The company experienced problems winning third-party support for some of its game consoles until the Wii launched and became a massive hit in In the meantime, some major publishers established adversarial relationships with their developers, with stories of poor working conditions and exerting excessive creative control later surfacing.
Fast forward two decades and the game industry has seen a multitude of shake-ups. Digital distribution through online portals such as Steam and the iTunes App Store have lowered or outright obliterated the barrier for developers of all sizes to self-publish their games, to drastically varying degrees of success and sustainability.
Crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter and Fig have brought in millions of dollars for numerous developers. However, the relative ease of self-publishing led to incredibly crowded PC and mobile game markets.
It soon became clear that developers and publishers needed each other after all. Developers benefited from the marketing expertise and financial backing of a publisher.
Meanwhile, publishers expand their portfolio of titles by partnering with or acquiring independent game developers. Or, sometimes two companies may simply bring greater success to each other.
One of the most famous deals came in , when Activision acquired World of Warcraft creator Blizzard Entertainment by merging with its then parent company, Vivendi Games. More recently, Microsoft announced it had acquired several notable independent studios , including Double Fine, inXile, and Obsidian, greatly expanding its first-party development efforts.
For example, Electronic Arts has a reputation for shuttering beloved studios after acquiring them. Features Convergence of Advertising and Gaming. Announcements Interview: How to participate in the next evolution of sports. More in Features. How do Esports teams make money? The emerging business explained. Spectra: Esports attracts non-gaming brand sponsorship.
Tech startup is unlocking esports potential through neuroscience. Follow us. Developers tweak until the game is perfected. They commission art, proofread, and play-test. Sometimes they even order samples and liaise with reviewers. Publishers share the game with the world.
They take the completed game created by designers and developers, and run as far as they can with it. They raise funds, market the game, and if everything goes according to plan, manufacture and fulfill it. Designers can develop, publishers can develop, designers can publish, publishers can design, developers can design, and developers can publish.
What does this look like in practice? As you can see, publishers typically handle the majority of tasks associated with creating a game. This is because publishers act as organizations which have the resources to coordinate a lot of different tasks simultaneously. This means they will typically have some kind of internal development team.
In this case the game is developed and published by the same company, however, the developer part will often keep their original name, as with BioWare or be distinguishable by a sub title of some kind like EA Los Angeles. The publisher will often provide a team of games testers for the final stage of development but sometimes this is outsourced to a third party. The same goes for localization. If developers are lucky enough they can find private funding for their games or use profits from a previous project to fund a new one.
If they sign up to a traditional publisher contract with monthly milestones then they have to jump through hoops with that publisher and often the hoops have little to do with making a good game. Despite the fact publishers lack the expertise to develop games they often allow marketing people and middle managers to interfere with the design and demand changes. They expect developers to shoulder a huge burden and because they hold the purse strings they can be as demanding and difficult as they like.
Most developers will be able to tell you some story about a ludicrous demand they received from a publisher. The bottom line is profit for publishers whereas for many developers all they care about is creating a great game.
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