Ok so a thing that happens sometimes is we get a few emails on the same topic and instead of writing the same email over and over it maybe makes more sense to consolidate some of that knowledge (or so-called) in a public place for easy reference. DISCLAIMER: We sometimes “publish” games. It’s not something we do for profit, and we’re not completely sure yet whether or not we are even good at it. But it is a thing that happens so What is a publisher even? A valid question. In ye olde times (well it depends on which olde times but) a publisher was how you distributed your game. Self-publishing wasn’t really an option, or a particularly viable one, because there was no internet, and someone had to print your game onto a thing and put it in a box and then put it on a shelf somewhere and argue with the person that owned the shelf about what things should go where and so on. They had to print a paper manual because gamefaqs wasn’t around. They had to take customer support calls because they put the floppy disk into the wrong thing and now the game is literally physically broken. Or a fuckin i dunno a triceratops ate part of the box or something. It’s sort of weird and different now though. Anyone with access to an internet cafe can upload their game to something, somewhere, and eventually paypal will unfreeze their account and send them some money. This is what we call “distribution” and it is something that “online stores” and “exciting new platforms” mainly do, instead of publishers. Publishers also used to be in charge of basically press and marketing. They would send champagne or Cheez-It TM to some dudes in SF, and then they would write nice things about your game in a “paper magazine” that they would mail to grocery stores. Press works completely differently now - YouTubers, LPers, streamers, etc essentially constitute a fractured press of varying independence. Publishers still help maintain these relationships but it’s kind of a weird new different thing anyways. There are also PR consultants and marketing firms that can manage and maintain these relationships. Publishers also used to fund and finance the development of a game. They would pay everyones bills, rent, and health insurance while they worked themselves to death in a basement somewhere. Then they would fire the team that built it and hire some cheaper studio in a worse basement to make the sequel, and keep 90% of all the revenue from every version. This works a little differently now too, thanks to Indie Fund, Kickstarter, Patreon, and alternate sources of income like a spouse with a real job or just having a second real job or coming into a substantial inheritance by questionable means. So like what does a publisher even do now? A lot of publishers, especially in the indie space, function as surrogate companies addressing a variety of project-dependent needs. This might include corporate paperwork, legal paperwork, QA, managing platform relationships (consoles despite their massive improvements are still not really cut out for relationships w tiny teams), accounting, the aforementioned managing of “press” relationships, and also stepping up to fill funding gaps where other alternatives have left a gap. I don’t like to read, just tell me if I should work with a publisher. UUhhh ok so the answer is a hella complicated “maybe”. The main factors in the decision here are:

  • You
  • Your Team
  • The Game
  • The Publisher

The first, most basic, most important step is to stop thinking of this question at all. “Should I work with a publisher?” is kind of a bad starting point. Instead, start here: What does this project need? Is it a commercial project that you intend to launch on Steam and / or consoles? If the answer is no, then probably the things a publisher can offer are almost completely irrelevant to you. Carry on being happy. If you are trying to make Kind of A Big Deal or whatever, that’s fine too, nobody’s perfect. You need to kind of parse this need into components first though. For example: SHUT UP I want to do a lot of marketing so my game sells a lot of copies!! Right no I know, but like… what is it that you built? Who’s the audience? Are you doing a paid alpha type of thing? Does that suit the game? What’s the essential appeal? How do you want people to talk about it? Does the game’s design support all those needs? Assuming this is a commercial project of some sort, what you are really trying to do (or should be trying to do) is raise awareness of its existence amongst folks that you think might buy it. For different games that means different things - playable demos or supplementals, sweet trailers, LP series, video previews, comic books, etc. If you can identify these needs, then you will have a long, long head start on figuring out whether a publisher is right for you, and which publisher that might be. Hardcore strategy games might do better partnering w Paradox instead of Adult Swim right? But also maybe you don’t need a publisher at all. Maybe you need a super good video editor. Maybe you need a PR consultant to connect you with streamers. Maybe you need a web designer to make kind of the perfect landing page. If you are making a commercial project, I urge you to do your best to figure out how to expose the things that make that project special. Maybe there is a publisher out there that can help you do that. Maybe there isn’t. It depends on all these weird things. Righteous! Damn the man! Self-publishing all the way! Couldn’t agree more. That’s what we do, and we love it. It only consumes 3-6 months a year in development time too, it’s really great. I’ve seen other devs call this the “non-game-dev” part of a project, and that’s sort of true but sort of misleading too, and on commercial projects i think it’s counter-productive. If you’re making a commercial game, helping the game find its audience is a part of making it. Sorry. And somebody’s gotta do it. It takes thought and care and time, just like any other design problem. This one just involves a little less math and a little more empathy. I find it helpful to look at a publisher as essentially a work for hire or other kind of basic pro / con situation. Do I want to put in the time and effort and investment to do all this stuff myself? Or do I want help? And how much do I want to pay in the long and short term for that help? For a lot of devs, giving up a bunch of their revenue stings a little, but getting to focus mainly on the internal parts of the game is worth it. For other devs, it’s not the right fit. For lots of devs, there’s a kind of hybrid approach - get some marketing over here, get some funding over here, make some trailers in-house - and that seems to work well too. But again, I think the key here is for your decisions to be driven by the needs of the project, not necessarily industry best practices, or a kind of looming concern of “yea but marketing is important” or “but if i don’t sell a lot of copies then” (even though revenue targets might be part of the project’s needs) Huh ok. I think I follow. Assess our needs, look for one or more solutions that can address them. I feel like I knew that already. But how do I actually work with these outside “partners” or whatever, if I decide they’re right for my project? That depends on the partner and the need and so on, but the main ways we tend to look at things are Effort and Risk which are pretty closely related. For example, let’s look at funding. Let’s say you need $20,000 to finish your game. There are a few different ways you could try to source those funds, and they all have different tradeoffs. What does that $20k get you? How do you structure repayment? How do you support the folks that lent you those funds? Multi-tiered repayments (lenders get lower rev share after they recoup their initial investment) are a handy way of managing some of that risk. But these are going to vary wildly depending on where the funding comes from (parents, investors, backers, etc). If investors are loaning you money, is the thing they’re asking for in return proportional to their risk? If they give you a little, are they expecting a lot in return? This can change over time as well - if you have to double-dip, that can change the so-called “risk profile” quite a bit. Again, sort of an empathy thing - put yourself in the shoes of a money lender. As a game designer, what sorts of rewards would offset the risk of throwing money at your project?
The same question goes for marketing and PR and QA and localization and all that stuff. Does localization actually benefit your game? Is it enough to localize the store descriptions and then fan-source the in-game text later? Or maybe you just need to localize to Chinese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, and German, because ain’t nobody else buying games anymore anyways. QA is more important than it seems, especially on hardware-fractured environments like PC and Android, but maybe that’s not as high priority for games that are in public alpha periods anyways. Maybe the money you were going to use on a PAX Prime booth could be used to hire someone to set up some in-office appointments with games press for more dedicated, 1-on-1 coverage. Or maybe your press tour budget should be spent on a booth! It depends a lot on what you’re making and how you’re making it. And I’ve almost entirely glossed over PRODUCTION, which is typical for a programmer / designer I guess. But this can be anything from people stepping in to straighten out development bottlenecks to schedule check-ins to basic meat-shielding + translation efforts to just making your whole damn schedule in the first place. These things usually mean the difference between shipping and not. But again, depends on the project. So: what are your needs, and how can you address them? What parts do you want to work on? What parts DON’T you want to work on? If you can figure this stuff out, you will be in much, much better shape when you start talking to anyone anywhere about helping you ship. Oh lord shut up already. Are you done yet? haha no sry I wanted to end with a list of things that in our experience are worth taking very, very seriously anytime you collaborate with anyone, be it a publisher, another developer, an audio engineer, a florist, whatever:

  • get and sign contracts. please please please. they won’t prevent someone really malicious from ruining your life, but they sure won’t hurt
  • be honest, blunt if necessary, about your needs and the needs of the project
  • it is easier to raise awareness for a game that wears its heart on its sleeve
  • you can hope that your game will “speak for itself” but it’s just that - hope
  • look for ways your interests align with platforms/publishers
  • empathy is way more important than sympathy. you gotta be able to put yourself in their shoes
  • always keep both of your middle fingers ready when the vultures come for you

i hope this was helpful in one way or another. Feel free to shout at me on twitter or whatever. If you did find this helpful, I’m talking about a kind of related topic at GDC this year - if you can’t or don’t want to make it I can share the slides after the show etc.