Say I’m a writer with a complete game, and I want it to be a Hosted Game. So what happens next, assuming COG goes ahead and decides to publish it? Is there an editing/negotiations process? What happens during that time? How long will it take?
You will have to furnish the artwork, screenshots and descriptions. Then there is the contract and Certificate of Residency (for non - US citizens). I think the word limit of your story decides the price. Hope I am helpful.
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Contact choice of games (details are on their submission page).
Make sure you game passes Quicktest and Randomtest. Send CoG the files, and they will approve the game or not. They do no editing (to my recollection), and they pay 25% of collected revenue.
They’ll send guidelines for artwork, which you need to supply.
The waiting time is 3-6 months from submission to publication (generally, I haven’t published a new app in a while).
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Hi I have some questions regarding publishing on my own, so instead of starting another topic, I thought it’s best I just ask here:
1.) Will I get a reply if my work is rejected ? So I don’t end up hoping and waiting forever
2.) Do I get to choose my own screen shots, game description etc for the app page ?
3.) I noticed some hosted games are charging $2.99 or $1.99 right out of the box in the app store, do I have the option to set it up where the first chapter is free, and charge 99 cents to the rest of the chapters ? similar to Zombie Exodus? Instead of out right charging a fee to the reader?
4.) Do I have a choice on where to insert save points and where to charge chapter fees in my game?
Thanks
1.) I’m sure you would know as soon as they decided not to publish it (though this is very unlikely; I’m pretty sure they’ve accepted all titles submitted under the HG label.)
2.) Yes, you make all of that yourself.
3.) I believe they’re only doing that for some of the official titles, but you could always ask them about it whenever you submit your gamebook.
4.) You have to set up the save points yourself, so you can put them wherever you want. As for IAPs…I personally think it’s a bad idea to have IAPs for necessary content like extra chapters and things like that; I would go for an upfront fee, because historically, readers have really gotten angry over in app demos.
Well, the reason why I prefer “try before you buy” is, what happens if I paid for a story and I’m not interested ? app demos allows me to see if I like the writer’s style, game choices, and where the story is going. Then I decide to buy to continue the story. I personally have only been buying “free” titles with chapter fees. I don’t think I would jump into paying for a story off the bat ever. It’s a personal choice I guess, I’m sure there will always be people on both sides. Personally I don’t see a downside to demos, because the amount of payment ends up to be the same in the end, a couple dollars in total, one is upfront, the other is pay as you go.
Thanks for answering some of the questions though, really appreciated it.
That’s why there are demos on the CoG website. 
That way, people can still try it out and see if they like it, but the actual app won’t have a lot of bad reviews for people saying they’ve been “cheated” and all that nonsense.
That makes sense, but here’s another thing: If i’m already at my app store page at the game, I’m not going to close that, goto safari, open the CoG website, find the demo and try it out, it’s just too much work lol, I’m not THAT desperate to play, so for convenience, since I’m already at the app store, I prefer to just download and try it on the spot there. Call me lazy but I think instant gratification is really the new era now. =) Just a personal preference really.
Anyway, I submitted my game last night, don’t want to spoil it too much here, but it’s 13,000+ words, 2 mini games, multiple endings. I really hope my game doesn’t get 6 months to get published tho >.< …
13k? I think, in most cases, it has to be 50k+.
well, it has only 1 chapter of many, i haven’t written the rest yet.
on that note, is there a minimal requirement for words ? some hosted games are much shorter than mine, dilemma for example.
I just said it usually has to be at least 50,000 words. xD
lol okok, i meant officially, but ok, i’ll take 50,000 words.
You said:
4.) You have to set up the save points yourself, so you can put them wherever you want.
But from the choicescript wiki I found:
“Note that when CoG releases a finished game, whether Official or Hosted, they will add a permanent “hard save” feature if your game warrants one. For that final release you will first need to remove any existing “hard save” system scripting from your game, as it is not presently supported by CoG.”
I thought you meant checkpoints. A hard save is just something that allows the app to constantly save your progress. So if you exit out of the app and then go back to it, you’re still in the same place as you were.
On this same topic, do you think it would be an issue if at the very beginning, before the game even starts, it says that it’s a one chapter demo with the option to purchase the rest at the end?
That might help a little bit, but the biggest problem is that you can download the app for free, so many people think that the entire thing is going to be free, and then get really angry when they realize they have to purchase the remaining chapters. I think the best solution is to just make them all pay-to-play, and include the link to the online demo in the description of the app.
Well I know demo’s can be useful, you just have to somehow get around some people’s expectations of getting everything free. What if two versions were released, one being full price and the other being the demo, the demo one clearly stating either in the description or title that’s it’s a demo?
Ok, so let me try to understand this, what you mean is, I create all of the soft saves, so if the player dies, they can restart from the last soft save. CoG creates the hard save (if it warrants one), so when a player exits game, they can return to the same page again later. Is that the difference ?
Yeah, basically. The only checkpoints are the ones that you set up yourself.
I just think having the link to the online demo in the description of the app is the best solution. People can’t give it bad reviews on the webpage if they wanted the whole thing to be free, and it’d make it so more people would buy the actual app.