They always say: “Talk to people about your game”, but as a programmer that can sometimes be hard to do. Last week I had a meetup with a befriended company about something unrelated to our game. During that conversation we (of course) started talking about game development. The manager of that company started to show an interest in our game and the possibilities it would give his company. He asked me if we ever thought about resellers and if we had channel management documentation. My response was “Sure we have, let me get back to you about that”. In my head I had another response: “What is a reseller, and I never heard about channel management before…”.
After the meeting I raced to our office and started Binging (yes that is a thing) those terms. It opened my eyes to a whole new set of opportunities. Never before had any of us at Jagaco thought about reseller contracts. It is weird and humbling to think of the fact that other companies are willing to resell your game to their customers (with an added margin for themselves of course).
In the weeks after that first conversation two other resellers contacted us for business opportunities, and by now we really do have a channel management document in which we describe the obligations and take-aways for our resellers.
Conclusion
Yes it can be hard, but ALWAYS talk with others about your company and your projects. You never know what opportunities can come from them!
And now back to the code…