next »

[Richard Kain]

We Need Better Publishers: A Kotaku Article

Ran across this article on Kotaku, and I was struck by some of the thoughts it presented.

I found one theory particularly thought-provoking. In many ways, it could be said that the current state of the video game industry is due to the actions of Sony. The first two Playstations did a lot to expand and stabilize the game industry into a big business focused on home console development. The failings and mistakes of the third Playstation opened the door for competition to fragment the industry into a much more even race. And as the article points out, the environment that the first two Playstations helped to shape the current Mega-Publisher model, and is responsible for a lot of the current failings therein.

While a lot of mistakes in the industry get pinned on developers, you also always hear that no developer tries to make bad games. There shouldn't be any question at this point that the development side of the industry has no lack of talent, motivation, enthusiasm, or work ethic. The vast majority of game developers love what they do and work very hard at it.

It makes sense that a lot of the problems plaguing the current industry would stem from the publishers. Developers could also benefit from better management, but publishers are the ones actually pulling the strings. When you look at it this way, it makes a lot more sense why companies like Valve seem to thrive, while other developers fail miserably. Perhaps its time for a new publishing house. One that is willing to trust its developers over its marketing department.

[petertos]

Everything you say, and the article you mention, is very interesting, aside from the fact that I didn't know Kotaku website and looks so well...

Publishers don't have the same power they had years ago. Today, no child cares about Xbox or PS. They want to own the iPad. So what's going on on the app stores is what matters today.

In the music field, in which the switch to the new model is almost complete, my younger brother (who is not that young, he's 28) doesn't listen to artists who have a deal with a major record label at all. Every artist he listens to is independent in terms of publishing. This is what is going to happen soon in the rest of culture fields, including videogaming and TV/Film. No artist is gonna be willing to join a big label, because with the low earnings there are today, big labels take all and leave a small tiny percentage for the artist. They used to control everything. But it's not the trend now.

Just to point out that Radiohead frontman advised young artists not to sign with a major label, and guess what, they are following his advice.

Old publishing models are gonna die sooner or later so the fastest you get away from those jurassic structures the better you'll do. This could sound apocalyptic but hey, I didn't say it first, it was Radiohead frontman!

[gimblll]

Personally, the whole article comes across to me as very naive. His only argument is pretty much "but they are so stoooopid". Sounds more like a pissed off employee that was just made redundant than someone who knows the industry inside out.

[bluescrn]

Consoles are dying and with that, publishers, in a traditional sense, are increasingly irrelevant.

We're in a digital world, and the barriers to creating a game are lower than ever, and cost of distributing a game is lower than ever.

The new problem that we face is the rise of the all-powerful platform holder/curator, creating much more artificial, arbitrary, and unpredictable barriers to entry.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that article doesn't seem cohesive, it's just a long list of things that can go wrong with publishing. i don't think it has much of a point except to complain about a (real) problem

i don't think it's possible to have significantly better publishers than exist right now. a better solution is less reliance on publishers, and more self-publishing

but i don't really buy that the bad quality of most AAA games is due to publishers keeping developers down. to some degree that's true, but does anyone really believe that if developers were left to make whatever they wanted to make, that their games would always be good? that's nonsense. making games is very difficult. even indies, who have no publisher pressure, are free to work on whatever they want for however long they want, can (and often do) make bad games. and they don't intend to make bad games either. so i'd expect at least half of the blame of how bad a typical bad AAA game is was due to its developers, not its publishers

[Richard Kain]

Valid points, to be sure.

It's true that the article is more of a rant, and doesn't actually offer much in the way of solutions to the problem it presents. At the same time, I can easily think of a few off the top of my head, so I think the point of the article was just to highlight the problem, and describe how it has come to be.

And while I agree that publishers are becoming less relevant, I don't think they are irrelevant, and that there is still a fairly large need for them in the industry. "AAA" game development still requires an obscenity of venture capital in order to carry out. And with the economy still being in the state its in, venture capitalists aren't as eager to invest in individual developers. (with how risky big-budget game development is these days, I can't blame them) So having mid-to-large publishers is still necessary for big-budget development projects.

@Paul Eres:
I don't agree that its impossible to get better publishers than the ones we currently have. I think the article's author is right that a lot of current publishers are entrenched in an approach to game publishing that is antiquated. I think there's a real opportunity for a new game publisher with a better understanding of development and developer relations to step up and really change how the industry runs.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think any such changes due to better publishers would be temporary, until they forget their original purpose. for example, some of you may know the story behind electronic arts (EA). it's somewhat instructive here

the reason it's called that is because they believed games were an art and wanted to give more recognition to developers. EA pioneered giving developers credit for their games, previous to EA the 'credits' screen wasn't standard in games. EA also pioneered giving developers royalties. for a while it worked, developers were happy, and EA grew. it then basically became exactly what it was rebelling against

activision was a similar thing. activision was composed of ex-atari employees who were disgruntled and left atari to make games on their own. was the first major third party developer; atari sued them, saying they can't make games for the atari 2600, but activision won. but eventually activision became even worse than atari ever was!

for this reason, i don't think it's possible to improve things long term. even if a new publisher or several pop up that are better, they'll revert to the old ways within a decade or so, after they get big, just like EA and activision did. i think anyone who knows the history of those companies can't help but realize how cyclical any new solution would be

[Richard Kain]

for this reason, i don't think it's possible to improve things long term. even if a new publisher or several pop up that are better, they'll revert to the old ways within a decade or so, after they get big, just like EA and activision did. i think anyone who knows the history of those companies can't help but realize how cyclical any new solution would be

Fair enough. It's true that both Activision and EA started off with far nobler intentions, and eventually failed at adhering to those ideals.

But you're forgetting that this happened over the course of three decades. Both of those publishers started off in the early days of the game industry. And the game industry has changed drastically over the course of its brief history. Most of the founders of Activision and EA were developers themselves, and most of them no longer work at those companies. (and haven't held real power there for quite some time)

The transition of game publishers to their current form was a partial consequence of console gaming becoming big business through the Playstation brand while PC development dwindled. And with this transition came an influx of businessmen eager to ride the gaming boom, but with no real understanding of how to manage a game business properly. While everything was sunshine and flowers in terms of profit margins with the PS1 and PS2, they could get by without any real understanding. But with the hardware fragmentation, greatly increased development costs, and drastically increased competition of the most recent console cycle, the flaws in publisher management have been thrown into sharp relief.

The fact of the matter is, NO ONE has ever really refined the management of game publishers. The closest anyone has come has probably been Valve. (who are in the process of dominating PC game publishing) Valve is a prime example of a well-managed game publisher, and the results speak for themselves. And they haven't even bothered to branch out into the wholesale studio-purchasing practices that Activision and EA are known for.

The current average career duration of an individual game developer in the AAA industry is five years. The big publishers don't care, or even want long-term developers. That means there is currently a glut of highly experienced, capable game developers either in the indie gaming scene, or transitioned into other industries. And that means that an ambitious start-up publisher has the opportunity now to put together a small handful of core development studios staffed with some of the best of the best. Throw in contracts with other studio looking to get out from under the restrictions of Activision and EA, and you have a real upheaval on your hands.

The opportunity is there now. The time will probably never be better to pull the rug out from the current industry leaders. It's just a question of when, and who will do the yanking.