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GDC - The Importance of Self-Publishing
Eric Zimmerman, head of the Gamelab development project, has announced on the eve of the Game Developer's Conference that they're moving to a self-published format. From the article: "I think we have something else to offer ... and we've decided that it's hard finding partners that share this kind of vision and that want to take the risks that we're talking about to really create new sorts of games. And additionally we're working in a field right now of online games with a downloadable distribution model, which means that we can self-publish. It's relatively straightforward for a small company to publish."
well, it seems to be working pretty well for valve. best of lucks guys!
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
What good is self-publishing when EA will just buy you in a couple years if you get big/good enough?
The promise of the internet is that we all become publishers (if we choose)...from news, blogs, games, music, and movies....this is the "New Economy". The "Old Economy" is dominated by the gatekeepers, the middlemen--the ones that own the means of distribution, starting with railroads.
Let freedom ring!
"You have the option of insanity. I do not. And that makes me crazy!" - Brian to Angela, My So-Called Life
Go public, rake in every kind of startup money, shell out some mainstream games and wait for the buy out. Sell them the brand and head off with the dough.
Then take the buy out money and go for #1. And THEN start to make the games you like!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For the last over a decade, my company has done quite well for itself self-publishing our role-playing games. (Spiderweb Software, http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ If you can pull it off, it's a great way to make a living. With electronic distribution and a huge profit margin, you don't have to sell too too many copies of your game to buy a house.
The problem is getting off the ground. Once you write your great game (oh, and it does have to be great), you have to get that first group of people to notice you. Then, hopefully, this core group will turn, through word-of-mouth, into an actual audience.
Once that very difficult thing is accomplished, you, like me, can live your basement-dwelling dream life.
Best of luck to Gamelab!
- Jeff Vogel
Spiderweb Software
Fantasy RPGs for Mac and Windows.
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com
When the article mentioned self-publishing, it doesn't mean go self-publish here on Slashdot. Unless it's a book review.
Self Publishing isn't always easy, but Garage Games seems to have hit upon a good balance. They release game engines as a sandbox for developers, let them create great games, and then help the developers distribute the game. Some of the top developers are showing up on Xbox Live, and before that were quite successive. (Marble Blast, Dark Horizons: Lore, Tube Twist, Orbz are a few)
We almost had a major publisher for A Tale in the Desert. They projected around 30,000 subscribers. Now, 3 years after release, the actual amount of money we put in our pockets each month is just a bit less with ~1300 subscribers than we would have made with a large publisher at 30,000.
;)
And, no bureaucracy, no suits second-guessing me, and I can try any crazy thing in the game that I want. My advice: If you can self-publish, do it. If you can't, find a way that you can
"As for Valve, steam would be great if it were open source, cross platform, and DRM free....it's a shame no one's came up with an alternative yet..."
It's called P2P. Copyright holders just love it.
wow u r fat
It's worked well for Valve, and don't forget all the horrible things you hear about Publishers. Rushing the unfinished game, Stuff like that whole StarForce fiasco to "Protect their investment", etc. It'd be stupid to say Publishers are all Evil, but I think that Self-Publishing is a very working model.
At Mekensleepwe're thinking exactly the same way. We wanted to work on persistent, social, online games. And we wanted to release it all as Free Software. Unsurprisingly, publishers were not in a hurry to follow us there (not that I cared) and, from my previous experience, I had learned about the dangers of vulture capital.
So we decided that working on a small scale product was the way to go. With a little luck, it will provide a sustainable stream of revenues and at a minimum, it got us further along on the technological side of things.
So far, things are looking good.
Indeed, the futur looks rosy for independent, self published, developpers. If the Korean and Chinese markets are any indication, there will be some massive successes. And for the less successful - those who won't have enough pull to attract players by themselves - online distribution structures like Manifesto Games will help. Also in-game advertising seems about to become a big trend, at least for a certain type of games. I'm not saying it's a good (or bad) thing for gaming, only that smart indy developpers will take advantage of it.
To sum it up, if you can afford it and you know were you're going, I highly recommend self-publishing.
`It's an extreme sport.
OK first of all, there's a little bit of naivety going on here. Finding independant investors to fund a game's developement does NOT necessarily mean more creative freedom. Any smart investor will want facts and figures to back up any claims on potential ROI (return on investment). That means, ultimately, unproven concepts will be a hard sell unless you're a REALLY, really good salesman (or con artist!).
That means that generally, the game ideas that will get most investment will still be "proven" genres. As always risk is risk. Doesn't matter who the money is coming from, risk is always a deciding factor when large sums of money are involved.
It's easier to sell someone on "the next Bejeweled" than with "it's not like any other game ever made".