21 May
“What is the word ‘indie’? Of course, it came from the word ‘independent’. And the essence of the ‘indie’ trend was that a product was released without a publisher, directly from the author, and without its financing. This applies to games, music, and other cultural phenomena.
What gives such a scheme to the buyer? Of course, a lower price, because the publisher does not need to pay any royalties. And most importantly – the likelihood of having more recent conceptual ideas, as some say, such games have a ‘soul’. At least that was how it was at the dawn of indie games, before everyone started doing indie games (including me).
Games for the masses
But time passed, and the phenomenon of indie culture has grown. Greenlight was opened, which allowed thousands of game developers to realize all their wet fantasies, and sitting at home, drinking beer, get thousands of dollars. Is this good or bad? A moot point. I believe that nobody forces anyone to buy anything, and really good projects still break through thousands of crafts and become successful.
Something went wrong
At present, the indie industry has reached its climax of absurdity. Since the essence of the word “indie” is completely forgotten, and this word refers to any game with two-dimensional graphics or just a low budget. More than once I noticed how in all kinds of indie publics they post art on the game Child of Light, which was published by Ubisoft. But the most interesting thing to watch is indie games that create kickstarter projects and raise money for their games. That is, if the game has a budget from the outside – can it be called independent? After all, it directly depends on the money that people throw.
Do you need help?
Well, now let’s get back to the original topic. Why publishers are needed for indie developers. But you probably already caught it. The bottom line is that for indie developers, the publisher must be the indie developer himself. If you think that your game needs a publisher, then you are deeply mistaken.
If you have an almost ready-made game that you plan to post in Greenlight, or your project is already at the stage of receiving the green light, you will probably begin to write all sorts of clever people, with an offer to become publishers. What do such people usually offer?
– 100% guarantee for passing Greenlight;
– PR games in various publications;
– translation of the game into English;
– they will only ask for a modest 30-40% of your earnings.
Okay, what’s wrong here? Of course, I want to say that if you are very lazy to engage in the development of your game and do not mind the money at all, then you can agree. But if you believe in yourself, then I will tell you a secret: all this can easily be done by yourself.
Publishers
In fact, nothing prevents you from sending the pre-release keys of your game to anyone. If you send 100 keys to 100 different sites with reviews of games, then, in any case, you don’t lose anything, and if you get a dozen reviews, you will have the opportunity to insert quotes from reviews in the description of your game, and also get their readers as yours the audience.”
Chong Rodgers, skilled gamesman.
