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Kotaku: "We Need Better Video Game Publishers" [Update: David Jaffe Responds]
- Thread starter Deitus
- Start date
I agree with this. Developers aren't untouchable. While it would be nice to have more publishers like Sony or Take Two who say" here's the money, take as much time as you need" some developers just can't deliver. Look at Gearbox with Aliens: CM.
Sometimes developer have these huge visions for a game but don't plan it out properly, go over budget or mismanage their time. The publisher says "wtf" and the developer says "oh the publisher rushed us" when really the publisher could do nothing else.
All of the early "Kotaku sux" posts in this thread indicate to me that some people didn't even read the OP or the article before jumping on the chance to earn some "amirite" points.
This is an example of an article on Kotaku that I can agree with. There are a lot of legitimate points being made, and hopefully given the amount of exposure Kotaku gets this will be the spark for more broad discussion on the matter.
This is an example of an article on Kotaku that I can agree with. There are a lot of legitimate points being made, and hopefully given the amount of exposure Kotaku gets this will be the spark for more broad discussion on the matter.
andregnreis
Member
Kotaku publishes a good and original story and people still complain about Kotaku. Go figure...
Delusibeta
Banned
Roll on the video games crash, the industry sure needs it.
Spouting local memes is often more important than giving an actual reaction.
To Kotaku's credit, this is a well done article, and I agree. But I also don't see many new publishers stepping up to the plate to create a more fair and balanced workspace for developers with new IP's going to new consoles (Ouya, 3DS shop, NVidia's thing, etc). It's a risky business and it's not hard to see why existing big publishers often forge contracts that give them the long term benefits, even if it means having devs sign their lives away.
Pagusas
Elden Member
While this is true, I imagine most of the people who make these demands rarely understand the impact it would make on the game or the development schedule/budget. That's one of the points made in this article that would be hard to argue with IMO.
SolsticeZero
Banned
I never once said a bad thing about this article. But we have had a lot of journalists lately that are clearly biased and unreliable.
What's with all the super quick Kotaku hate posts? you ask for more "news" like stories, they give you one and still the first 12 posts are nonsense... smh.
Anyhow it's true, we do, most publishers have no idea what they are doing and just run anything and everything into the ground. Once console manufacturers lost the power, the publishers went crazy.
They also have managed to squeeze out most mid tier publishers by jacking up costs so high you have to be a large publisher to afford to make a "AAA" game, or you're regulated to niche status and downloadable games.
These developers REALLY need a union or something to protect them and their studios.
Anyhow it's true, we do, most publishers have no idea what they are doing and just run anything and everything into the ground. Once console manufacturers lost the power, the publishers went crazy.
They also have managed to squeeze out most mid tier publishers by jacking up costs so high you have to be a large publisher to afford to make a "AAA" game, or you're regulated to niche status and downloadable games.
These developers REALLY need a union or something to protect them and their studios.
Just keep the context in mind, this is a developer giving an opinion anonymously. In the end, it's just one opinion piece from one developer. His experience with publishers seems to have attributed to the tone of this piece.
Good article. But nothing that many of us already didn't just assume.
The industry really is in need of a much needed reset. I don't use crash, cause the industry has never truly crashed. It's had multiple resets and we're definitely in need of a big reset.
I'm optimistic the future is going to be great. Because I believe the traditional publisher is going to get axed in almost all mediums, games included. They suck and they're worthless in the new economy.
The industry really is in need of a much needed reset. I don't use crash, cause the industry has never truly crashed. It's had multiple resets and we're definitely in need of a big reset.
I'm optimistic the future is going to be great. Because I believe the traditional publisher is going to get axed in almost all mediums, games included. They suck and they're worthless in the new economy.
ShockingAlberto
Member
The tags on the left say "GUEST EDITORIAL" and "Anonymous Game Developer."
If your sole complaint is that anonymous sources can't be trusted, that's one thing, but I am baffled at your point that using colorful language makes it so the writer's legitimacy is in question.
I broadly agree - I've worked with pubs, and many of them do need reining in, but I would also add that I've also worked with development management who agreed with their requests without consulting the people who had to implement it - although I don't think the financial situation behind all this is quite as clear-cut as he's implying.
The need for people to have first post so they can feed their ego by being being quoted multiple times is slowly ruining threads. How did the first poster even read the article before posting his oh so witty comment.
I've taken time to read the article and it's interesting and like you said worthy of discussion not hit and run comments.
Absolutely necessary? Not as much anymore as we continue the trend of digital releases, kickstarter funding and so on.
The primary job is that they typically fund and take the financial risk of producing a game. They'll deal with the distribution, licensing, public relations, etc. While the article does highlight problems, but the relationship between content creators and content publishers in any media is a tricky one.
SaggyMonkey
Member
Fewer games should be as disposable too. If you're going to spend that much time and money making something, it's to your advantage to keep players engaged longer and setup sales for more things within that game. Or even in Valve's case, user to user transactions.
Pretty much. Sure there will be some devs that are bent over and forced to put in things they don't want but like you said poor decisions are probably made by both devs and pubs.
Things like multiplayer etc, I can just see some studios looking at games like CoD etc and basically wanting their game to be as widely played so they rip a page from CoD without understanding much and in the end fail to deliver. Everyone then comes out saying oh they were probably forced to put in multiplayer or whatever but it's most likely not always the publisher that initiates these moves.
In fact I'm sure someone from Bioware came out the other week and said basically this. That they were the ones to decide to put multi in ME and they were in charge of the direction of the games not EA.
SolsticeZero
Banned
unfortunately, I think most developers and publishers would just tack on a few more prestige levels in call of duty rather than trying to make some engaging endgame
Pagusas
Elden Member
Not the legitimacy, I have no doubt in the legitimacy of the ideas stated, rather the presentation is one that seems forced and made to up of "fight words". Its hard to take someone seriously when they use profanity as there opening remarks, or resort to calling people idiots right off the bat.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
Sounds like Square Enix /baseless conjecture
ShockingAlberto
Member
If I were to throw out an accusation, this sounds like a disgruntled employee of Visceral pissed off about getting the blame for Dead Space 3.
I found the stuff that wasn't highlighted by the OP more succinct or important.
I honestly thought this was just a square enix problem.
A decent amount of the budget bloat could be saved by not having cutscenes.
This is a bullet point a lot of gamers could live without. The success of Final Fantasy 7 pushing this trend shouldn't have been followed so closely.
That's just troubling.
I honestly thought this was just a square enix problem.
A decent amount of the budget bloat could be saved by not having cutscenes.
This is a bullet point a lot of gamers could live without. The success of Final Fantasy 7 pushing this trend shouldn't have been followed so closely.
That's just troubling.
Good guest article, have you guys sent out a request to any Publishers to give them a chance to respond (anonymously or not)? It'd be interesting to read a different perspective.
They need someone to dish out tens of millions of dollars, unless we're all ok with getting nothing but bare minimum indie games forever and ever. Or if we're all ok with dumping millions of our own dollars to fund each big kickstarter game.
What we really need are smarter publishers who are closer to the actual game industry instead of just being suits who have a business degree. People who actually seem to know what people want to play.
robovanburen
Member
Sweeping generalizations are always true.
But Visceral Redwood Shores wasn't the one impacted by that. They got a new major IP.
The Army of Two team was the one that got shutdown.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
We need more pubs like this:
The big boys ain't going to follow shit.
I like you!
These are companies that localize games funded by other publishers.
If other companies didn't fund and make these games, they wouldn't exist.
SaggyMonkey
Member
COD is one of the least disposable console games. Sure prestige is meaningless, but people get a lot of out MP in general. (It's become sport to many)
I'm thinking more like Bioshock Infinite. Game was, what, four or five years in development? That's a lot of money.
Then the game ends, and people are hungry to spend more time in that world to do different things, but at best you can go back on the egg hunt. (Not to imply the game needs MP, but there's currently nothing sustainable for players)
radioheadrule83
Banned
It's not exactly hard to believe any of it. Games coming out are falling over themselves to include things that relate to popular recent sales trends (social stuff, F2P, TDM style multiplayer) and in cases where it hasn't really fit the franchise/game in question, I have no doubt that either the publisher requested those things or that the developer included it in their pitch in order to win the publisher's business.
I'm also of no doubt that not all publishers are like this. I can definitely see pubs like Activision, EA or Take Two being like this though.
I'm also of no doubt that not all publishers are like this. I can definitely see pubs like Activision, EA or Take Two being like this though.
Well, the publisher decides who to work with, the budget and everything. Of course threy should take the blame. It's a gamble sometimes, sure, but ultimately the publisher is responsible for failure or success.
I know exactly the cases where it happens and fails, but that's not the point. If that article is coming from a journalist, why isn't it looking at the other perspectives? Why not talk about games that had freedom and failed? Why not talk about when Publishers input actually helped the game?
For example, I know people who work on these following games and can shed light on these points:
Heavenly Sword - Sony's big money sink that went nowhere as Ninja Theory kept asking for time and money for little gains. I know a couple of artists that told me how the developer leads kept pushing for more cutscenes to cover up the lack of content. This is decision coming from the developer level that hurts the game which is an example of how having too much freedom may fail the product.
Assassin's Creed 2 - I went to a presentation and spoke to a designer on the team about how Yves Guillemot made a ton of top down decisions to push the game's feature set to its very limit. He had listened to the design teams concept ideas and told them to do all of it and gave them the resources to support it. He also suggest a few features that went in as well. An example of where Top Down decisions can help the game.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. To have an article placing the blame soley on publishers is just short sighted. There are many levels of game development that can fail, developer or publsher.
VeryGooster
Banned
Even if one-sided, it wouldn't surprise me if half of what the dev says is true. The "games industry as the film industry" part made me chuckle. Always seems like nobody knows how to manage a budget.
I wonder if an anonymous exec can give a rebuttal that isn't "We're the ones with the money; this is expensive" or manufactured PR copy.
I wonder if an anonymous exec can give a rebuttal that isn't "We're the ones with the money; this is expensive" or manufactured PR copy.
A bit too one-sided, but nice article.
I also like the answer from David Jeffe (VG Designer/Director) who basically says "If you can't have what you want, it's maybe because you are not as good as you think.": http://davidjaffe.biz/
I also like the answer from David Jeffe (VG Designer/Director) who basically says "If you can't have what you want, it's maybe because you are not as good as you think.": http://davidjaffe.biz/
good article but it blames everything on publishers when thats not always the case
what really gets me is when publishers like ea close studios and at the same time are hiring other people in other locations, mostly because tax breaks run out so they move to new tax break areas and cheaper hires with no concern for the people
its hard for developers to get super strong when publishers are constantly shuffling the deck and screwing over their employees
also game budgets are rediculously big and nobody understands them
what really gets me is when publishers like ea close studios and at the same time are hiring other people in other locations, mostly because tax breaks run out so they move to new tax break areas and cheaper hires with no concern for the people
its hard for developers to get super strong when publishers are constantly shuffling the deck and screwing over their employees
also game budgets are rediculously big and nobody understands them
AlphaTwo00
Member
Which is a fair point, but I think the point of this article, especially published anonymously, is that officially you will never hear the developer side of the equation because anyone who's caught out speaking about this stuff publicly would pretty much shot themselves in the foot when it comes to working within the industry again.
A whistleblower who might be still employed at a place might want to protect their name so that they don't get fired? YOU DON'T SAY!
Planned crunch time and structural overtime comes to mind.