hosts reviews and discussions of any civ-type game in any stage of developpment. However we (I was active in one puch project once) have never to date heard of such a big project. I am really interested about this. Can you post details? Can you post screenshots?

In Apolyton you can find tons of people interested to playtest your game, do suggestions about both coding and gameplay and perhaps promote it in it's first stages if it ever gets commercial.

[neonext]

people still visit the Alternative Civs section?

[Ned]

I would start by registering your copyrights in the US copyright office. Your code can be registered as a literary work. Your screen shots as a visual art.

Registering you copyrights is not that hard or expensive. The copyright office as a lot of explanation of how to do it, the forms to fill out, and the fees (small) to be paid.

Once you have your copyrights registered, you can share your code with prospective game publishers with confidence that they will not steal it.

Here is a link to the US copyright office:

http://www.copyright.gov/

[axi]

(neonext is the creator of the civiliza project, a civ2 clone which is still in alpha status)

Then who should he contact?

Ron Hiler? Hasn't he resigned from alt.civ. moderator?

Mark Everson? He would be glad to help gumuso, since he is too planning to market his game, but he is no authority either.

The freeciv guys? They are experienced, but then they are into open source developpment.

MarkG? Perhaps if the site administrator took interest in the game, he could help it find it's way to the market. He was connected well enough to get the exclusive preview of Civ3, wasn't he?

Anayway, the first step is to post details in the Alt.Civs section and in any case stay in Apolyton: this is THE place to be, for anything that has to do with civ-type games. It is known that all big heads of the genre (Sid Meier, Brian Reynolds, Dan Magaha and the Firaxis crew) are frequently browsing Apolyton.

gumuso: Is your game really that big? I am astonished!

[Provost Harrison]

I do hope that you got someone else to do the translations for the game though

[Solver]

I believe the first step is copyrighting the game, and the second step is contacting a publisher somewhere.

[rah]

Yes, try to sell it to the marketing people from CIVIII, they're in need of a good civ like game

RAH

[DanS]

You can self-publish like Stardock does with GalCiv and its other games. The author of GalCiv has talked a lot about what it takes to be an independent. You might want to check out his articles.

Good luck.

[axi]

Well the man said that he wants to find a publisher and he asks what we can do for him. So do not tell him that he should get a publisher, that is pointless!!

Also, wouldn't he have to adress the turkish patent office, if he wants to copyright his game. I bet that he has already done that, otherwise he wouldn't have given the game to be awarded and previewed etc in Turkey.

Come on gumuso, you've made me really interested, enlighten us! Give us a few words. A link. Anything!