Publishers And Developing Without Them
Necro
<insert non-birthday-related title here> Join Date: 2002-08-09 Member: 1118Members
<insert non-birthday-related title here> Join Date: 2002-08-09 Member: 1118Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">the beneits and drawbacks..</div> First let's look at some games which have been or will be self published:
Half-Life 2
Uplink
One Must Fall: Battlegrounds
now let's look at the benefits:
<b>1.</b> Not released too early just because the publishers feel they might make extra profits
<b>2.</b> Not cancelled because the publisher doesn't think it will make them sufficient money (eg. Interplay)
<b>3.</b> Support not cut before it's completely done (all major and most minor bugs gone same with exploits)
So in conclusion a publisher decides when to release, how much support to give the game and community and if it's worth continuing development. The only drawback to not having a publisher is most new companies don't have the money to pay everyone to make a game - so they need a publisher to do that and remember if there's a publisher that means less money for the actual developers.
Worst publishers to date: Interplay, EA
Half-Life 2
Uplink
One Must Fall: Battlegrounds
now let's look at the benefits:
<b>1.</b> Not released too early just because the publishers feel they might make extra profits
<b>2.</b> Not cancelled because the publisher doesn't think it will make them sufficient money (eg. Interplay)
<b>3.</b> Support not cut before it's completely done (all major and most minor bugs gone same with exploits)
So in conclusion a publisher decides when to release, how much support to give the game and community and if it's worth continuing development. The only drawback to not having a publisher is most new companies don't have the money to pay everyone to make a game - so they need a publisher to do that and remember if there's a publisher that means less money for the actual developers.
Worst publishers to date: Interplay, EA
Comments
Not everybody should just burn their bras & publishing agreements, as there's just as many disadvantages as there are advantages...
1. The vast majority of game development companies don't have the required millions of dollars in funds to develop a game.
2. Quality may be lower as most developers tend not to have the resources to completely test their product on their own.
3. No publisher usually means no PR, which leads to no shelf space and nobody buying the game as they don't even know it exists. Also the benefit of a common brand/association ("hey, Activision gave us Pitfall! If Activision published this, it must be good." is lost.
So yeah, publishers can be good too. Whether you like it or not, its just a fact of life that they're required for almost all game developers (and in other areas too such as books and movies)...