At least the larger ones are, while the small publishers ”are much more sensible,” and understand ”the way the world is moving.” A digital release is in their future.
That’s not to say they won’t ship physical copies, but at the start there’s little reason to give a huge slice of the profits to a publisher when they can keep the majority going digital.
”…what most people are interested in is whether the publishers have wised up and are standing in line to sign us. Not entirely. If any of you thinks that Bobby Kottick caught the first flight to Prague with a bag of cash, sorry to burst your bubble,” said Dan Vávra, Creative Director for Kingdom Come.
”In the first place, it’s not entirely kosher to do a Kickstarter campaign and then sell the game to a big publisher. And secondly the big publishers are pretty much aware that a thing like that could end up like Facebook and Oculus Rift.”
They were courted by some big organisations at GDC but it was far from enticing to Warhorse.
”…one fine day we will need hundreds of thousands (one hopes) of actual boxes for the stores and for that we will need someone who knows what they’re doing, because it’s certainly not our thing. So cutting a deal with someone who will put the game out in their boxes and take a cut of the profits, leaving us with creative freedom, is quite a sensible option.”
”We’ve already had a whole bunch of meetings with such potential partners. We’ve also heard, of course, from publishers, though mostly just the ones who showed the greatest interest even before our campaign. The offers were a mixed bag and it can be said that the smaller the publisher, the more sensible the offer,” continued Vávra.
”It seems the big publishers have yet to grasp the concept that unless they offer serious money and accept a significant share of the risk, nobody actually needs them for anything anymore.”
One publisher told them why it would cost so much for all the marketing etc. to justify their huge slice of the profit pie, only to then be approached by a large marketing company who promised ‘half the cost’.
”What would you do in a situation like that? A deal like that might be OK for someone who doesn’t have a dime and really needs someone to pay their marketing costs. But if you do have the cash for that…?”
”It seems that the smaller publishers are much more sensible. I get the feeling they have a much better idea about the way the world is moving,” he said.
At the very start of the indie company, Vávra argued they’d probably be better off going with self-publishing by using digital distribution, allowing them to keep their hard earned revenue.
”Following all the meetings, the rest of our GDC delegation also came to a similar conclusion, including our investor’s representative. We can easily put out the digital version of the game for PC and console and share with smaller distributors, who have been much more forthcoming than the big guys, on the boxed game,” he explained.
”In the past you needed a publisher as a go-between for a whole range of services that developers didn’t have access to, but today the only thing they have going for them is money, and if they don’t want to spread it round or you don’t need it, then they’re basically good for nothing.”
They also looked into what else they can do ‘in-house’ without resorting to external partners, like motion capture, their own marketing, recording and localisation. In other news the Warhorse Studios team has grown from 30 to 50 developers, and they’ll number 60 next month. Not having a publisher hasn’t slowed them down.
Check out the full Kickstarter update for Kingdom Come: Deliverance for more.
