Games whose purchase proceeds no longer go to the developers

[Cooper]

Some games whose proceeds no longer go to the developers are listed here:
http://machinestudios.co.uk/viewentry.php?id=45

I think this is worth discussing.
(thanks to Mr Denby's twitter for this...)

I buy games from GoG if they have put the work in to make these game compatible beyond bundling them with DosBox.

I would LIKE to think that buying these games sends a message to publishers that there is still demand. but I'm not convinced. If From Dust is what we get for buying these games, then, well... In the abscence of the proceeds of a game going to their developers, and with no clear suggesting that a demand for them will change large publishers design choices I wonder:

Why buy these games?

[Porcupeth]

That's interesting indeed.


Titan quest? Why? All of it goes to THQ alone now?

[SirKicksalot]

I would LIKE to think that buying these games sends a message to publishers that there is still demand. but I'm not convinced. If From Dust is what we get for buying these games, then, well...

Well then it's a good thing. There's always room for cheap and unique games built on groundbreaking technology.

For some of those games the earnings go to the franchise holders (Bond, LOTR, Warhammer etc). For the rest, just because the developer went tits up doesn't mean those dollars aren't invested in other cool games by the publisher.
It seems a bit silly to me. Money from the purchase of Company of Heroes doesn't go to its designers because they left Relic. Where exactly do you draw the line in this argument - at the name of the studio, at the employees directly responsible for the game or what?

When a game is stuck in a legal limbo and nobody knows where the money goes, that's when you might as well go ahead and pirate it IMO. However I can't think of anything in that situation except for System Shock 2 and Rise of Nations.

[Kadayi]

Unless your company is a going concern then there's never been a royalty stream in place (unlike say film & television). Half the reason GOG can go on about being DRM free is because ultimately there's not a massive list of developers getting a slice of the action. The money is made GoG with the publishers getting a slice. It's icing on the cake money for them, not life and death.

[Jacques]

Unless your company is a going concern then there's never been a royalty stream in place (unlike say film & television). Half the reason GOG can go on about being DRM free is because ultimately there's not a massive list of developers getting a slice of the action. The money is made GoG with the publishers getting a slice. It's icing on the cake money for them, not life and death.

Yep, the publishers are able to make money on a game that's long since out of print, something that wouldn't happen with second hand sales.

[sabrage]

Yep, the publishers are able to make money on a game that's long since out of print, something that wouldn't happen with second hand sales.

Have you seen the prices of some classic PC games? I'm anxiously waiting for them to get Severance up there.

[soldant]

So... for the most part, this list just reads like a list of defunct game developers.

People didn't really think that when they purchased a game from GoG or Steam that it was feeding money back into the original developer, now defunct, did they?

[Jacques]

Have you seen the prices of some classic PC games? I'm anxiously waiting for them to get Severance up there.

Yep, they're absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Wasn't Severance the game where you could cut off an enemies arm and beat them to death with it?

[sabrage]

Yep, they're absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Wasn't Severance the game where you could cut off an enemies arm and beat them to death with it?

I wouldn't know, I've never played it. What I've seen looks a lot like Demon's Souls.

[Jacques]

I wouldn't know, I've never played it. What I've seen looks a lot like Demon's Souls.

From an IGN faq:

You can cut off your enemy's head, then pick it up and beat the next enemy to death with it!

[Kodeen]

Why buy these games?

Are you asking why buy them in lieu of pirating them, or why play them at all?

[Bhazor]

Its the sad truth of Gog that the money almost never reaches the developers.
In an ideal world there'd be residuals and royalties (say 5-10% of any sale) shared out among the main band who made it. But thats the problem I guess, how do you classify the band? A game from 6 years ago could have hundreds of people working on it and how do you decide who gets what?

[trjp]

I think this whole mentality of 'wanting to support the developers' is misguided and naive and people need to open their eyes a bit.

When a developer decides to make a commercial game they will usually need the support of a publisher(s) to fund development and ensure the widest possible market for their game. Even self-publishing developers need the support of DD services, App Marketplaces, Ad Networks and the like - and they all expect a piece of the pie.

This mentality that only developers should benefit from their work is, therefore, kinda stupid.

Developers are like everyone else in business - some are good at it but most are bad. That they are creating things you love doesn't spare them the need to have some business savvy if they want to be commercially successful.

The same deal applies to artists and musicians too - if they aren't wise, other people will happily take the lions share of their income too. Again, they need to either show more business-sense or stop trying to make money from what they do.

So can we please move away from this childlike blinkered idea that

Developer=good guy
Everyone else=badguy

Because it's kinda wearing...

[Berzee]

I quite agree with trjp -- and I do want as much money as possible to go to the person who is actually responsible for creating the thing that I enjoy. =) But if at some point during his career the game developer decided to enter into a business agreement with a distributor or publisher of some kind, and if at some point that publisher entered into a business agreement with another business, and if the eventual result of all of those agreements is that somebody else gets to make money off of the game...well, it all started with the developer's decision, and as long as there wasn't any fraud or cheating in the process, why shouldn't I honor the developer's perfectly valid business agreements by paying the people he made a deal with, according to the terms of the deal?

Unless you have some sort of default assumption that everyone who bargains over their creation got swindled in the transaction, why wouldn't you deal with it plainly like any other business?

[soldant]

Unless you have some sort of default assumption that everyone who bargains over their creation got swindled in the transaction, why wouldn't you deal with it plainly like any other business?

Because this is game development, which means "Drama++". Games are the odd one out because although they're effectively creative works, they're still made by what is effectively a business. If you're selling your game on any sort of serious scale, you have to be a business. It's not like the art world where someone makes a piece of art and people pay what they think it's worth. Even the music industry isn't really the same as the gaming industry, because the gaming community has an incredibly vocal interest in what developers and publishers do. Thus any business dealings aren't just business dealings, they're considered insults by the gaming community. If a developer says "We'll be going for a cross-platform release", people translate that to "We're abandoning the PC". If a developer says "We're cutting Feature X which was in the previous game" people translate that to "We're dumbing it down because we're thick." If the gaming community has demonstrated anything, it's that they don't care about the business decisions or anything like that. All we really care about is the game that we get.

Developers should get credit for their game, but publishers are doing part of the work too, and they will get a cut of the pie (and if they funded development that's not an unreasonable expectation). Likewise, as Berzee said, if a developer enters into an agreement with a publisher, that's their choice. It's just that as gamers we're ridiculously vocal about these choices and condemn most of them.

Also I sort of agree with trjp, in part that a developer who releases a crap game or doesn't go about marketing it properly and loses it all fails with good reason. I also don't agree with continually supporting developers by buying the game again and again for no good reason (and the HIB releases are the worst ones for this). Introversion were on the ropes for a while, a combination of effectively sitting on their hands hoping Multiwinia would be interesting (it was Darwinia with MP, that was never going to be enough) combined with poor marketing. If they'd hit the floor and lost it all, it would have been because of their poor business decisions. If Project Zomboid had shut up shop following that ridiculous theft, they would have deserved it for failing to properly back up their data. Developers deserve their money when they deliver, but unconditional support seems ridiculous to me, especially if they're not making good choices.

[deano2099]

We're in a transition period. Money from GoG sales of most games now is indeed icing on the cake. It's revenue publishers didn't expect to see, because GoG didn't exist when the game was being made.

But now it does, and if games do well on there then sends a very clear message: that games can sell well past their first month, year or even decade. And those sales can be quantified and used to predict sales on future games. Any publisher putting out new PC games now should be considering the long-term sales, either through GoG or just continuous availability on Steam or wherever. It gives a bit more money to play with, and also encourages the production of games that people will want to go back and play in ten years' time.

[icemann]

Well any case of where a company gobbled up another one (eg the numerous take overs that EA has done over the decades) would be one case of where it happens.

[Wizardry]

It gives a bit more money to play with, and also encourages the production of games that people will want to go back and play in ten years' time.

No it doesn't.

[trjp]

What Wizardry said - pretty much the only thing which guarantees a developer will do more of what they do is strong initial sales of a title (pre-orders + first few weeks at most) - same as movies where the opening weekend is king.

This is why DRM remains popular with many developers - because if it can stop pre-release and first-week piracy, they've reduced damage in THE most sensitive time. After that, it's arguable most developers working through publishers don't care about sales and any remaining royalties etc are - at best - gravy.

[BenWah]

I buy a game because I want to play it.

As long as the money isn't going towards slave labor or abortion or whatever, that's about as deep as I'm going to get into worrying where exactly the money goes.

Even if the money goes for some atrocity I have a hard time giving up say chocolate because kids are oppressed harvesting cocoa in east africa. I just hope the chocolate bars I eat don't come from the bad farms.

I wonder if some of these developers have programmers chained to the basement who are only fed oatmeal if they produce enough. I once had a job like that.

OK, it would be nice if the purchase money could go towards the developer having a big juicy pizza, a good one if the game turns out good. If the game is junk I hope he gets indigestion.

If someone unrelated bought the rights, well that's the joys of capitalism