RED 5: Who Needs Publishers?

[Krantos]

I see what you mean. There's no middle ground. Or, rather, no middle ground developer that doesn't use a AAA publisher who bends their game to appeal to more money audiences.

See that's the part of the statement that is actually wrong. There certainly aren't many right now, but there are a number of "middle-market" developers, and even some publishers.

Stardock is the obvious one, they develop games, but are also a low budget publisher (see Demi-God and Sins of a Solar Empire). Their games are certainly low budget affairs (the entire budget for Elemental: War of Magic (according to CEO Brad Wardell) was less than most AAA titles' Cutscene budget. Yet they're too big to be considered indie.

Middle market.

I would also consider Pandemic to be a Middle market publisher. They're relatively well known, but their games are almost entirely Niche. They don't have anything like the advertising budget of the industry giants, and their one of the last PC exclusive Publishers. What ever else you can say about them, games like Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, even Mount and Blade (after the first, since that was obviously indie) have way too much financial backing to be indie, but are two restricted in audience/budget to be AAA.

Middle market

I actually see the number of Middle market developers and publishers increasing in the near future. As things stand, there are a lot of games that just can't be made because they fall into this middle Void: They cost to much time and money to make for indie groups to make, but they are too niche for big AAA studios to make enough money on.

The beautiful thing about the market, though, is that if there is a demand for something, Someone will eventually make it. It might be new start-up companies that are created to fill this void, or some of the AAA studios might create off-shoot studios with fewer people and lower budgets to capitalize on this gap.

And there is certainly demand for it. The types of games that would make up the middle market, those are the types of games the AAA studios USED to make. Back when the popularity of Video games was already a niched playing field studios had to make games for specific niches, otherwise they couldn't sell enough. That isn't the case anymore, but the demand for those types of games hasn't diminished.

I don't know who they will be, but I strongly expect the middle market to see some considerable growth in the next few years.

 

[malestrithe]

Consoles are still going to be around for the foreseeable future. Atleast one, maybe two more generations.

Who know, maybe the kickstarter future will force the big 3 to lower their prices.

 

[ScruffyMcBalls]

Oh great, more elitism. Not trying to step on anyone's toes, but this is elitism and I find it quite ugly. There's a place for both consoles AND PCs, both are capable of things the other is not
*CoughCouchCo-opCough*.

But the core issue of PCs -and has always been the issue- is that you can't guarantee the spec level of your audience's machines. It's insane to assume that everyone can run Crysis (old game, but still a good benchmark), such a machine costs far more than a console ever will (for the foreseeable future). It's just not reasonable to expect someone with only a passing interest in video games to fork out £500-£1000 (yes I'm in the U.K.) just so they can play games, which I will admit tend to be cheaper on PC. This all boils down to alienating the next generation of players and ultimately, elitism. We need console to draw in the new crowds and keep the industry fresh, we shouldn't be looking at scrapping consoles, but using them in a wiser fashion.

*steps off soapbox*

If ya build your own box you can make an awesome rig that runs crysis very well for about the price of a PS3 when it was released and would last just as long.

Just sayin...

The problem though is really that what they are trying to do with consoles is turn them into mini PCs that are inferior to the real thing (other than equipment homogenization), think about all the crap that they have shoved into the PS3 and Xbox over the years. I would prefer a console that can play modern games without all the bells and whistles duct taped on it.

Though one backasswards thing that has always irked me is the crappy PC ports that asshole AAA publishers push out. The games are developed and made on PC, they dumped onto a console then recoded for PC again...Wut?

I built the PC I'm using now and I built it as a Crysis machine so I'm aware of that route, but the reason I didn't mention it is because that just isn't a practical or even possible potion for most people, especially not the casual demographic (doesn't help that most people aren't even aware it's possible, I blame pc hardware companies for that). And while I agree, a console should be just for games, those bells and whistles do attract a lot of money to the industry, which is sadly wasted at the moment but COULD be pumped back into development to generate some awesome new titles.
About PC ports, that's always confused me too.. I could understand it back in the Dreamcast Dev-box days, but not these days. Weird..

 

[shrekfan246]

No need for publishers? Agreed. Stupid, shortsighted, parasitic corporations that cant adapt to the age of the internet.
Consoles dying? No dice. They're just better for pick-up-and-play, and with the casual market growing, more people will want that. Why do we even have these wars about console-vs-pc?

Being a dedicated PC Gamer myself, I had someone ask me what the difference was between Consoles and PC's.

My response was "Aside from the control device, absolutely nothing. Anyone on either side who tells you otherwise is mistaken, in denial, or lying."

I wish more people could understand that...

Anyway, in reference to "You're either an indie game or you're a massive AAA, IP-backed sequel with derivative game play that's rehashed over and over again as it's the only safe bet you can make when you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars."

I have only one thing to say.