As an indie game developer you have the sometimes fortunate opportunity to deal with a variety of distribution channels as you try to get your game out on the market for the masses to hopefully soak up and enjoy. Most online distributors that I have dealt with are awesome about ensuring that anyone who wants to buy a product can buy a product. So I am somewhat bemused when I am actually after a particular game that I want to purchase I cannot get it through a retail or online distributor/channel.
The particular game that I am seeking is "Rifts : Promise of Power", which is a beautiful and promising game whose only knock against it is that its for the nGage system. Now while I hear you groan the words "nGage" I want to point out that I am buying what really is the first "killer" game for the nGage for my brother who is a huge Rifts fan and the game is the only reason why he bought the nGage in the first place. No, the irony is not lost on me, the guy buys a phone for a particular game that is coming out for it and when the game comes out he cannot buy it because of Nokia's less than stellar sales channels won't permit anyone to buy him the game.
So what's wrong with Nokia's sales channels? Nokia dropped support for the nGage just before Rifts came out on the market and in turn all of the retailers that sold the nGage and nGage products dropped their stock. Heck even Nokia's Canada site doesn't keep a current stock of its nGage products and their recommended online partner (dvdonline.com) that they point you to from their Canada web site for direct online purchases doesn't carry their products either. If you are in the USA you can purchase "Rifts : Promise of Power" through the specialty retailer letstalk.com, unfortunately this retailer only deals with USA based clients and there are no "ifs", "ands" or "buts" about it. If you try to call the company from Canada you get a "invalid number" for their 1-866 number because it is regional only to the USA. If you contact their sales support email, you get a rather poorly worded (or poorly translated?) email stating that they simply will not handle your request for a phone and will only deal with you if you have a valid USA address and a credit card that has a USA based billing address.
Ya you can bet I did a double-take on this one. Me, a little indie developer who makes niche games is able to sell my product via a wide range of sales channels and distributors to anyone in the world who wants my game. But a funded game, that is pretty dammed awesome such as "Rifts : Promise of Power" gets stimied because Nokia dropped the ball with the nGage and their sales channels.
While I feel sorry for my brother because chances are he won't ever get to play this game, the guys I really feel sorry for are Backbone Entertainment (the developers of "Rifts : Promise of Power") and Palladium Books (the creators of Rifts) for having such a great product hamstrung before it even got a chance to get out the door. It's times like this I have to think that thing's aren't always so doom and gloom in the indie market like the industry says it is.
Although I have ragged on the IGF a lot lately, one of the cooler things about the IGF (and that I had forgotten about since its been quite some time sine I delt with it) is that they have a independent publishing arm known as "Moondance Games". 
