Video game publisher

A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer.

As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing, including market research and all aspects of advertising.

They usually finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer (the publisher calls this external development) and sometimes by paying an internal staff of developers called a studio. The large video game publishers also distribute the games they publish, while some smaller publishers instead hire distribution companies (or larger video game publishers) to distribute the games they publish.

Other functions usually performed by the publisher include deciding on and paying for any license that the game may utilize; paying for localization; layout, printing, and possibly the writing of the user manual; and the creation of graphic design elements such as the box design.

Large publishers may also attempt to boost efficiency across all internal and external development teams by providing services such as sound design and code packages for commonly needed functionality.

Because the publisher usually finances development, it usually tries to manage development risk with a staff of producers or project managers to monitor the progress of the developer, critique ongoing development, and assist as necessary. Most video games created by an external video game developer are paid for with periodic advances on royalties. These advances are paid when the developer reaches certain stages of development, called milestones.

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Business risks

As businesses go, video game publishing is associated with high risk:

  • Contrasting with the increased expense of "front-line" AAA console games is the casual game market, in which smaller, simpler games are published for PCs and as downloadable console games. Also, Nintendo's Wii console, though debuting in the same generation as the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, requires a smaller development budget, as innovation on the Wii is centered around the use of the Wii Remote and not around the graphics pipeline.

Investor interest

Numerous video game publishers are traded publicly on stock markets. As a group, they have had mixed performance. At present, Electronic Arts is the only third-party publisher present in the S&P 500 diversified list of large U.S. corporations; in April 2010, it entered the Fortune 500 for the first time.[2]

Hype over video game publisher stocks has been breathless at two points:

Selected video game publishers

Below are the top 20 video game publishers, ranked by Game Developer in October 2010, in order from the 2009 rankings with exception of the new publishers to the list and ones that did not make the 2010 list.[3] Note that this is not a ranking by revenue, but of the quality of experience of working with the publishers according to staff, and some video game development companies. Atari, LucasArts and MTV Games have been bumped off the list. Nexon, Valve Corporation and Zynga are on the list for the first time. Bethesda Softworks is now listed as ZeniMax Media.

2010 Position Name of Publisher 2009 Position
1 Nintendo 1
2 Electronic Arts 2
3 Activision Blizzard (Vivendi) 3
4 Ubisoft 4
5 Take Two 6
6 Sony 5
7 ZeniMax Media 999n/a (new entry)
8 THQ 8
9 Square Enix 10
10 Microsoft 9
11 Konami 11
12 Sega 7
13 Capcom 14
14 Nexon 999n/a (new entry)
15 Namco Bandai Games 13
16 Warner Bros. Interactive 999n/a (new entry)
17 Namco 16
18 Valve Corporation 999n/a (new entry)
19 Atlus 999n/a (new entry)
20 Zynga 999n/a (new entry)

See also

References

  1. ^ "Activision exec prices PS3 games" from Gamespot
  2. ^ "Electronic Arts Breaks Into Fortune 500", Leigh Alexander, April 26, 2010, gamasutra.com. Fetched from Web on April 26, 2010.
  3. ^ Game Developer (CMP Media LLC), September 21, 2010