"Overseas publishing for Dark Souls?"
Listening to Lisa's report, Lucas nodded to show he understood.
The one who reached out was a well-known dostic overseas publishing agency: Target Software.
Clearly, as a large-scale PC ga, Dark Souls had caught the eye of overseas publishers.
While Nebula Gas hasn't announced sales numbers, so third-party data companies have done estimates.
They might not be exact, but they're a useful reference.
And since Dark Souls is a fantasy-thed ga, it'll also have a large audience in the overseas market.
As for the difficulty? That's not really a big issue.
Whether at ho or abroad, there are players who like fast and easy gas, and there are those who love hardcore challenges.
Plus, in terms of sheer numbers, the overseas market is much bigger.
"Reply to them and set up a eting to talk about this cooperation," Lucas told Lisa.
It's not that easy to handle overseas publishing. Back then, when Mirror went online overseas, it was just on the company's own platform abroad, basically just a simple re-skin.
But for a big ga like Dark Souls, you obviously can't take that approach.
And "overseas" doesn't an just one country—it involves multiple countries, plus all kinds of channels for ga promotion and marketing.
Things like reviews, advertising, and compliance all have to be handled by the publishing agency.
On top of that, so countries have regulations that require overseas gas to go through a local publishing company before entering the market.
If Nebula Gas tried to build those channels themselves, there's no way they could pull it off in the short term.
They do plan to create their own overseas operations later on, but for now, finding a strong publishing partner is clearly the best way to maximize profit.
Lisa was told to inform the other side, and by the next afternoon, in Nebula Gas' office, Lucas t with their representative.
At the eting table, the two sides talked about matters related to overseas publishing.
"Lucas, we have no issue with the revenue share, but about the changes to the overseas version and the operating rights…" the representative said.
But Lucas cut him off with a wave of his hand: "That's non-negotiable."
Hearing that, the other party swallowed the words that were about to co out.
On everything else—like overseas marketing and operations, revenue share, and so on—the discussion went very smoothly.
Basically, it all followed the industry standard.
The only sticking point was the overseas version changes and operating rights.
The partner company wanted so say in those areas, but Lucas was very clear: their role was only to handle overseas publishing, translation, dubbing, and using their channels to promote the ga and ensure it goes online. Then they get their cut, and that's it. Any control over the ga itself? Forget it.
Put simply, operating modification rights an sothing like this: Dark Souls is a pure single-player ga sold at a fixed price, with multiplayer as an extra.
But if the publishing company had the rights, they could decide to switch it to a free-to-play model with in-app purchases, thinking it fits the local market better. For example, making the ga free, with a "first purchase bonus" like $1 for a 4 Dark Sword at the start.
Of course, that's an exaggerated example—no ga company would usually hand over that much control. Normally, it's about negotiating certain profit-related elents.
The tricky part for the partner was that Lucas clearly wasn't willing to give even a little bit of that power.
"Lucas, on this matter, it's not sothing I can decide," the representative said with a shake of his head after seeing Lucas stand firm.
Lucas smiled and nodded: "That's fine. I just hope your company can give an answer soon. After all, there are a few other overseas publishers interested as well."
True or not? Believe it or not—it wasn't his problem.
......
After sending off the representative, Lucas logged into Nebula Gas' official forum.
Thanks to the player base from Legends of the Three Kingdoms and Fall Guys, once Dark Souls and its discount event launched,
Nebula Gas saw a peak in player activity.
Lucas also took the company's community forum very seriously and had even set up a dedicated departnt to manage it independently.
After all, when the Nebula Gas platform didn't have many gas in the early days, running the forum in this social style was one of the best ways to keep users engaged.
And looking at the results, it's starting to pay off.
In the Dark Souls section of the forum, players are still mainly talking about strategies, play styles, and different tricks.
What made Lucas happy, though, was that the Workshop they opened earlier already has so players making mods.
The most downloaded one is a text mod that changes "You Died" after death to "You Suck."
There are also so sound mods that replace the creepy sounds in the underground prison.
Of course, all mods allowed through the official Workshop are ones that don't affect ga balance.
If players don't use the Workshop, they need to back up a separate save file and play offline.
Otherwise, if they go online, the system will detect it, mark it as cheating, and put them on special servers.
But there was one mod discussion thread that caught Lucas' attention.
Since Dark Souls has Workshop support, this thread was full of players brainstorming wild ideas about what cool mods might appear in the future.
Though many people in the discussion haven't even figured out the base ga yet—forget finishing it, so haven't even reached the castle, still saying things like, "I just beat the big tree, am I close to the end?"
That didn't stop them from imagining fun ideas for Dark Souls.
One suggestion Lucas found interesting was: what if all the bosses and mobs in Dark Souls were completely randomized?
For example, in the Cetery of Ash, instead of facing Iudex Gundyr with the coiled sword, you'd run into Champion Gundyr from the Untended Graves. That would be intense.
Or changing boss weapons—like if Gundyr's halberd disappeared, and he had to fight using only kicks, palm strikes, and shoulder charges. How cool would that be?
Most ideas were completely over the top and impossible to make, but they did give Lucas so thoughts.
(End of The Chapter)
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