Do you think publishing companies still have a role to play?
Of course publishers still matter. They have the experience, the talents, the markets and tools and last but not least the money to invest. Not all developers might require all of that, but most certainly many developers benefit at least from some of them. And while devs might do something like advertising themselves, that doesn't necessarily mean that it would be a smart option for them to invest their time.
And for players publishers still have a function as gatekeepers, for customers with such a demand.
Can indies these days have success without publishers? Obviously yes. The real question is though, if they have a higher chance to succeed or can experience even greater success with publishers. And I'm convinced that this is true for the vast majority.
And last but not least, publishers changed too. See the kind of Devolver or Raw Fury.
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While both of your opinions stand true (in my view at least), i feel we are obligated to define what we mean by publisher.
Let's take Steam for example.
Regarding Steam, it has some characteristics of a publisher (choice of selling price, discounts etc) but it also lacks others, like funding games (as far as i know, except in-house studio, Valve). In this case Steam is both a publisher (since it has at least some characteristics) as well as the market itself (since over 50% of the digital distribution market of video games is allegedly theirs). Other publishers like EA are trying to follow in those footsteps as well with EA Origin, or even GOG (CD Projekt Red). So would that make Steam a publisher?
It depends where we draw the line on the sand on what we choose to call a distributor, a publisher, an advertiser etc.
Should the upwards trend of the digital distribution model continue, I think it would be better to view publishers as one part advertisers, one part producers and one part markets. Since Steam owns the lion's share it would be only fair to regard Steam as THE market.
That leaves us mostly with financing (a.k.a. production) and advertising. No matter how much i dislike their business practices, both of these roles are critical for the video game industry and it's plurality of ideas.
Let's say that Ubisoft along with EA (Bioware/Dice and others), Take Two and others, simply vanished. Who would fund the games? Would it all be through crowdfunding? And if so, how would the devs reach their target audience?
Has their role changed over the years? Definitely.
Do they still need to print physical copies and close deals for foreign markets? Surely not as much as they used to
(😜Germany😜).
Despite liking them or not, they are still an integral part of the video game industry, even if their role has changed.
tl;dr: What is a Publisher? / Publishers are now to be called Producers-Advertisers.
Sorry for the wall of text and my English, not a native speaker.
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biggest "it depends" in the world.
A developer develops a game. A publisher will then sell the game. Nowadays, a publisher no longer needs to have a good distribution network, but they're still responsible for marketing and advertising - and for setting the price (including discounts).
Yes, with crowdfunding some developers can generate the funds needed to develop a game, but plenty of others can't.
Yes, with steam, there's no need for a distribution network, everyone has access to the wider market
Beyond the above, not every developer can (or wants to) do marketing or advertising. Not every developer has the skill or knowledge to maximize the monetization of their game.
So yes, publishers do add value by providing up-front financing for those who aren't able to get financing otherwise, by marketing and advertising, and by figuring out how to make the most. At the same time, it is possible for a developer to do all that themselves. But not every developer has the resources or the skills to wear all those hats, or to do it as well as a publisher could.
Publishers provide expertise that developers otherwise only dabble in.
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I voted 'Other';
'Some do, some don't' isn't representative. I felt the lack of 'They do both good and harm' (all of them).
There are exceptions to the rule both in being good and very bad- but they're not some. They're few. Few extremes- unfortunally fewer on the good side then the bad.
Fgs... Indiefund is the only one i can think of as being good and is hardly/arguably a publisher of major notice(yet).
Publishers are a unfortunate need that in a ideal world wouldn't exist. Even as means of reaching the customer directly increases and better platforms to do so the truth is the sheer amount of competition makes then a permanent need. No single studio will amount the same level of deals and partners and when they do thats generally when they're becoming a publishing house themselves.
Unfortunally market reach is a killer point - not even being really good would be enougth, save for exceptions that go viral with streamers and such. We're surrounded by hidden gems that souldn't and that is because of a lack in good partners and or ill PR/marketing; Either a publisher wasn't good enougth or not present.
By its very nature they're bad because no agreement comes strings free. Even at the best deal ever would mean at least a cut for a middleman of arguable value whose utility comes mostly not from his own but a side-effect. I don't include funding here because crowdfunding could in theory supply devs where self-funding lacks. Its the reach where publishers hold their trumph on my view- the one thing that is hard to substitute.
Im on the devs side. Any strings and demands are inherently bad since development is a hard as nails high pressure deed on itself. No matter how good those strings are they amount to a additional load in the process that im sure everyone would prefer not to have. Sadly and often those strings are more then 'just aditional load'...
Theres good in then i mean come on, funding hell yeah! I need only to care or deal with the game not all the other stuff to launch it? good!
But theres no good without bad with publishers- that option i found lacking in the poll
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By its very nature they're bad because no agreement comes strings free. Even at the best deal ever would mean at least a cut for a middleman of arguable value whose utility comes mostly not from his own but a side-effect. I don't include funding here because crowdfunding could in theory supply devs where self-funding lacks. Its the reach where publishers hold their trumph on my view- the one thing that is hard to substitute.
That's precisely the thought that prompted me to open this thread. :P
Funding aside, with my limited knowledge on the topic, it appears as if they've just turned to specialised Marketing Agencies only instead of standard fees they're given rights to the game and a cut of the sales.
Also I'm now kicking myself for missing that poll option. It's the one view that feels so true and obvious that you don't even think about it x_x
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Don't kick yourself. Actually its better from one angle- it made me write more on 'other' see?
Their funding is more then good- its still the majority of cash on the market and so so many titles wouldn't exist without it; But nowadays a bunch of other titles could have done away with their money. Crowdfunding still have ways to go but if we forecast on it positively (because it can fail- at least fail to live up its potential as new a norm) it could substitute that part of publishing- but it seens likely it will ever come with more risks. Its also tricky to go without publishers- a medium to bigger team seens ideal for handling all the pr both to gather funds and work all the marketing later... and thats a lot of legwork, phonecalls, deals, sites, events and more that can't/shouldn't be handled by the people pouring the code and painting the art.
That alone makes self-funding a smaller slice of the market; Its cons involve more the extras you don't get.
I try not to undervaluate the expertise of publishers because there is such thing, its only they paint it as way more then it is. Looking deeper figuring out monetization and such is easier to learn and decide- theres tricky bits to it but these bits are tricky for everyone publishers included (f2p model for example). Nowadays for the dev wanting to go solo (be it one guy or a big team) theres no shortage of communities, articles and heck, i bet even books and whatnot to quite quickly be making informed decisions in good directions.
Thats why i put the heavier pro of publishing on reach, pr and marketing- namely contacts, deals and workforce/manhours. Its hard enougth to fund and develop a game without hiring and self-running someone or a team just for that. Im not too familiar with the proceedings to afirm for sure but im also under the impression that volume- both in workforce and said contatcs/deals- makes for a huge impact on the performance on this area... so the bigger and older the publisher the more gains on this aspect.
And therein lies the danger- the bigger the publisher more strings attached because they can pick and choose from devs, acting as the bigger and more 'important' of the deal like its chief (we're talking creative work) - but the smaller the lesser the benefits to the point where a team should question thenselves if they shouldn't do it thenselves.
I have hopes for the future however. On my 'forecasts id bet/hope for long term' the power and ubiquity both of social media + current and upcoming platforms could cut the ROI and need of most older reach tactics for much cheaper and meneageable ones, top good thing happening right now how streamers and youtubers help with reach in a much more fair deal that benefits both. When that reaches a new high with its needed maturity it will in turn help crowdfunding- with this load off managing self-funding could and should become the go to method with publishers going as secondary options. We're already seeing 'not so indie' games crowdfunding (and stealing the show, another problem)- isn't far fetched to imagine increasing bigger titles... but the highest budget ones still seen too much for any believable scenario. But who knows- theres a lot of customer percepction and behaviour involved with the growth (or not) of crowdfunding.
And it became another big text, sorry for that. Is that of late a small enterpreneur bug bit me again around the subject, that kind of persistent idea that seens too good and tempting, if only it ocurred to me a few years back when i was swiming amongst encubators at university....
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As a gamer that doesn't really know for sure how the industry works I can't say for sure if they're indispensable or not.
As someone attempting to rationalize it tho I can guess that the economic stability a publisher gives to a studio is probably much greater than what you can get from crowdfunding campaings that purely depend on popularity, I imagine that just as some games wouldn't really happen if it wasn't thanks to kickstarter, patreon and the like there are other games that simply can't happen outside the infraestructure of a publisher. This however doesn't excuse said publishers to be dicks towards the players for the sake of profit, they're supposed to make us want to give them money not begrudgingly pay for entertaiment like if we were paying a ransom.
It's probably in our best interest as gamers for this industry to be as wide and diverse in it's funding options as possible if we want it to remain outputting a varied selection of games for us to play.
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I don't know much, honestly, but in my opinion...
Publishers have:
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There are some very good games that didn't need a publisher to become incredible, and there are some very good games that would never have been made without funding from publishers.
Basically, it just comes down to the developer. Eliminating publishers would require every dev to also become a PR expert, or hire one, or risk becoming Phil Fish. I really like Fez, I think it's a fantastic game, but you can't talk about it without the meltdowns and tantrums coming up. If the game had a publisher, he could have stuck to the parts of making a game that he actually enjoys
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Setting aside the fact that Rockstar is owned by by Take Two in this case Take Two are the distributor and not the publisher.So it's not the publisher taking action against the mods at all. However Rockstar being owned by Take Two is also why they can't just turn to Kickstarter and self publish. Members of the development team could leave Rockstar, form a new studio and then kickstart a game but would just "formerly worked at Rockstar" provide them enough recognition for success?
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Well, most of you have already heard about the most recent incident with a publisher taking acting towards a certain modding tool which ignited an outcry among the gaming community, one more incident in the long list of stuff that had gamers "grab the pitchforks and march to burn the witch"! There's already a few threads about that specific incident around so I won't bore you with that as well.
What I did notice though is how fast people tried to separate developer and publisher. Which made me honestly question the purpose of Publishers nowadays. What is it that a Publisher offers in the day of Kickstarter, digital distribution and social media?
Games can be funded directly by the community through Kickstarter, Patreon and other similar sites.
Many products do not even offer physical copies anymore, and as years go by physical copies start becoming collector's items more and more.
Advertising is also more open to everyone now, especially with social media around, although I'll give this one to the Publishers, they certainly have the means to do a better job about it.
I'm no expert on the matter, hell, I barely even have any knowledge of the inside works of it, but isn't the existence of publishers obsolete and the only reason they're around, regardless of how weird it sounds, is exactly because they're around? Because they were here at a time they were needed, a time the manufacturing and access to these products was not as easy as it is now, they built the means to reach further than a developer can on their own and established a brand name. So now creative studios sign with them in order for their products to be heavily marketed and have a better chance out there because the competition is brutal. So what is it that a publisher nowadays provides that a marketing agency doesn't? What keeps them in business besides the fact that other publishing companies exist so if you wanna compete with someone using a publishing company you need one yourself?
What are your thoughts on this matter? Information/opinions from people that have/do work in that industry extra appreciated!
/0xvJE/
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