Hi community I’m in talks with a couple of Established publishers regarding Osprey my upcoming Iphone title
I have developed the product for around five months solid now and coming to the final hurdle of releasing it…
Do you think I am in my wrights to ask for a Advanced Royalty payment from the publisher in question and if so how much do you feel is a suitable amount… considering they have not put any development money into getting it this far?
There are no advanced royality payments to which you are entitled.
Either you did it under a contract for them and then some dev fee + additional royalities were part of the deal or you did it on your own and are approaching now a publisher to get a broader audience.
In the later case you will receive your first payment when they get it so at earliest 1 - 2 months post release.
In the later case you can at best ask them if they would be willing to pay you something out of their pocket to take it back on the first royality, which they can agree to or deny.
Depends on the deal. Best advice I can give you: consult a lawyer. Preferably one that has dealt with game publishing contracts before.
While I agree with what Dreamora said in terms of how the advance royalty would work, I disagree with the sentiment.
Everything is negotiable. Do not be afraid to negotiate. The worst that can happen is that they will say “no”.
On the other hand there is no such thing as “rights” or “entitled”. Everything is on the table for negotiation. Anyone that tells you otherwise has been hamstrung in business by their own sensibilities.
According to the IGDA casual games white paper
http://www.igda.org/wiki/Casual_Games_SIG#Casual_Games_White_Paper
most but not all publishing deals include an advance. I don’t know if this is true for the iPhone space, but you’re certainly within your rights to ask. I don’t know of any publishers who would hesitate to ask you to work for free, and if they’re not paying an advance, that’s essentially what they’re getting. A practical problem with that is with no money down, there’s no great incentive for them to put much work into selling your game (especially if they’re giving you higher royalties in exchange for no or little advance - I know of more than once instance where a console publisher came back after the product shipped and said it wasn’t worth it for them to continue selling unless the royalty rate went down).
It boils down to leverage - if you’re someone like Id, there would be no question about giving you a hefty advance, especially if the publisher isn’t one of the top ones (hey, I’d be happy to publish your game without paying you up front, but from your point of view, that would make no sense - on the other hand if I wrote you a big check…). Otherwise, you have to decide if the deal you’re getting is reasonable for your situation and who you’re talking to (and if you’re talking to more than one publisher, that helps) and if the result is still better self-publishing. The nice thing about the iPhone business, versus consoles, is that you always have the option of self-publishing.
We’ve found for advance payments, you need to show (proven) performance of the product.
Typically, if your product is on track to make 200k a year, they’ll try their best to offer you about half of that, stating that you’re minimizing risk.
Some of the companies out there are quite fair, you keep the product, the IP, only have to commit to minimal upgrades, etc… But still…
Here’s the best rule of thumb, don’t sell anything if you don’t have to, unless you know without a doubt that its the only way the product will ever be profitable 
With the iPhone marketplace so hit and miss, I am doubtful you will get anywhere discussing advances for titles. Not unless you have a substantial proven track record with a previous title.
Yeah, we were approached only after several months in the top 50 in the US 
cheers for the responce guys…gave me a lot to think about… 