I've been thinking about foreign language versions of the game. This is not an urgent priority, but some time over the next year I'll probably add a page where people can earn money by making their own translation. That way, the game will be available in any language people want. Here's how it would work:

EnterTheStory.com will have a page with links to the raw text from every game. If anyone sends in a translated version I'll make a translated game and add it to the download site. The person who translated it then gets a cut of every game that's sold in that translation. An easy way to make money!

More details: I don't speak any other languages, so the first time someone translated a game I'd need to get someone else to check it. So we don't have "all your base are belong to us" (the world's most famous game translation by a non-native speaker!). Those two people would then get half the royalties each. If there were no serious problems then the next time that person translated a game they could do it without any checking and get all the money themselves.

I'm hoping this would encourage a lot of translations. There's a financial incentive to get in early - if you're the first person to do a German translation of the first game and if (in 2 or 5 years time) it ends up selling tens of thousands of copies, that's a lot of money. Germany is a BIG market for adventure games. And so is France, particularly for a game set in France. It would be really great if the game ended up available in Swahili and Vietnamese. In these days of laptops in developing countries it might be a good way for a student to earn money.

How much money would each translator get? It would have to be at least 20% of the cover price, or there would be no incentive to start. But if it was much more than 40% then it would be simpler for me to wait a few years until the game is more popular then pay a one-off fee to a professional translation service. And maybe the foreign language versions would be cheaper anyway - $14.99 is not much to an American game buyer, but might be prohibitively expensive to someone in sub-Saharan Africa. But those are details.

How exactly would the money be calculated? This isn't as simple as it seems, since the business model is "buy one, get everything else free." So you'd only get money if the first game downloaded was in your language. But that's only reasonable I suppose. A Vietnamese speaker is more likely to download the Vietnamese version first.

How would you get the money? I don't want to spend all my time on paperwork, so there's be two choices. The easy-but-slow way (for you) is to let me count how many Vietnamese versions have sold every 6 months and PayPal you the appropriate amount. The more efficient way is for the translator to sign up for their own BMT account (BMT Micro will host the games) and become an affiliate. Then every time a Vietnamese game is sold the right money is immediately transferred to the translator's account and they get a payment from BMT each month.

This is something I've been giving a lot of thought. I think that plan would work best. I love how this plan gives freedom to the users. You want a version in your language? Then go for it - and make money at the same time. Heck, if you're smart (and lucky) you could find some completely untapped market and make yourself a ton of money. The only down side is that I can only use a standard Western character set. But if there's enough interest I could probably find a way to use the Chinese alphabet or whatever else was needed.

Obviously there's the risk that somebody would make a translation then sell it from their own site, but that's a risk in English anyway. And if the translator themself doe it then I can just cancel their royalties from the main site. Besides, I think 40% from the main site is pretty generous since they wouldn't have to do any work.

That's why the game refers to EnterTheStory.com in big letters at various points (the title screen, the help page, the credits page, whenever you try to walk to a story that isn't made yet). And the licence agreement will make clear that ONLY games downloaded from EnterTheStory.com are legal. Piracy is unavoidable, but I intend to make it very easy and very affordable to get a legal copy, and the serial nature of the game means there's always a gravitational pull to the main site for the latest information and downloads.

Why give translators 30-40%? Why not less, or why not more? After all, without a translator the game simply wouldn't be available at all in that language. True, but the same can be said for music, art, and everything else. If the game ever makes any serious money I want to reward everyone who's made a major contribution, not just translators.