The head of Landlords Publisher Hooded Horse explains how many games “fail” because of money – or lack of money due to poor contractual agreements between developers and publishing studios.
In a new interview with Jason “Thor” Hall, head of Pirate Software, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender says publishing deals are often to blame for games’ lack of success. “One kind of cornerstone of publishing deals — which I completely disagree with… is 100% cashback terms where the publisher comes back first. All sales go to cover the publisher’s costs before any sales proceeds go to the developer.”
Bender agrees with Hall when he describes such publishing deals as “absolutely devastating.”
“It’s terrible. It leads to so many games failing and people blaming the developers and then you think, ‘We know what happened.’ They were buried under the cost of recovering it – no matter what they ever did, they were never going to get out of there and make money from the game and support themselves.”
“When you set payback terms, you’re basically saying that the most important thing for the publisher is the financial success of the product, because that’s very protected. For example, if you get all the money until the money invested by the publisher is paid back, you’re basically saying, ‘I’m not going to fail in the sense of the financial project.'” Hall responds that in that scenario, “there’s no risk to the publisher” if the games fail.
“They’ve already recouped their finances. At this point, it’s just pure profit.” Bender agrees: “The consequence is that the developer doesn’t get any money until (the publisher) gets it back – that makes it much more likely that it will fail (for the developers)… and it also makes it much more likely that it will fail for the players.” His argument here makes particular sense – if a game is financially successful for the developers, fans can expect future improvements and updates.
If not, they can’t and “it’s over.” Success on the part of developers, rather than just publishers, “makes it much more likely that games that could be improved after release will respond to player complaints and develop into a successful game for players.” Bender concludes his point by claiming that Hooded Horse is “the opposite” because the publisher of Manor Lords “doesn’t use those terms for reclaiming” – a refreshing revelation, to say the least.
No more entertainment in a game? The developer of Manor Lords has a good idea: “Enjoy other games for a while” and come back “when there are new, fun things”
