Publishers

What publishers do.

1. Final development of the game including, rules tweaks, editing, layout and art.
2. Arrange & pay for the production.
3. Warehouse or arrange for fulfillment services.
4. Sales & marketing including trade shows.

Why do we need them? Some people that are willing to do all of the above don’t. All those things are very time consuming. If you are busy doing business you’re not going to have as much time to design games. I would rather have a publisher figure out the details so I can get on to my next great idea.

Also, and most importantly, buyers will also know that with a non-self-published game, the "experts" (the ones who cater for the general public/mass markets) has had their touch on the game, and therefore the odds of the buyer actually liking the game after they try it, is higher than that of a self-published game.

Broader appeal also means that the buyer will have less difficulty to convince others to play the game. The more money spent on polish, the shinier the game, the more general appeal, sales etc. Take something out of the equation, and you'll have to make amature-ish alternatives. I you want success, you cannot make compromises.

Publishers are also developers, marketing, outreach, experience etc. etc. You could go without, but you'd absolutely be starting from scratch.

Unless you’re a famous designer that can be expected to drive sales based simple on your name you’ll probably have little to negotiate with and either have to accept their standard contract or not.

This also means you will relinquish all control of the property for the length of the contact in return for your %.

That being said every publisher is different. Minion games asked for my input on every aspect of Nitro Dice & Tahiti. Not that I had the final say, I was giving then opportunity to voice my opinion which is more than some publishers will do.

I think that because publishers are businesses and have profitability to consider, they could seem "evil" to some. This could be the case if a designer is so heavily (emotionally) invested in the game he/she has designed, that he doesn't like the idea of someone else tinkering with it or "reaping the fruits".

However, in order to create a polished end product, you need many persons with different talents (or you must be some kind of multi-talented renaissance-style genius). Moreover, if you wish to sell your product, you need yet another kind of skills and even more time. Publishers have economic possibility to pay for artists, marketing and other things that your average designer isn't necessarily particularly good at.

I'm not saying that you can't develop professional-looking game without publishers, but this usually means investing your own money = taking risks, or somehow having multiple talents working for free. I also don't mean that every game must be produced with high costs to justify it's existence, or that self-published games can't be polished and professional.

I don’t know of any publisher that puts their contracts online. Even if they did that would only cover that one publisher.

When I got started I was under the impression that the industry had a standard type of contract. From my experience this is only half true. The standard seems to be you get a % which varies greatly depending on what is a % of; Gross, Net, Profits and the volume of production for a fixed amount of time 2-5 years with other details such as advances, contingencies, and other compensation including how many copies of the game you’ll get varying widely. Most pay you quarterly based on sales but there are some that pay you your cut on the entire print run once brought to market to save themselves the bookkeeping.