[stepurhan]

Originally Posted by Snarky

If I make a game, record an album, write a book, develop a software application, or whatever, are you seriously suggesting that I have a moral responsibility to pay a bunch of people to distribute it for me, if I don't need them? If I can do it more cheaply and efficiently myself?

But ARE you doing things more cheaply and efficiently. The advantage of these middle men that you so want to be rid of is that printing/distribution etc is all they do. A thousand people with proper printing facilities is much less efficient than one company printing a thousand different books. A thousand individuals delivering their product in a small van is a lot less efficient than one company delivering thousands of products with a lorry.

These people aren't just skimming off money for doing nothing. They're providing a service which, due to scale and specialisation, they can do a hell of a lot better than people whose expertise is programming and creative design. Because it's all they do they can also afford specialised equipment (e.g. a large printing press) that is out of the reach of people or groups for whom this activity is incidental. A fully bound hardback book is always going to look (and sell) better than a bunch of stapled sheets from a desktop printer, even if the content is the same.

[Glenn Epic]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

What??? You'd rather the developer do 4 years of work, people in the company working till 2 AM in crunch time, to produce a game you like, and not get enough money out of it? Whereas the publisher does the minimum work, and reaps all the profit.

You've got to view the situation from both ends of the spectrum. Publishers take a chance with every game they publish. Not every game is a hit. So, it's the publisher that has their money, not just their reputation at stake. We live in an age where, often, money is more heavily weighted than intellectual property.

So, in reply to your statement that every developer that has the money should publish their own games: Publishing a game is a very expensive process, especially for a small developer. Would you rather A. Have your game sell well and be published by another company,so therefore only recieve a fraction of the profit or B. Publish your own game and have it flop and as a result the company has no option left but to fold. Those are both extremes of course, but you do need to consider all the options.

Sure, you could publish your own game and have it sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But, in the end, thats a decision the developer is going to have to take a gamble on

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by Stalker

That example isn't too great, since in all cases but the software you'd still have to go the normal route (have the stuff printed, distributed and sold in stores - yeah, there's ebooks, but compared to "real" books, they're an absolute minority), even if you can insure that you sell as many copies as you would sell using a publisher. And no, it doesn't hurt too much if a handfull of companies to that.

Originally Posted by stepurhan

But ARE you doing things more cheaply and efficiently. The advantage of these middle men that you so want to be rid of is that printing/distribution etc is all they do. A thousand people with proper printing facilities is much less efficient than one company printing a thousand different books. A thousand individuals delivering their product in a small van is a lot less efficient than one company delivering thousands of products with a lorry.

You're both assuming physical distribution, which is an odd assumption to make since we're discussing Valve's Steam.

In all cases, I was assuming digital distribution:

Games - look at Steam
Albums - consider iTunes
Books - think of "Java for dummies"-type books put online as pay-to-register websites
Software - take MSDN licenses for example

I have bought all of these things online, in digital format. In fact, the last time I bought any of them except for books (but including magazine subscriptions), it was digital.

If you do need to produce and distribute the material physically, you may want a publisher. I never said you didn't. If you can't do it better yourself, you won't. Or you will and you'll fail.

Originally Posted by Stalker

But look at things like Amazon. Is it easier than ordering a book from your local bookstore? Sure. But if everyone bought books that way, a million bookstores would have to close down. And "thanks" to Amazon working so effeciently and the ordering process being basically automated, it's not like all those lost jobs could be remedied by employing the people at amazon or something. Less people with a job means less people buying stuff overall, which leads to a hurting economy.

Amazon is not a comparable example, since it's just exchanging one middleman (bookstores) for another (Amazon). But consider the jobs Amazon creates. You have the people hired by the company. You have people working for UPS and the postal service. You have thousands of mom-n-pop businesses trading second-hand books through Amazon Marketplace. You have authors and publishers of narrow books that will only achieve worthwhile sales world-wide. You have probably millions of businesses that increase their sales because things are available cheaper and more conveniently on Amazon, and who therefore hire more people.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by New_Order

You've got to view the situation from both ends of the spectrum. Publishers take a chance with every game they publish. Not every game is a hit. So, it's the publisher that has their money, not just their reputation at stake. We live in an age where, often, money is more heavily weighted than intellectual property.

In fact, the publisher often claims the intellectual property (the brand, though usually not the code) as well.

So, in reply to your statement that every developer that has the money should publish their own games: Publishing a game is a very expensive process, especially for a small developer. Would you rather A. Have your game sell well and be published by another company,so therefore only recieve a fraction of the profit or B. Publish your own game and have it flop and as a result the company has no option left but to fold. Those are both extremes of course, but you do need to consider all the options.

Sure, you could publish your own game and have it sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But, in the end, thats a decision the developer is going to have to take a gamble on

Funding is one of those useful functions a publisher fulfills. Even if their role as distributors were to be eliminated, I'm sure you'd still see companies invest in games for a share of the profits.

[Stalker]

Originally Posted by Snarky

You're both assuming physical distribution, which is an odd assumption to make since we're discussing Valve's Steam.

In all cases, I was assuming digital distribution:

That's why I said books weren't too great of an example too, because while they can be distributed digitally that accounts to probably less than 1% of the market. Though I have to admit I did forget about Amazon Marketplace as a sort of replacement for the hurt businesses.

Anyway, as I said somewhere above, if the product is significantly cheaper or better because of digital distribution, the overall economic problem isn't hurt since the consumer can and will spent the saved money elsewhere (not neccessarily games, of course).

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by Stalker

But look at things like Amazon. Is it easier than ordering a book from your local bookstore? Sure. But if everyone bought books that way, a million bookstores would have to close down. And "thanks" to Amazon working so effeciently and the ordering process being basically automated, it's not like all those lost jobs could be remedied by employing the people at amazon or something. Less people with a job means less people buying stuff overall, which leads to a hurting economy.

Amazon is great for the economy. Why? Because I can buy books there that are so much cheaper than a bookstore, and it makes more people buy books. I know for myself, that the number of books I've bought since ebay and amazon came into the picture is much higher, so if you think of it, more people buying things is more money put into the economy. I mean all the royalties gaming developers have to pay to retailers, publishers, and even console manufacturers is making the price of games increasingly higher.

How is that better for the economy? Irrational is a good example. They are selling freedom force for 39.99. I bet you if they went through a publisher solely, they would have sold it for 49.99 to make some profit.

But publishers do play an important role and don't have to be eliminated completely. Just like Amazon and Barnes and Noble coexist, so can EB Games and developer-online stores. And publishers are still important to bring the games to people who don't have an internet connection or who'd rather buy a game from a store. Also a lot of these small developers need funding, so publishers can be a great VC for them.

[Erwin_Br]

It doesn't make much difference whether everyone buys at a normal store, or on-line via Amazon. When everyone would buy at Amazon, more e-commerce bookstores would open. Amazon wouldn't even be capable of handling such a mass of customers in their current form, so they'll get bigger and hire more people as well. So yeah, regular bookstores would shut down. But more e-stores will be founded and they'll hire more people.

--Erwin