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this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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Anyone wanna tell me what publishers do and why anyone does business with them?
Afterwards, who wants to crowdfund a super generic 'just gets the job done' publishing company that touches nothing else?
They fund game development where the studio can't afford to, and advertising which makes the difference between being an overnight success, and disappearing onto page 37 of an app store where it will never be seen again.
Like, sure, you don't need them, but the big indie games who made it without them are the exception to the rule.
There's no rule. Those games that disappeared in your app store disappeared because they suck and went into an app store.
There are plenty of great games you will literally never hear about.
Oh well.
Right, "oh well" is all you can say about that. Which is why publishers are useful to many games.
I personally promoted a subreddit to 8.5m subscribers. If you can't do that with some kind of actual value in hand, you kinda suck. Stuff that's good will definitely make the rounds.
Sure. Because you were able to find success, that means everyone should also be able to do it, no matter how different their circumstances are (like the fact that a game genre may be more niche, or that you actually have to pay for games).
You seem like the type that unironically tells people to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
welllll... let's not bandy the word "success" around too much here.
He did say "subreddit", on Lemmy, for a start.
People talk about what's good, especially if you have good presentation skills.
because programmers are well known for their good people skills?
Yeah. They are.
๐
you genuinely made me chuckle. I don't know if you were trying to be funny, or are that insane/deluded, or what, but that was absurd enough to be funny.
You should be a programmer!
Nah, I'd never get to do the fun stuff. It'd be the same snippets of coffee strung together for the sake kinds of clients all the time.
you are not a clever man.
I sort of work in the industry so I feel like publishers are pretty important in getting your game out there. You, as a developer, want to focus your energies in making the best game possible. To make a game successful, there is a whole gamut of tasks which are necessary but are a pain to do such as finding a QA team, finding someone to do localisation, porting your game to other platforms if needed, marketing, and in a good bunch of cases providing funding.
The last part is where things get ugly. Because publishers are the ones who are giving you the money to complete your game, you are naturally beholden to the timelines and goals that they set. Good publishers listen to the developers because good games make good money. Then there are fucks like Sony management here and whoever was at embracer group who have never played a game in the last ten years and are in the position because of their MBA degree. There are a bunch of decent publishers out there like Devolver but naturally they are going to be picky with their titles. For the vast majority, going with whoever is going to give you the money and support is the way forward.
All of this will be done for free by fans of the game if it's a good game and there isn't a publisher to slap on DRM. Otherwise, how am I playing Seiken Densetsu 3?
I don't know if you meant it with a /s or not but I would like to point out the entire rage around early access or alpha releases.
Other than that, having fans do things like these is something I don't think any developer would want to do primarily because contracts ensure accountability. As a developer, I have no way of knowing if the Spanish dub you made of my game is full of racial slurs or not. Similarly, if I launch my PS game on switch in the future, and it's absolutely abysmal, I would be the one on the firing block and rightfully so because I am the one who is bound to make money off of it. Shouldn't that mean I go with someone who has expertise in doing these things?
I personally am not aware of the mana series so I might not fully understand your argument, so you should feel free to educate me, but I believe it might be more of an exception with things going right instead of the countless ways it could go wrong.
I would also like to disclaim that I have no love for publishers and more often than not, they are despicable suits. However, this is the reality of the video games industry which isn't changing in the near future (but I sure hope it does further down the line).
You sound like someone who thinks games should be like food packaging.
They find funds and provide marketing, which is astonishingly expensive. I'm not in games, but I do work in a marketing adjacent function. The budgets needed even to do very small marketing exercises are really unbelievable. Campaigns exceed my yearly salary regularly, and we are not doing anything like consumer marketing which I imagine is significantly worse.
Not to justify publisbers' behaviour, but this is partially why they have such stringent demands, I suspect. I assume they are getting some kind of funding or something from the PSN connection, which funds both the game and the marketing needed to make it a success.
What I'm hearing is that marketing is the problem - if so much money wasn't wasted on it then the world would be a better place.
True, but then we'd rely heavily on word of mouth to learn about anything new, in a world without marketing.
I see no downside, only upsides, mainly not having to be subjected to the bile spewed by company propagandists who manipulate people in search of unsustainable growth and profit at the expense of humanity
lol.
no downsides?
you mean, you LIKE "influencers"?
No marketing people, no marketing materials, no marketing budget, no influencers. I don't mean not using the term and switching the practise to some other title or having it so there are loopholes that allow the propaganda machine to continue making the world a worse place.
Do I think this will happen? No, it is but a dream due to the greed of humanity. Those on top thinking their entitled to be mega wealthy, those on the bottom hoping they'll be on top one day.
you don't get it. influencers are "word of mouth". they are professional word-of-mouthers, effectively.
episode one of "Welcome to Paradox". Enjoy :-)
So PSN gives them the money needed to make up for the damage caused by PSN?
Imagine a publisher established on actual good will though.
Visibility bias. Bad news makes headlines faster then good news or "everything's fine" news. New Blood hasn't done anything fucked and everyone seems fine with them for instance.
I love how your claim to fame is being ignorant about the gaming industry, and being on online forums all the time.