Is there anyone whos submitted game was rejected ???

If so....
° what was the reason???
° is there a website with info on that game??

Thanx ;)

They've rejected hundreds of games (based on that fact that they only published 10 games, and I think Steve said at one point they got like 100 games a week). If you mean has anyone around here been rejected, I know at least a few people have, and the reason was that they didn't have enough compelling features that could be put in the demo while still leaving enough incentive to purchase the full version (or something along those lines).

Go to the publishing FAQ on their site. They list the most common reasons for rejection there.

Planetary defense was rejected

http://www.positech.co.uk/planetarydefence

Originally posted by cliffski
Planetary defense was rejected

http://www.positech.co.uk/planetarydefence

The game looks great !!! Why was it rejected ???? :confused:

Originally posted by SopiSoft
The game looks great !!! Why was it rejected ???? :confused:

I think that the reason is based on what is mentioned in the FAQ.
It can be a combination of reasons or perhaps one reason.

The game isn't fun enough. We don't publish games unless they're really fun. First and foremost, we're gamers, and we know games. We can usually tell if a game is fun in the first few minutes of play. Fun is a very tough quality to achieve, and not everyone can pull off a game that's really fun. If a game isn't fun, we won't publish it no matter how nice it looks and sounds.

The game lacks polish. The game's visual appearance should be competitive with the top 10% of shareware games available today. Poor art is a common reason for rejection. Many players will decide whether or not to download the demo based on how good the screen shots look, so visual appeal is very important. If a game's screen shots don't make the game look fun and inviting, then it will be very hard to generate downloads and sales.

The game isn't original enough. The world doesn't need any more clones of Tetris, Pacman, Asteroids, or Breakout. Even a game that has some unique gameplay but looks too much like an overcloned game can be very tough to sell because it's hard to make it stand out. We typically reject these games out of hand because we simply don't feel we can market them effectively.

The game lacks depth. We're looking for games that provide solid and enduring entertainment value -- the kinds of games that people will want to own. If a talented designer/programmer could develop the same game in a weekend, then chances are that it's too shallow, and we'll probably reject it. Keep in mind that if you want to be earning tens of thousands of dollars in royalties, you need to provide a game that's worthy of that level of sales.

The game isn't beginner-friendly enough. We want games that can be learned in 10 minutes or less. If it takes longer than 10 minutes for a game to become fun, we'd have a tough time selling it.

The game doesn't adapt well to shareware marketing. A great deal of our marketing is done through shareware channels. This means we need a demo version that can successfully upsell the full version. Not all games adapt well to this model. In particular, story-based games like RPGs and adventure games can be very tough to sell this way. Impulse-purchase games like puzzle games, board games, card games, and action games are much easier to sell via shareware channels.

The game is too big. The demo version really must be under 10MB, and under 5MB is highly recommended. The full version can be larger than the demo but should still be under 10MB. Demo downloads, especially through sites that attract casual gamers, will tend to drop off dramatically once you get past 5MB. There are still many people using slow dial-up connections, and some pay for their connections by the minute, so huge downloads can cost them a lot of money. We sell every game globally, and fully 50% of our sales come from outside the USA, so at least for now, we have to reject games that would essentially require broadband connections.

The game is for the wrong platform. We're only interested in PC games at this time. In the future we may expand into the Mac and wireless/PDA markets, but we want to stay focused on the PC platform for now.

The game's content isn't suitable for our audience. We sell to gamers of all ages, and about 40% of our customers are female. We want games with mass market appeal. A game designed for a very limited audience probably won't sell well for us.

We don't feel we could market and sell the game effectively. Not only from our own experiences but from witnessing the experiences of dozens of other indie developers, we've developed a good sense of what will sell well and what won't. We create a custom marketing campaign for each game we publish. This involves carefully positioning the game to stand out from the crowd in a positive way. We look for games where we can create a good marketing hook that can be used to attract interest. So we may reject games if we can't figure out a good way to market them. This is why original games are very important to us, but they have to be original in a way that players will find fun. For instance, if someone submitted a game to us about preparing income taxes, we'd probably have a tough time positioning it as a fun game, even if it happened to be really fun to play once you got into it. As a positive example, the marketing hook we used for Dweep was "a defenseless furry creature trapped in a hostile environment." A game where players could overcome dangerous obstacles like bombs and lasers by using their wits instead of guns aroused much curiosity, and that drove many downloads and sales.

I'm sure a simple link to the FAQ would have been a sufficient substitution in place of posting the entire thing here.. :)

But yea, while I've never played the game and therefore cannot comment on the funness (which is well over half the faq really), I think it's pretty clear from the screenshots that the following more than likely applies:
The game's content isn't suitable for our audience. We sell to gamers of all ages, and about 40% of our customers are female. We want games with mass market appeal. A game designed for a very limited audience probably won't sell well for us. And I don't mean to say that people of all ages can't play it, but that due to appearance and style, it's probably a tough sell to a good portion of Dexterity's customer base. Also! There was something I read on this forum I think where Dexterity mentioned being most interested in character-based games... and Planetary Defence doesn't appear to be a character-based game at all.

- Air

Originally posted by Jake Stine
I'm sure a simple link to the FAQ would have been a sufficient substitution in place of posting the entire thing here.. :)

But yea, while I've never played the game and therefore cannot comment on the funness (which is well over half the faq really), I think it's pretty clear from the screenshots that the following more than likely applies:
And I don't mean to say that people of all ages can't play it, but that due to appearance and style, it's probably a tough sell to a good portion of Dexterity's customer base. Also! There was something I read on this forum I think where Dexterity mentioned being most interested in character-based games... and Planetary Defence doesn't appear to be a character-based game at all.

- Air

Yes, you are right. It could be perhaps the fact, that it isn't a character based game.

I have a feeling that the success Dexterity is having with puzzle games that plays to all ages may also be its weakness. I first visited Dexterity website almost a year ago and it seemed a lot less busy than it is now. I personally feel the site is now more cluttered and I instantly get a feeling that it is dominated by puzzle games that seem alike. Maybe the recently introed word puzzle game is bit different. Fitznik, Pharoh's Curse even Dweep seem to follow the same format. My opinion. Bash me if I'm wrong :)

What you say is true to some extent. When I first visited dexterity a 3-4 years ago I remember being rather unimpressed. Dweep was available at the time and possibly fitznik though I don't remember. There wasn't really anything that perked my interest. However, I believe that this is due to the fact that I didn't even have a passing interest in puzzle games.

To the mass market that steve appeals to the plethera of puzzlegames on dexterities front page may seem like a virtual paradise of endless hours of entertainment.

I've read the reason why PLANETARY DEFENCE was rejected on their forum.. :)

Question:
"Could you please tell us why your game was rejected by Dexterity? Like: Not good graphics, not fun gameplay, etc."

Answer:
"We have no idea, it was not a good fit for their product line. We aren't at all bothered, the game has a pretty big publisher now (ever heard of real.com?) so we are quite happy with the publishing situation.
If all goes well, expect to see this game on sale within a week...."

Yeh, I posted that question. Can't wait to download the demo and see what was wrong with it myself. Could be the fact that Dexterity already has Strayfire, and it's kind of similar I guess to the Planetary Defence and space games is already pushing it clone-wise. There are so many space games it's not even funny:)

thats true but those puzzle games here arent all that original and fun either....most of them are just moderated versions of existing puzzle-games.
There are just some new features and graphics added to the game......:confused: :confused: ....i thought they were looking for something original...:confused:

That's true too. They have a lot of games simular to "The Incredible Machine", but they have enough new features to stand out. Dexterity has many years of experience and they know what sells, and what doesn't. If your game doesn't get published the first time, you can always go back and fix it up and try submitting again. It's almost like a win-win situation, I think:)

Anybody remember this theard (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=111425)? Maybe cliffski was talking about Dexterity...?
Planetary defense looks like it is pretty similar to Missile Command (not a bad thing though ;)), which might be why they didn't publish it. It looks fun though!

I am into strategy games, which takes more than a couple of minutes to find out if there fun. When I first saw Civilization's graphics I was put off from playing it. Then I sat down with it and gave it a few hours, I was then hooked.

I think Steve has done a great job setting up this forum and offering publishing deals to people who are developing games (The best publishing deals I have seen so far). Really it is his and his team’s decision at the end of the day (it is his company as well). I hope to see his company prosper some more, because we need more publishing companies like Steve’s to do well and grow.

If I had a company similar to Steve’s, my company will be focused on role playing games and strategy games titles. So if I was receiving games to publish I would be more keen on strategy titles and RPG games.

Also if your games are selling and business is going good were is the weakness in the product. Does a game have a weakness if it doesn’t appeal to a audience outside of it’s target group? I think not. My strategy games are made for people who really like strategy games. A puzzle game is made for people who like puzzle games.

Originally posted by Will
Anybody remember this theard (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=111425)? Maybe cliffski was talking about Dexterity...?

Excellent observation Will, you should be Sherlock Holmes:)

Originally posted by Mman
Excellent observation Will, you should be Sherlock Holmes:)

Should be? I am ;)

I think that there are decent points made for both diversity and focusing in publishing games. Most of the puzzle games Dexterity has are games that are 'solve once' puzzles. The goal is to figure out the trick to each level. There are many who like this sort of game that will play the game solve all of the puzzles and enjoy it then want something else similar to play. Having more games to offer these people means you can sell them more games.

Having said that, there are many game types out there, and many customers. Not all like these sort of games. I'm going for a bit of diversity. I have two game projects on the go (Three if you include Finznik 2). The other two are completely different. A Tetris genre and a platformer. I'm developing different types of games for a few reasons.

Firstly, I like writing different things. I've written Fitznik. It'll be more fun to go for something different for a change.

Second, The Tetris genre game (These games really need a collective name that doesn't involve a trademark, I'd call it a falling block game but my game doesn't have falling blocks) doesn't require levels to be designed. This should reduce development time which is nice for after making many Fitznik and platform levels.

Third, I had a flash iof inspiration for the Tetris genre game, I mucked around with the idea and found that I had a playabe demo after a week.

finally, I had a good look at what games are out there, what gets downloaded and what shareware games got registered in the past. This is how I decided on the platformer. People still play them, young and old. Lots of people who played Commander Keen and the like are still playing games.

Essentially I'm making the games I want to make. Dexterity has given me input on what they would like to see. They diddn't want to go with my Tetris Genre game as it was after one month of development, but they gave me the input necessary for me to decide what direction I could go with it. I think I can turn it ito something much better quite quickly (Playing Best Friends showed me that I can learn a bit about presentation from Retro64). It's my decision in the end though, I could go in a direction that Dexterity isn't interested in if I wanted to publish elsewhere.

Another thing to note, Dexterity might turn away games that are potental huge money spinners. Nobody is perfect. There are heaps of examples of experts in their field turning away deals that would have been huge. The Beatles and the Day of the Jackal are two such instances.

Dexterity can sell good quality games, especially charactered based puzzle games. You need to know your market and that is always your customer. What does your customer wants and for what kind of price etc. How can you reach new customers and inform your existing customers about new products. The fact is that most of the dexterity customers are interested in charactered based puzzle games like Dweeps Gold, that is still there bestseller game. It is correct that Fitznik, Stockboy are clones.
Pharaohs Curse is a very nice puzzle platformer. But there are also non charactered based puzzle games, like
Penguin Puzzle, Aargon Deluxe Gold, Logication. Again it need to fit in the productline and interests of the existing and new customers.

Just for the record it wasn't dexterity who gave the hasbro thing as their reason. There are big differences between my game and some arcade game from a zillion years ago. That's not to say it did'nt worry them though. I can't comment. I think its unlikely anyone at Hasbro would be silly enough to fight a court case over my game because it involves shooting down incoming missiles. although I look forward to them trying to sue real.com if they do.
Real didn't bat an eyelid over the game idea, and good for them.

Alright, I wasn't sure. Good luck with Panetary Defense!

Sorry Will, you can't be Sherlock Holmes, Holmes is never wrong:). Good luck with your game Cliffski, maybe you can tell us how you like real.com as your publisher later.

Originally posted by cliffski
Just for the record it wasn't dexterity who gave the hasbro thing as their reason. There are big differences between my game and some arcade game from a zillion years ago. That's not to say it did'nt worry them though. I can't comment. I think its unlikely anyone at Hasbro would be silly enough to fight a court case over my game because it involves shooting down incoming missiles. although I look forward to them trying to sue real.com if they do.
Real didn't bat an eyelid over the game idea, and good for them.

It's my understanding that all of hasbro interactive including the old arcade licenses were sold to Infogrames who later dropped the lawsuits against various people that were still fighting it.

Originally posted by svero
It's my understanding that all of hasbro interactive including the old arcade licenses were sold to Infogrames who later dropped the lawsuits against various people that were still fighting it.

They didn't drop it, they came to a settlement. Which means the companies agreed to whatever demands Infogames put up, and since it was settled they must've been more reasonable than Hasbro.

I've also had a game rejected by Dexterity (maybe we should form a club :) ). I wasn't too surprised, but I wanted to see what their reaction would be. Basically the game as it stands didn't have enough depth -- an analysis with which I agree.

You can't take this kind of thing personally. Maybe the game is fun for my kids but not for anyone else; or maybe it just isn't right for Dexterity's market. But a rejection like this doesn't say "and don't come back!" I have some hope of making use of the currently-rejected game elsewhere, and of submitting a few more to Dexterity and/or to other sites. It's still worth the cost and risk to me.

Alchemist, what was your game about? Was it a clone?

Originally posted by Fenix Down
They didn't drop it, they came to a settlement. Which means the companies agreed to whatever demands Infogames put up, and since it was settled they must've been more reasonable than Hasbro.

Hmm. That definitely conflicts the infor I got from extreme games when I asked them where it stood. I was told it was dropped. I'm not sure now.

Originally posted by jag0
I have a feeling that the success Dexterity is having with puzzle games that plays to all ages may also be its weakness. I first visited Dexterity website almost a year ago and it seemed a lot less busy than it is now. I personally feel the site is now more cluttered and I instantly get a feeling that it is dominated by puzzle games that seem alike. Maybe the recently introed word puzzle game is bit different. Fitznik, Pharoh's Curse even Dweep seem to follow the same format. My opinion. Bash me if I'm wrong :)

Actually the choice to stick with puzzle games for a while was intentional. Our initial strategy was to "stick to the knitting" to build up a larger stable base of sales before spreading out into different genres. Also, we have a substantial customer base that has been telling us they're interested in more puzzle games. But now that we have a good number of puzzle games, we're more open to expanding into other genres because it's easier for us to handle the risk.

Mman, my (first) rejected game wasn't a clone. It was a simple little game where you're a cave man trying to light his torch and get it home before nightfall. Not quite a twitch game, but much more timing dependant than a puzzle game. It was created for the web with web-sensibilities, so I wasn't too surprised when it was rejected by Dexterity.

You never know though, it may still get released in another form. We'll see. And there's plenty more games to be done.

Regarding rejection reasons... we're happy to tell each developer the specific reasons a game was rejected, but we generally don't do this unless the developer asks. This is explained in more detail in our faq here:
http://www.dexterity.com/developer/faq-rejection-feedback.htm

Also, we look for games we believe we can sell effectively. There are many games we've evaluated that were high quality, but I didn't feel we could sell them. It doesn't do anyone much good if we commit to publishing a game and can't sell it. Any game we reject might be a perfectly good fit for another publisher. I know for a fact that several games we've published, other publishers have rejected. And many games we've rejected have been accepted by other publishers. Because of the demographics of our audience, I ask questions that other publishers may not ask, such as, "Would a 50-year old woman with limited computer experience and a 3-year old PC enjoy this game enough to want to own it?" That doesn't mean that every game we publish has to fit this criterion, but it's definitely something we consider. Another question I ask is, "Is this game likely to still sell well in 4-5 years as-is, without anything more than minor maintenance updates?"

Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles for certain genres is our criteria of "fun in the first 5 minutes." This makes it hard for us to publish complicated strategy games or RPGs. While these genres do have a loyal following, I don't think a large enough percentage of our existing customer base would find them appealing. Of course, as we continue to expand our customer base, taking a risk on new genres becomes a bit easier for us.

Thanks for all the response on my thread.....it really helped me on figuring out what Dexterity's Customers want.... :) :cool:

hehe, Steve beat me to the punch again.

I wish we could publish every game we recieved, the worst part of my job is rejecting a game, especially one that is pretty good (but not great), or even very good but wrong for us. Unfortunately we just cant possibly publish even 10% of what we recieve, and sometimes we have to make some hard calls.

I also want to emphasize here, that if your game IS rejected by us, if you want to know why, just send a follow up e-mail and we will be happy to tell you. It is a bit more work, so we dont do it as a matter of course, only if a follow up is requested. I would say only about 1 in 3 games we reject request a reason why...and i suspect some people know already, and others dont want to know. But some may honestly not have thought about asking, so i wanted to let you know that we will let you know why, if you ask.


Todd

Todd Chodorow
Dexterity Software

Cliffski, congratulations on having your game Planetary Defense (http://realguide.real.com/games/?s=game_download&sub=planetarydefense) published!

Was it painful to see the game name altered to conform with our barbaric American spellings? ;)

More painful than you can possibly imagine ;)

"I also want to emphasize here, that if your game IS rejected by us, if you want to know why, just send a follow up e-mail and we will be happy to tell you. It is a bit more work, so we dont do it as a matter of course"

Do you guys take resubmissions? What if the author resolves the issues and resubmits it. Not that I've submitted anything yet. I'm just asking because I'm not the type that gives up. :)

Yes, we will take a resubmission. If we tell someone why we rejected a game, and than they take the time to make those changes, we are happy to reevaluate a game. We have had several games resubmitted, and we have even picked up one of them (although we have not released it yet).

A lot depends on WHY it was rejected...sometimes its just not something that can be easily fixed (the genre of the game is something we arent looking to publish, its not fun, or its a clone of another game for instance), other times, the game play is great, but the art is questionable, or the basic game is fun, but lacks depth...something like that is more likely to be fixable for publication by us.

No guarentees that you will be accepted the 2nd time around of course, but if you have made a lot of constructive changes to the game, you probably have increased your chances.

Todd Chodorow
Producer
Dexterity Software