The music industry has its music labels. Movies have executive producers and movie studios, and books have publishing houses. All forms of major entertainment industries have their major distribution and IP (intellectual property) management groups and video games are no exception. The purpose of a video game publisher, simplified, is to fund the development of a game, advertise it, and then distribute it to whatever platforms the particular game is made for. The publisher pays the developers just enough up-front money for each milestone of development reached (which the Publisher can re-evaluate and cancel at any point, depending on contract) and then, depending on contract, gives the developer some bonus based on reception of the game. The publisher then takes in all revenue from the games sales. Some might wonder why publishers are even necessary to the process and why development studios can't do all of these things themselves and make all the profits as a result? The short answer is that publishers aren't essential to the process of releasing a game but for anyone who has self published a game (and any developing indie studio or established one is well aware of this), they will most likely not make as much money from their product if they would if they had a publisher's help. Publishers, by way of being large investors, have a lot more money on hand than your average development studio. This money is used to advertise a product in different markets and build a reputation for a game. Since publishers often buy up or partner with development studios they also commonly have numerous resources that other development studios can make use of if the need calls for it. Publishers also handle all licensing costs associated for developing for any platform the developer might want to utilize as well as how to develop for those platforms, meaning a game that might have initially been only a PC game can now be ported to Xbox, Playstation, Wii, handhelds, whatever. Now that we have a better understanding of a publisher's purpose and the benefits of using one, I'm curious what everyone's opinion of the current batch of publishers are. Are there certain business practices you don't like? Which publishers are your favorite or most hated? Do you think Eastern publishers like Nintendo, Square Enix, Sony, or Capcom are better than Western ones like Ubisoft (France counts as Western), Activision, EA, or Valve or vise versa? Also as an aside to the general discussion, I found the following article a very good read on one of the publishers, EA. The Escapist : Where EA Went Wrong To add on to the poll for people who may not like any of those choices, you can just say in your post if you like any of these publishers (I couldn't fit all the major ones), there is also Atari (barely existant) Namco Bandai Ubisoft Sega THQ (now, non-existant) Warner Bros Interactive Valve Zynga
If I had to pick a "favourite" publisher, I'm moreso picking my least least favourite publisher. Frankly, that'd have to be Take-Two as (to my knowledge) they're the least prone to shady business practices out of your list. Also, Valve isn't really a publisher at all. Especially seeing as they fit basically none of your criteria listed for publishers. And one last thing, I honestly don't see most publishers lasting past the next ten years. Everyone's shifting focus towards open platforms now (Ouya, PC, Mobile). In open platforms, publishers simply aren't needed. You can distribute your games for free, stay in contact with your community, and even fund your games during their development. Then we can hopefully start to see games being made for the sake of gaming instead of for the sake of money again.
I guess it depends on how you define "shady business practices". Why do you say that? The entirety of Steam fits the "advertising and distribution" criteria. Some games are sold exclusively through Steam thus making Valve the sole publisher of that game. As far as games it has published, Half-Life, The Orange Box, Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2 are all published by Valve. Being a publisher doesn't have to mean you buy other development studios, you can have a publisher who is also a developer (Bethesda, Microsoft, Sony, Sega, Nintendo, all are publishers who also have internal development studios who produce games). I disagree on numerous fronts. First, Mobile and PC are not as "open" as you think they are. Steam is the predominant power in selling PC games but there are competitors. The point being, the agency acting as the distributor is the publisher in that sense, or they have a licensing deal with the original publisher. Either way the publishers will continue to make money as long as things like Steam exist. While mobile games are experiencing the greatest growth trend, they too are being consolidated under publishers. Publishers like GameLoft and Zynga along with the normal publishers like Activision, Disney, and EA produce mobile games and they sell very well. Well selling games without publishers are rare. Next, the Ouya is unproven. It did very well with its kickstarter campaign and I have a lot of hope for it, but until it comes out and real sales data is produced for it you cannot claim any kind of "shift" toward development for it has occurred. Early excitement by a dozen or so developers happens with virtually any "new" thing. While in a perfect world, a transition to everything being open source would be great, I don't see it happening. Not when published games are pulling in sooo much money and are showing no signs of not doing so.
Kickstarter projects fail much more often than they succeed. Even if developers could reliably count on kickstarter for funding (which they can't), funding your project is only part of what a publisher does for you. Kickstarter can't get your project on more platforms and can't distribute your product for you. The funds that people get from kickstarter are usually just the finances involved with making the game, the salaries of employees, licensing fees, etc. Even the most profitable kickstarter campaigns never net anywhere near the amount of money publishers pump into games. In fact, to date, there are extremely few games that have actually released and seen financial success thanks to Kickstarter (same goes for Indiegogo which was created specifically for game crowd funding).
I'd say either Namco Bandai or Capcom as my favorite publisher. Of course Capcom is only really because I loved Okami and Viewtiful Joe to death back when they came out, modern Capcom isn't as awesome, So I guess Namco Bandai wins it for me.
A few things to correct you on here. First, I'm gonna just quote something from your other post to clarify: First off, Valve only distributes it's PC Games. Electronic Arts actually distributes Valve's games on all other platforms. Next, the actual development team at Valve gets paid directly from the money that comes in from the game. This steps over the middleman of the publisher, and it also ensures the people who actually made the game reap the reward for it. And also, all of those "Publishers who are also a developers" you listed are actually just publishers. ZeniMax Media (Publisher) -> Bethesda Softworks (Publisher) -> Bethesda Game Studios (Developer) Microsoft (Publisher) -> Microsoft Game Studios (Also a publisher) -> Specific Subsidiary Developer Nintendo (Publisher) -> Specific Subsidiary Developer If you work in Bethesda Game Studios, you actually have nothing to do with the publishing of your game. Et cetera et cetera It's a web of companies that own companies; most of which hold very similar names, so you think they're actually the same company. Valve, however, is simply Valve. They're one single company. Valve also doesn't really qualify for the "publisher" title as they're not directly promoting games on steam beyond allowing them to be sold on steam. Any promotion of the game has to be done by the developer (Or publisher). (For example, if you see an ad for an indie game on steam, it was likely made and paid for by the developer, not Valve. However, if you see an ad for CoD on steam, it was made and paid for by Activision.) If you get a game on steam, you also directly profit from every single copy sold on steam. Valve takes a share, because you're using their platform, but you as the developer get paid every single time someone purchases your game. As for games that are exclusively sold through steam, that's entirely the choice of the developer (Or publisher). I don't believe Valve has ever offered incentives to companies to make their game steam exclusive. See what I've said above. You're obviously not getting what an Open Platform is. PC is literally the definition of an open platform. You can literally create anything you want and release it without having to be accountable to anyone. All the tools you need to develop on PC are freely available to anyone without any permission needed. The same goes for Android devices and for the most part the same with iOS devices aswell. You're also completely overestimating how well mobile publishers are doing. The only reason most mobile publishers (See Zynga and GameLoft) do remotely well is because they've released half the games on the market. If you were to blindly throw a rock into the ocean of mobile games, you're probably gonna hit one of theirs. Lastly, your final sentence is entirely fictional. May I cite the highest selling mobile game in existence (Which I must say is probably also one of the worst)? Yeah... Angry Birds... Made by an independent company... In fact, 6 of the 10 top selling games on Apple's App Store at this very moment are independent games. When I mentioned the Ouya, I wasn't literally saying it was already pulling developers out of the way. I was merely trying to give an example of how people are becoming incredibly supportive of cutting out the publishers and giving the actual developers the credit and the reward for their games. There's a clear difference between Open Source and Open Platform. Having absolutely everything Open Source would be REALLY REALLY BAD. As ridiculously abused as Intellectual Property laws are, they are needed--to an extent. People need to be able to protect their intellectual property. If they couldn't we'd have no music, no art, no video games, and pretty much no business at all. Published games are most definitely pulling in money, but we're seeing them start to falter. Independent and self-published games are definitely rising up in the video game industry. People are getting sick of publishers treating games as dollar bills instead of works of art. Also, "showing no signs of not bringing in money." Are you being sarcastic..? Or..? THQ, a major publisher, just went under due to exactly what I said. They started treating games like dollar bills instead of works of art. Because of that, they started losing so much money that they went out of business. Now we're seeing EA making the exact same mistake and I honestly would not be surprised if EA went under aswell if they don't stop what they're doing and turn themselves around. EDIT: Jesus Christ that ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be...
Adhesive [br][/br]Edited by merge: also, is this based on games published, or general feelings towards the publisher?
Being a publisher doesn't mean you deal exclusively with consoles. By distributing it's PC games, it is acting as publisher. My, as stated, "simplified" statement of a publisher isn't an all or none thing. If it has most of the aspects I described it is a publisher. Any individual(s), or company can act as a publisher. And you think because of that they aren't a publisher? Again, being a developer does not exclude one from being a publisher. Also, I'm not sure why I'm even arguing this. Every single game meta data source lists Valve as a publisher, even if you disagree with that label. You missed the point of what I was saying. The publisher's have direct departments within them (what you refer to as "subsidiary developer") that make games. This makes it a publisher that makes games by extension. 343i is a department of Microsoft Game Studios. Bethesda Softworks directly owns Bethesda Game Studios, in that case they operate at of literally the same building. You're confusing bought assets who might have contracts with a publisher or developers who might have partnered with a publisher with the internal development groups within those publishers. Bungie is a partner to Activision. Bethesda Game Studios is literally part of Bethesda Softworks. Being a single company does not make someone not a publisher. And again, since Steam is distributing the game, they act as publisher. All publishing means is to distribute a product for mass consumption, which Steam does. Since Valve owns Steam, they publish the games. Games published by other publishers are simply licensed to be sold through Steam. I'm well aware of what an open platform is. You're choosing to ignore the reality of how things are. PC games follow all the same rules as console games as far as publishing goes. I'm not talking about creation here, I'm talking about what happens with the final product and the business of selling it. Sure anyone can create a website or give their game away for free, and people do that. You're substituting what the potential is for PC gaming from what the reality is. The same publishers selling PC games for 10 dollars less than console equivalents (sometimes the same price). As far as iOS goes, it's not open. People are free to develop a game but to publish it on the App Store, a $100 publishing fee must be paid and the game must be approved to be sold. Android is more open but is not completely devoid of restriction and oversight. Also it skips the point I was making that the games that tend to sell the most for mobile platforms are games that were published via a major publisher. A.) My point wasn't "how well mobile publishers are doing". B.) The rest of your statement was my point "they too are being consolidated under publishers" C.) By extension of them publishing lots of mobile games...they are in fact doing well enough. Zynga's problems are due to their problems online and lack of mobile presence more than anything. So...you countered my point about well selling games being extremely rare by giving examples of 6 games...out of literally hundreds of thousands of games...right, good counter. That doesn't change what I said about it. How it "remains to be seen". If the Ouya sells well upon release and has a lot of developers saying great things about it, after release, then your statement has merit. Until then you can't claim with any sort of weight that people are being supportive of anything. Lots of developers were incredibly supportive of the Wii U prior to its release and so far, other than a few older games getting ports, the development scene for that console has been bleak at best. Lol, do you seriously thing THQ went down because "they started treating games like dollar bills instead of works of art"? That's wrong in like ten different ways. THQ was a publicly traded company, which means it had quarterly earnings reports and stock holders to keep happy. THQ's problems stemmed from years of mismanaged IPs, bungled advertising campaigns, and a host of internal problems with their top executives. The problem your falling into is is basing what you want the case to be, where companies fail if they don't keep their customers happy, with the reality of how the business works. Yes, it would be great for the more evil business tactics to be cut out and for longer investment and QA times in ensuring quality with the games that are published , however until games like the Battlefield series, Call of Duty series, or other lowest common denominator games stop making the most money, little will change.
Not saying its perfect, But where I want games to go, A lot of games I see problems that where caused by publishers not with the actual game and if there was a way to circumvent the publishers(or at least just the negative aspects of a publisher) it would be a good thing for games industry imo.
The worst thing a publisher does that I wish would be stopped is the IP selection process. You have no idea how many unique, completely novel, games either in concept phase or full prototype get denied by all publishers because of the risk involved in backing an unproven game. That's what drives a lot of well known developers (like Ron Gilbert, among many others) to kickstarter. Since publishers won't fund the development of these early concept or prototype games a lot of developers look to crowdfunding to get further in game development to repitch to publishers.