Starbound Dev: We Want to Protect Indies From "Predatory Publishers"

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Starbound Dev: We Want to Protect Indies From "Predatory Publishers"


Starbound developer Chucklefish is working on expanding its publishing operation to offer office space to struggling indies.

You may not know this, but Starbound developer Chucklefish is actually a publisher, and it is publishing more than just the one game. Stardew Valley, Halfway, Treasure Adventure World and Wanderlust Adventures are some of the other indie titles it is helping to publish, and in a blog post today [http://playstarbound.com/the-future-of-chucklefish-and-starbound/], co-founder Tiy says there's more where that came from. "We'd like to progress more in [the publishing space] and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers," said Tiy.

Tiy went on to say that Chucklefish was planning on opening a few more office spaces in the near future, and intends to provide some temporary office space for the developers of games it publishes and assists with.

Alongside this announcement, Tiy also announced that the company would soon be producing a second game along side Starbound, with an entirely new development team. "At the moment we're still in the stage where we're kicking around ideas, one that keeps popping up is a top down, open world, multiplayer pirate game," he said. He also assured fans that this would in no way slow down the development of Starbound.

Finally, Tiy outlined some upcoming changes to the Starbound, detailing how progression, end game, pvp, mods and the new "Director Mode" will work when the game finally gets out of beta. He added that due to a recent optimization update, beta updates should happen a lot more frequently - think several times a week instead of once every one or two weeks.

Source: Starbound Home Page [http://playstarbound.com/the-future-of-chucklefish-and-starbound/]

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Charli

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Nov 23, 2008
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Hmm what a co-inkee-dink. I just hopped off a marathon session of Starbound. (My great Avos Empire grows strong)

I'm glad, but remember, the most monstrous game publishers we know today, started out this way.

Don't try to stretch yourself further than you're able, or mutilate teams or smaller companies for the sake of profit margins.

Howeeever on the less foreboding and grim side, brand new publishers to the game industry on a professional level are rare, some extra players wouldn't go amiss, so good luck to them.
 

rofltehcat

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Jul 24, 2009
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Sounds nice. Will be interesting to see if they can thrive on that. If they have enough success they might just be one of the big (and predatory) publishers in 10-15 years!


captcha: the dude abides
wut?
 

Fraught

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Aug 2, 2008
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Charli said:
I'm glad, but remember, the most monstrous game publishers we know today, started out this way.

Don't try to stretch yourself further than you're able, or mutilate teams or smaller companies for the sake of profit margins.
This. So much this. At least...you can't ignore the ever-present sense of dread in thinking about this whole situation. I hope they don't go that way, but this whole messianic "we'll be your saviours from "predatory publishers"" business sounds awfully predatory on Chucklefish's behalf.

And I'm saying this as someone who adores Starbound and even keeps frequenting the IRC chat on their site, but y'know, I can't stop my mind from wandering that'a ways. I mean, I'm enjoying them as much as I can right now for Starbound, so I'm glad for that.

Also, how could you not mention Risk of Rain jumping to their publishin' ship (haha because they made Starbound and a large part of the game is your space...ship kekekek)
 

-Dragmire-

King over my mind
Mar 29, 2011
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"We'd like to progress more in [the publishing space] and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers,"
That reminds me of what the Extra Credits team said when they left, did they end up doing anything in the publishing space?
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
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"We'd like to progress more in [the publishing space] and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers,"
I'm going throw those words back at him if they ever get as big as EA or Activision.
 

Nikolaz72

This place still alive?
Apr 23, 2009
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canadamus_prime said:
"We'd like to progress more in [the publishing space] and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers,"
I'm going throw those words back at him if they ever get as big as EA or Activision.
1986 EA.

A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling.EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.[citation needed] The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars".
Radix malorum est cupiditas
 

Dragonbums

Indulge in it's whiffy sensation
May 9, 2013
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-Dragmire- said:
"We'd like to progress more in [the publishing space] and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers,"
That reminds me of what the Extra Credits team said when they left, did they end up doing anything in the publishing space?
They funded one game, and in their recent podcast stream they stated that the devs are still working on the game. As of right now, they implored people to stop sending them money until that game is done.
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
14,334
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Nikolaz72 said:
canadamus_prime said:
"We'd like to progress more in [the publishing space] and assist indie developers make their games profitable without giving away huge percentages of their income away to predatory publishers,"
I'm going throw those words back at him if they ever get as big as EA or Activision.
1986 EA.

A novel approach to giving credit to its developers was one of EA's trademarks in its early days. This characterization was even further reinforced with EA's packaging of most of their games in the "album cover" pioneered by EA because Hawkins thought that a record album style would both save costs and convey an artistic feeling.EA routinely referred to their developers as "artists" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal. Because of this novel treatment, EA was able to easily attract the best developers.[citation needed] The square "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts, which wanted to represent their developers as "rock stars".
Radix malorum est cupiditas
Yes. Didn't one of EA's founding members make a statement about being electronic artists and such? I can't remember that exact quote and I can't seem to find it. This is why I intend to remember this guy's words so I can throw them back at him if and when his company becomes as big as EA.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

Henchgoat Emperor
May 15, 2010
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My advice, stay small. Don't sell your company without first realizing you're going to relinquish control to the parent company, and whatever values you might have won't be transferred. The Disney-Pixar deal was a fluke, and you're NOT going to get that from a big game pub. So when you "sell out", be prepared to lose some of your identity or just take the payout and go somewhere else. The worst thing I see is when people complain about x-publisher buying y-company as if its the big-bad publisher crushing the little guy. The little guy who isn't making money and decides to sell to a bigger company in order to keep the little one afloat is the reason the little guy is getting shafted.
If you really look back, most of the now defunct dev's weren't doing so hot before they sold out. Publishers don't ruin companies, little guy owners who want big dollars for their companies do. The pubs are just the post-mortem cleanup crew.