In chapter 12: Team Structures of the textbook, Games Design Workshop, by Tracy Fullerton, it talks about the importance of publishers and developers. First, it is important that both parties have a good standing with one another as they will be collaborating to make a game. Game developers are the ones who make and design the games that we play. These developers can be coders, digital artists, scriptwriters, etc… For instance, a game developer could be making the characters and the map of the game while another team works on the music and sound effects. The game publisher markets and distributes the games for consumers. An example of this would be the newest Call of Duty game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The ones who marketed and published the game was the company known as Activision.
Problems may occur when game publishers get greedy and they force developers to manipulate game content for more profit. A great example would be the publishers, Electronic Arts (EA) adding gambling to their games. The game FIFA 20 is a great example of how bad some companies try to take their costumers’ money. In the game mode Ultimate Team, you are able to open what is known as FIFA packs. In these FIFA packs, you unlock players for your soccer team so you can use them to play against other people. In these packs it is unlikely that you will get a good player, so you would have to open a lot of packs to get someone good. EA has it that you can spend real money on FIFA points so you can spend it on FIFA packs.
I agree that a good relationship between the game developers and the publishers is very crucial. The gameplay and overall experience of the game can potentially be affected due to the lack of cooperation. A great example of this would be the relationship between the developers Bungie and the publishers Activision. Activision wanted to add microtransactions to the game known as Destiny, so they could maximize profits while Bungie hated the idea. In the end, Bungie parted ways with Activision and also took the rights of the game. Because Bungie left Activision, they improved the game making it a more enjoyable game for players.
Sources:
Fullerton, Tracy, and Tracy Fullerton. “Working with Dramatic Elements.” Game Design Workshop: a Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, CRC Press, 201
I think we really don’t appreciate what our developers do to make our games good when publishers come in and ruin all their hard work. However, not all developers can work alone without publishers because there is much more strain and difficulty to work as an indie developer. EA has taken in developers and thrown them to the side. Beautiful games like Alice: Madness Returns become unimportant once the publisher sees that they are not profiting enough from them, which leaves developers like Spicy Horse to be stuck with go fund me pages.
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