Eurogamer

Psychonauts creator Tim Schafer doesn't think publishers are evil, but does believe they sometimes remove risky ideas from games.

Schafer has raised nearly $2 million dollars from fans to fund development of a new old school adventure game through Kickstarter - an eye-watering figure that has left some questioning the future role of publishers.

"Well, I'm not trying to vilify them," Schafer told HookshotInc.com.

"Publishers do their business in a way that works for them. They're risking millions of dollars so they've got to mitigate that risk - and sometimes that means removing risky ideas from games.

"The thing is, Double Fine is all about coming up with new, unproven and really creative ideas. It's a constant battle for us to get those ideas to go through the system, that long spanking machine of people who have to sign off on your idea. They're not evil, they're just trying to protect themselves."

Schafer and Double Fine have has an interesting relationship with publishers over the years.

PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game Brutal Legend was eventually published by EA after Activision dropped it and subsequently tried to block it from sale.

Now, Double Fine concentrates on downloadable games, and has seen success with a raft of smaller-scale titles, including Stacking, Costume Quest, Iron Brigade and Happy Action Theatre.

But with these games Schafer still needed to seek a publisher's help. THQ published Costume Quest and Stacking, and Microsoft published Iron Brigade and Happy Action Theatre.

Now, with its new adventure game, Schafer has bypassed the publishers altogether, raising cash through crowd-sourcing - as his faith in the likes of PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade dwindles.

"Ever since I played Geometry Wars I thought, what a great new portal," he said.

"But it seems that this year, the idea didn't explode like it should have. Back when Castle Crashers came out, it seemed it was going to grow and grow. I just wish there was more support, more marketing, more placement on the dashboard. It could have been our own little Sundance Film festival, a great sandbox for indie development.

"But the indie community is now moving elsewhere; we're figuring out how to fund and distribute games ourselves, and we're getting more control over them. Those systems as great as they are, they're still closed. You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can't do it on these systems.

"I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch - we can't afford that! Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that's where it's at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That's where people are going."

As for the adventure game, Schafer promised to create an experience the fans will like, but "that doesn't always mean doing something they've asked you to do".

"If you're making a shooter and the fans say, 'we want the shotgun to be more powerful', you might not be able to do that because it's tied in to a lot of other systems.

"So you just ask yourself, okay, why do they want the gun to be more powerful? What do they really want here? Then you give them what they really need, the thing that's behind what they ask for. Do you know what I mean?

"The fans will get a really original adventure game. That's what they want."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-13-tim-schafer-publishers-arent-evil

I love Tim Schafer however while reading this ALL I could think was ''Good god I wish the publisher had intervened more in Brutal Legend''. What's that? Poorly implemented RTS elements in a game that already has driving and 3rd person hack and slash? Errrr yea let's cut that. And we would have received a much better game for it.

And that's the root of the matter. The power balance must be carefully maintained, but (as i've said many times before) you need someone looking over your shoulder with the power to tell you "no," as a major artist working in a commercial medium.

Publishers should not really have the power to add (because they tend to add things that benefit their interest or that they think will twist the game's appeal in a way it isn't meant to go), but they should have the power to subtract.

Yup there is definitely a balance to be struck. I still think it's a huge shame that the developers of Duke Nukem had as much freedom as they did. If you go back and watch the first trailers for that game (must be E3 2000/1 or something) they are VERY impressive for the time. You get the feeling that had the developer not had as much control that the publisher would have said ''Right look, polish it up a bit and get it out'' then maybe Duke Nukem would have stayed relevant. Likewise Brutal Legend needed some more intervening. 

There are opposite examples of course. Devil May Cry 2 was a ridiculous example of a publisher simply ignoring a developer and quickly shipping a title to another dev. 

I think the developer has 100% control style only works for smaller games. Where little quirks and odd things don't make too much of a difference. For bigger games I think you kind of need a publisher to be there making sure things stay to a rough schedule etc. 

To each his own, but Kickstarter just rubs me the wrong way. I don't have any desire to act as an investor for a game's development when the developer will keep all the money.