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."

Comments

Re:Duh Duh Duh...Another One Buys the Dust

[Nataku564]

Two possibilities to avoid buyout.

#1 : Dont go public. This does deprive you of initial startup money, but leaves you free to do whatever you want.

#2 : Go public, but dont relinquish the majority of shares. You lose some initial revenue, but you are safe from buyout.

I prefer 1, personally.

Thi is the promise of the internet

[ChenLing]

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!

Re:Thi is the promise of the internet

[Metaphorically]

The bitter truth may be that there's growing restrictions by huge companies learning that they can squeeze a few more bucks out of all the participants, but that's not a good excuse to sit back and do nothing. If you have a dream of making a game, have a dream of publishing yourself or have a dream of spreading your maniac manifesto, the best time was four years ago. The second best time is today. Last time I checked you can still set up a site with shared hosting for less than 10 bucks a month and put up a pretty wide range of whatever the hell you want with little or no hassle.

If you want to publish games and the web is your medium then there's plenty of time before that door slams shut. Get off your ass and get to work. That's what I'm going to do when I'm done complaining here. You need some help getting started? My vehicle is SVG and DHTML, there are lots of things you can build with free open source tools. Some quick examples: Freecell, Connect 4, and a simple templated puzzle example.

Another approach

[Opportunist]

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!

Re:Another approach

[ZephyrXero]

PS. Just to elaborate a little more on my idea. By restricting the copyrights like that, all a buyout would accomplish is the big company obtaining the name of your company pretty much, thus making a buyout unattractive and most likely, fairly unprofittable to anyone trying to bully you through your shares.

If "publishers" want to make money off the games you make, then they should invest in funding particular those particular games, not gobbling up your whole studio... Diversity in the game industry is dying out while the EA's and Microsoft's of the world are killing it with their boring in-bred sequels :(

Re:valve

[ZephyrXero]

Self-publishing really is the only way to go if you're an independent developer and you'd actually like to make a sizable percentage of the profits. Although I hate to use the term publish, as it has become so ambiguous in the game industry. The common perception of a "publisher" is the company who pays for the development and marketing of the game, as while the industry would be much better off if publishers just published, ie...print and distribute the physical media the games are stored on.

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...

Comments From Another Self-Published Pro

[spidweb]

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!

Well Garage Games is an example of a blending

[Rifter13]

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)

My two cents

[Teppy]

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 ;)

Re:My two cents

[Homestar Breadmaker]

In hindsight, do you think it might have been a good idea to add a game to atitd? I know alot more people would have subscribed if there was an actual game to play.