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Are Game Publishers a Necessary Evil, Or Just Necessary?
An editorial at GameSetWatch examines whether game publishers really deserve all the flak they get from gamers and developers alike. While some questionable decisions can certainly be laid at their feet, they're also responsible for making a lot of good game projects happen. Quoting:
"The trouble comes when the money and the creativity appear to be at odds. ... Developers and publishers often have a curious relationship. The best analogy I can think of is that of parent and child. The publisher or parent thinks it knows best, because it's been there before (shipped more games), and because 'it's my money, so you'll live by my rules.' The developer — or child — is rebellious, and thinks it has all the answers. In many ways, it does know more than the parent, and is closer to what's innovative, but maybe hasn't figured out how to hone that energy yet."
Useful but not necessary. Their alignment would appear to be chaotic/neutral. Rolling aggainst DEX for an FP...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Book publishers edit, ship, manage the printing of, and distribute books. They also balance the riskiness of publishing each individual book across their portfolio of books. In the same way, movie studios are good at financing and distribution, but a big part of what they do is invest in multiple pictures, so that even if one movie bombs there are always others.
Something -- regardless of what it's called -- has to be able to hold a portfolio of games. To make informed investments, that entity is probably going to have to understand the industry. That knowledge is likely to be valuable and applicable high-level marketing and strategy decisions, and *rightly or wrongly* the investment will only be made if that knowledge can be applied, or if the investor has some power of the developers.
Workers in other very capital-intensive creative industries -- film and television, for example -- tend to be stratified into two economic classes. People in the upper classes eventually get money and are then able to call the shots. There's no reason why the same thing can't happen in gaming. But money will, for the most part, determine who has the power.
Yeah. The only other things a publisher can do is get shelf space in high street stores, advertising space in computer magazines, mentions in the mainstream press, show at E3 and fund development for a year, as well as hire professional web designers who know about promotion and page layout to sort out the website.
My sister in law is a sculpter, believe me she knows all about deadlines. Most of her work is commissioned by either wealthy people or companies like hotels. It takes a while to make a large sculpture but they definitely want it on time.