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One of my biggest pet peeves when I first got into this business (in the ’90s *gasp*) was that publishers got way more credit than developers. Things have certainly gotten better and more people are aware of the companies that actually make the games they play…but it’s still not where it should be. I don’t mean to piss on the hard work that publishers do, but it seems ridiculous to me that they get top billing and more credit than creators do.
For example, let’s say I search for Mass Effect 2
Reading comments about Bethesda’s Rogue Warrior
What other industries promote publishers over creators? Do you walk into a movie thinking, “Oh sweet! This is a Fox Searchlight film. They’re awesome!” Do you buy music thinking, “Oh man, I love Jive Records! This is going to be great stuff!” What I really want to know is…are you going to go my way? No wait, that’s not right. I meant, are publishers still getting too much credit these days?
To answer the third speculative question in the header, I'm guessing a whole (5 fifths).
Record publishers DEFINITELY get more credit than the engineers and producers when it comes to music. Actors tend to get more credit when it comes to movies (I'm usually looking for who directed it, personally). So I suppose the phenomenon stretches across all media.
However, games are newer on the scene.
@N8R In music, the artists get more credit than the publishers. In movies, at least actors have a creative role in the movie. I think gaming is still too much the other way.
This still a problem. People think EA made the Madden games and the Rock Band games. So not true.
@ R Pad
PERFORMERS get the credit whether or not they wrote the songs. Example: Elvis never wrote a song. He's credited on one (All Shook Up… an Otis Blackwell song) because he wrote one line about the fuzzy tree (supposedly, but I don't buy it).
Movies… There are some actors you'll never convince me are creative even though they're in good movies.
Gaming… New kid on the block still. However, they are learning to fly. I think in time demand will set in in this particular media but the publishers (who flip the bill) will still find a way to work in their name in bold.
It was that way with books for a long time. People knew who the publisher was over the author because there were only so many people who COULD print books. You know how Ben Franklin REALLY got famous, right?
I believe that they do. The people that create the medium should get the credit for making it. It takes a lot of time and effort to make music, movies, tv shows, padcasts, and games should fall into that as well. Isn't that why we have credits in movies, tv shows, and music. Isn't that one of the reasons the writers went on strike 3 years ago? Sometimes people get too much for something they didn't do and others get too little credit when they did it all.
Because Publishers tend to foot the bill, it's right that they get some credit. But it's not right that developers often get left in the dark and only those that really follow the industry know the difference.
Look at a number of the Activision licenses as an example. If you don't know the difference between the developers, you'd think every Guitar Hero or CoD game was made by the same team. But they're not. And depending on which team is working on those games, you can set a different level of expectations in the final product because some studios are better than others.
The only conclusion I draw from a publisher is how I think the game will be treated. For example an Activision game will be sold to me in chunks so they can pump out sequels 10 months later or they'll just make a retarded ass entry as a quick cash grab. Also with activision I expect ridiculously priced DLC, DLC that could have been in the game at retail release, and horrible online experiences.
With EA i expect very little investment into making games on their end. They give a developer some operating capital and then pump the game out at full price. When the game is at $30 they are still making a profit since they put so little cash into the developer.
These two companies (there are others) make me look at anything associated with them through a prism of skepticism. Every now and then they let a good title slip out. Dead Space was very good. Activision….well…if it weren't for Blizzard then they'd have no quality.
Lets look back in history when other media was new on the block:
Music, the publisher was written super huge on the vinyl LP while the artist was considerable smaller with the song titles about half that size and the people who actually wrote the song were either half that size or not even printed (and we won't even get in to the Edison days).
Movies, Universal, RKO, etc… were household names with a few stars (in comparison to now) being known as well and I think Orson Wells was the first director to become widely known as such. Screenwriters are still pretty buried. There's only a handful of screenwriters I can think of that are famous for exactly that, and most of them are directors as well.
The internet… we all know who our ISP is, but how many people that know who their ISP is know who invented the internet? (no, it wasn't Al Gore… he invented global warming)
@Smartguy I think you're being hard on the two mega-publishers, especially EA. In the last few years the company has taken more risks with games like Dead Space, which you mentioned, but also Mirror's Edge and Skate. The company's deals through EA Partners help creative companies get the big-publisher marketing push.
@Ray
EA's cash cow is the madden franchise. They eliminated all competition by buying an exclusive agreement with NFLPA. That meant there was no longer an incentive to make the game better. Some people who visit this site defend the newest one as being the best or a significant improvement. I don't see it.
EA has let me down a lot. Dead Space is a great game. I'm not holding my breath that the sequel will be as good since it will be a cash grab probably. Mirror's Edge wasn't a good game to begin with. At least they did try.
When it comes down to it, I'm skeptical of anything EA is the publisher for. Same with Activision. I trust Sony and MS a hell of a lot more than either of those two companies.
I had an opportunity this weekend to sit in on a Q&A with the devs from 2k and Digital Extremes for Bioshock 2. There's lots of cool questions. you can check out the transcript here:
http://www.gamerswishlist.com/news/437-Bioshock-2…
If you want to listen to the call live (about an hour) catch it streamed here. you can also download it to mp3
http://a37.video2.blip.tv/5910003281005/Shockwave…
Seriously, everyone check it out, Shockwave did an awesome job on this.
I would like to see designers get a little more credit than the publishers, just because I feel it is easier to figure out what games I am more interested in based on designer. Example, id software is what attracts me to a game instead of who is publishing the game. The publisher matters a little bit, but I am definitely more interested in the designer. On the other hand, when it comes to movies, seeing Fox Searchlight Films instead of anything else does mean a certain quality in production.
In the end for me, knowing the publisher is helpful because if you know the publisher you know a little bit about the quality of games that they put out, but the designer is much more beneficial for me to know.