I still don't get why game developers feel like they need publishers in this day and age of ubiquitous Internet connections and BitTorrent file distribution
Developers wouldn't use publishers if it didn't cost so much to make a game. A typical AAA title coming out in the next couple years will have a budget of anywhere from $5million to as much as $20million or more. No small independent developer has that kind of cash sitting around. Typically, all the money a developer gets from their previous titles is spent making those titles; 99% of developers never see any royalties.
Because retail is still king Hence developers need publishers.
Actually, you don't need a publisher to get your games on the shelves at retail, you just need a distributor. Of course, most publishers are also distributors.
[Disclaimer: I work for Irrational Games, but the statements above represent my own opinions and do not in any way represent the opinions of Irrational Games or its constituents]
Well, as a graduate of both Cornell and MIT, I have to say that one of the few things I learned was that Computer Science has nothing to do with Java, C#, Microsoft, or Unix terminals. It's about formal thinking and mathematics.
Of course Microsoft is trying to get their products to be used in universities; that's smart business. And it's not surprising that universities accept these donations. They want their students to be exposed to modern hardware and software that they'll encounter when they apply their C.S. skills after graduation, and they want to save money.
That doesn't mean that MIT and Cornell are "Microsoft shops", and it does not imply that their graduates are somehow hamstrung by the particular OS upon which they wrote up their homework assignments. Any C.S. student worth his salt will pick the best algorithm, language, OS, and hardware for the job.
I believe you are referring to the Omniscient Debugger:
"A software tool written with Java[TM] technology allows developers to step backwards through the execution of a program to determine where and how programming errors occurred. By recording each state change in the target application, it allows the developer to navigate "backwards in time" to see what the values of variables and objects WERE, enormously simplifying the task of debugging programs. "
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I still don't get why game developers feel like they need publishers in this day and age of ubiquitous Internet connections and BitTorrent file distribution
Developers wouldn't use publishers if it didn't cost so much to make a game. A typical AAA title coming out in the next couple years will have a budget of anywhere from $5million to as much as $20million or more. No small independent developer has that kind of cash sitting around. Typically, all the money a developer gets from their previous titles is spent making those titles; 99% of developers never see any royalties.
Because retail is still king Hence developers need publishers.
Actually, you don't need a publisher to get your games on the shelves at retail, you just need a distributor. Of course, most publishers are also distributors.
For Freedom Force versus The Third Reich, we funded the development ourselves, and are self-publishing online, and are using VUG only for distribution onto retail shelves.
[Disclaimer: I work for Irrational Games, but the statements above represent my own opinions and do not in any way represent the opinions of Irrational Games or its constituents]
Well, as a graduate of both Cornell and MIT, I have to say that one of the few things I learned was that Computer Science has nothing to do with Java, C#, Microsoft, or Unix terminals. It's about formal thinking and mathematics.
Of course Microsoft is trying to get their products to be used in universities; that's smart business. And it's not surprising that universities accept these donations. They want their students to be exposed to modern hardware and software that they'll encounter when they apply their C.S. skills after graduation, and they want to save money.
That doesn't mean that MIT and Cornell are "Microsoft shops", and it does not imply that their graduates are somehow hamstrung by the particular OS upon which they wrote up their homework assignments. Any C.S. student worth his salt will pick the best algorithm, language, OS, and hardware for the job.
I believe you are referring to the Omniscient Debugger: "A software tool written with Java[TM] technology allows developers to step backwards through the execution of a program to determine where and how programming errors occurred. By recording each state change in the target application, it allows the developer to navigate "backwards in time" to see what the values of variables and objects WERE, enormously simplifying the task of debugging programs. "