

Game Publishers Are Obsolete – So Why Haven’t Developers Ditched Them Yet? - EddieRingle
http://www.lockergnome.com/media/2012/03/30/game-publishers-are-obsolete-so-why-havent-developers-ditched-them-yet/

======
hythloday
In working for both first-party (EA/Sony etc.) development studios and third-
party (Kuju/Argonaut etc.) ones, I've noticed the following functions that
publishers fulfil. I've mainly worked on AAA titles, with a smattering of
MMOs, so this doesn't necessarily apply to other segments - specifically, I'd
expect indie games to work very differently.

This is doubtless an incomplete list.

1\. Money. I've put this first for obvious reasons, but as the article alludes
to, the industry cycle itself is incredibly unsteady (I can look up the exact
figures, but I recall that something like 50% of yearly sales of boxed games
are done within one month around Christmas), alongside the studio financial
model being obviously unsteady (work for 3-5 years to release a game that
generates 90%+ of its lifetime revenue in 2 months). When you look at it like
this, publishers look like the subservient ones: a studio that produces a flop
often has another title in development with another publisher, and just misses
out on royalties; a publisher that has a string of flops goes bankrupt. If
this relationship didn't exist, AAA studios would be less likely to stick
together (as the failure of even one game would disperse the team) - that
means no Blizzard, no id, no Bethesda, no Rare, no Lionhead, no Bioware -
essentially any studio who have ever pushed back a game, or released a market
failure or a slow-burner would probably be out of business.

2\. Platform-holder pressure. Sony, MSFT, Nintendo have (no so much now)
incredibly strict rules about what games can do on their platforms, ranging
from "no printf() calls" to "no GUI elements within 12 pixels of the edge of
the screen" to "your game is not allowed to crash after being played for 48
hours straight". As a developer going straight to platform, you have zero
leverage with the platform-owner (remember, they know that if your game flops
you're gone as a company). Going through a publisher, well, far be it from me
to imply that any underhand tactics, such as threatening to delay other titles
so they don't coincide nicely with the platform-holder's plans, might occur.

3\. Boring stuff. Games need hosting, translation, websites, promoting the
game to retailers (which is a more adversarial process than you might expect),
supply chain logistics, getting the game rated, getting manuals written,
dealing with returns from physical shops, collector's editions, merchandise,
blah blah blah...after a decade of work in the industry, I'm aware that my
knowledge here barely scratches the surface of what's required to put out an
AAA game once the code is signed off and the assets finished. This is
_doubtless_ the easiest function of publishers to replace, but no-one except
publishers offers this service at the moment, and any studio who deliberately
goes without this is shooting themselves in the head.

4\. Quality. This doesn't always work well, but a publisher is often the first
party to see the game outside the studio, so they have the best information to
predict the state of the art when your game launches. Advice like "those
shaders aren't good enough" is never easy to hear, but it's always better than
releasing a game that is panned for dated graphics.

5\. Media relations. This doesn't get talked about much...but publishers are
the ones with all the power over both paper magazines (exclusives, pre-reviews
etc.) and online games sites. In return for access to games before the release
date, there's usually a subtle or not-so-subtle pressure to give the games a
positive review. (This is why games that are given an average of 8/10 being
regarded as a flop.) Media outlets that don't follow this protocol are simply
frozen out of the pre-review process. I don't think this is a good thing for
the industry, but in the same way as point 3 above, any developer who forgoes
this process is putting themselves at a disadvantage relative to other
development studios following a more traditional model.

~~~
mynameishere
You seem to know what you're talking about, so can I ask a very simple
question: Why do people use consoles? I don't get it. Computers are better in
every way [1], plus you don't have corporations limiting access.

[1] The ways:

    
    
      1. Mice/Keyboard vs. Clumsy controllers.
      2. Superior hardware.
      3. You already have one, so no new purchases needed.
      4. A vastly greater array of games to choose from.
      5. Almost always cheaper games.

~~~
groby_b
Speaking as both an avid gamer and an (ex) game dev:

Because consoles are _easy_. You plop them into your entertainment center, and
you're done. No need to maintain the latest security patches, find _just_ the
right combo of drivers to make it work, etc. Not to mention the wonderful "buy
yet another graphics card, please - your previous one you bought 6 months ago
is too slow".

They also take less space than PCs. "Clumsy controllers" are easy to set up.
Keyboard and mouse really require some dedicated space. (Yes, you could pull
them out when you need them. It's annoying as heck)

From the developers point of view: The game looks and feels the same for every
single player out there. I don't need to worry about dozens of graphics
fallback paths depending on what hardware you use.

So, for everybody involved in the game development cycle, they're more
convenient. All your points still hold, but they don't matter in the face of
convenience. Not for the average person, at least.

------
eggbrain
The article seemed fairly naive -- the reason why more developers haven't
ditched publishers is the same reason why everyone working at BigCorp doesn't
quit their job and do a startup -- I mean, Mark Zuckerberg did a startup, and
he's a billionaire!

The reason they don't is a mixture of financial obligations (children, wife,
etc), risk management (failure rate is high, career advancement goes out the
window at your current job, lots of money invested with no guarantee of
return, etc), size of challenge problem (publishers have everything already in
place vs you having to do it all yourself), and having the personality for it,
among other things.

We can look at examples like Mojang and see huge successes, but it's a self
selection process -- we almost always only hear about the successful indie
companies, not the ones that tried to get the word out and got nowhere and
failed.

Finally, the authors final suggestion of organizing a boycott or a movement
seems right in line with "online petitions" and "If this baby gets 1000 likes
he will get his cancer treatment". The most effective way to fight Publishers
who treat their developers like crap is to vote with your wallet -- a trait
that many gamers seem unwilling to do (See: Modern Warfare 2 boycott, Mass
Effect 3 boycott, etc).

~~~
plasticsyntax
I mostly agree with you, but I need to be a bit pedantic and point out that a
boycott _is_ voting with your wallet. It's better, actually, because you vote
with your wallet and tell the publisher that you did and you encourage others
to follow suit. This way publishers can't just blame something else for the
lack of sales for Generic 3d Shooter: Curbstomp Edition.

~~~
eggbrain
Well, there's a difference between participating in a boycott and
"participating" in a boycott -- the first is voting with your wallet to not
buy X (and telling the publisher publicly that you aren't), and the other is
yelling and screaming that you aren't going to buy it, then ending up buying
it anyways (see the MW2 Boycott Group who ended up having egg on their face:
<http://nerdnirvana.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/abXW9.png>)

After participating in a few boycotts myself (and following through on what I
said I would do, not just grandstanding), only to see companies continue to
make record profits, its hard not to feel like you are fighting against the
tide coming in.

------
zabuni
This article is naive.

First, most of the games they discuss that cost 40-60 bucks, the CoDs of the
world, require enough capital outlay to deter any small band of developers.
You need money for art assets, voice acting, advertising, sound design etc.
etc. You can get by with the just a couple of developers on laptops, but you
have to scale back your ambitions (see Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Spiderweb
Software).

The biggest pot of money is on consoles, even with the recent trend towards PC
gaming that happens at the nadir of a console generation. You have to be a big
boy (at least moderately big) to be on those.

Large publishers can, and do, use Steam just as much as the little guy. And
can afford an advertising budget.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some steam. I love 2d shooters, and there never
has been a better time for playing them. But pay-per-view didn't lead to the
death of big budget movies, and this won't lead to the death of larger games.

~~~
angersock
There's no excuse for not being able to make a game of at least Counterstrike
quality anymore.

Our tools have come so far, and our computers have become so cheap, that the
barrier to entry to making a solid, fun, good-looking game is removed. Gone.
Poof!

All you need to do is be willing to learn and stubborn enough to execute, and
you'll make it.

And you know what else?

We need this. We need hordes of little velociraptor indies to outbreed and
outsell publishers. We need the bloated megacorp AbstractGameFactorys to die.
We need to free up the IP, we need to encourage genuine risk-taking and
technological progress, and we need to do our damnedest to kill off these
fuckers before they irrecoverably damage the market and the gamers.

~~~
groby_b
The art assets for CS:S alone are quite a chunk of money to produce. Sure, we
have great tools, and computers are cheap - but the artists working on assets
aren't. And the number of assets, plus the work that goes into it, is
_insane_.

As for the "all you need part" - I've friends who've gone indie, and it's a
_very_ painful route, with far from guaranteed success. Have you actually
tried it?

~~~
angersock
So, notice that I said Counterstrike (the original Half-Life mod), not CS:S--
mostly made by two dudes at the start.

Note also that we need to solve the art asset production problem--look at
sites like cgtextures or similar for stabs at this. Look at procedural content
and better tools like Unity. Those are some examples of how we can make assets
cheaper and artists' lives easier.

As for trying to be an indie... job in progress (check my profile).

~~~
groby_b
Even those two dudes took about two years. And they had support from Valve
from Beta4 on.

As for cgtextures, it's a useless site for a high-polish game - the textures
are inconsistent in style and quality. (And that's what causes the real cost,
polish). Believe me, I've looked at procedural content for a long time, and
it's still a far cry from ready.

What we _might_ see fairly soon is human-assisted procedural content,
especially for all those areas of the game that are just there for ambience,
not for actual gameplay. Even then, it's a large amount.

But then again, you'll find out all that for yourself :) (Good luck with that
venture!)

~~~
angersock
(Thanks! We're banking pretty heavily on assisted procedural content!)

I'm genuinely curious how much "polish" is actually needed and required by
gamers.

My theory is that publishers have push the market to the point where games are
very similar (not a bad thing in and of itself, but not inaccurate either) and
so the differentiating factor for driving sales and advertising is visuals.
That being the case, the increasingly far end of the tail of visual fidelity
is being mined heavily, and "polish" is getting more and more and more
expensive.

So, I think that you can get by on pretty solid gameplay and alright polish
without needing to get a publisher to fund you--after all, it was their
business model that made it so expensive to start with.

Does that seem like a reasonable conclusion?

~~~
groby_b
It's a possible conclusion. I wouldn't bet on it. Pretty much everywhere, the
only two things that get eyeballs in significant amounts are novelty or
polish. I mean, look at FB games - the company that's taking the market is
rather unoriginal, but polishes the heck out of every game they ship.

They just found a way of doing that that is less asset intensive than "visual
fidelity".

If you've found another way to make that work, you're set. But you pretty much
by definition need to make an entirely different kind of game.

------
jblow
Why is this on HN? The author of this article does not know anything about the
game industry.

The reason most developers of $60 games sign with publishers is because they
do not have the money to develop games of that size themselves.

Whether it is a good idea for them to be doing this is really a different
question (and it is complex to answer).

~~~
waterlesscloud
What do games cost to produce these days? Obviously it's quite a range, but
what are some benchmarks?

What does a low-end iphone game cost to develop? Angry Birds? What would a
Modern Warfare clone cost? World of Warcraft?

I have no clue what the cost neighborhoods even are for any of those things...

~~~
forrestthewoods
High end Modern Warfare is on the order of 100 million which includes 30 to 40
million in marketing. You're looking at least 40 million in just game
development costs for high quality AAA titles.

Smaller $15 downloadable titles of high quality vary but are on the order of
3-5 million. Tim Schafer was recently quoted as saying a proper Psychonauts
sequel would cost $20 million which sounds about right.

Mobile games are a bit of a wild card. High end iOS games can easily break a
couple of million dollars. Other mobile games can also be done with a 2 man
team living off ramen. The minimum entry fee however is rising every day.

------
citricsquid
> So there’s the trade off, I suppose. Stick with a publisher and gain
> assurance that your game will see some income for a few days, or go it alone
> in the hopes that gamers will see your show of faith of publishing
> independently and buying your game as thanks. Minecraft creator Mojang did
> this, and it’s earned millions and millions of dollars since the game’s
> initial release.

Not _really_. Notch built the game alone and went it alone until there was
success. Mojang (as a company, publisher and studio) evolved _from_ Minecraft
so you can't use them as any example of anything. The only thing they prove is
that if your game is good enough and has enough buzz you don't _need_ a
publisher, but doesn't everyone know that already?

------
verganileonardo
Publishers are "content curators", they assure the gamer/buyer that the games
for sale are high-quality.

If you flood the market with lots of indie games (with a high ratio of low
quality games), review websites will become stronger and more relevant in the
industry and assume the role of content curators.

Today, review websites are already powerful. If publishers 'left' the game
industry, their influence would be transferred to review sites and indie
developers will be in the same position that they are today.

------
seanalltogether
I don't think we'll see publishers go away, I think we'll just see the terms
of the contract be a bit more favorable toward game
studios/musicians/writers/etc. There's always going to be a need for
investment money to bring new ideas to market, and getting loans will be much
easier from a publisher that understands the business vs a bank.

