so in the wake of all this Dangen bullshit, I've seen a lot of people wondering aloud about why an indie would even bother with a publisher nowadays, so I figured I'd share my thoughts as they pertain to STG in particular, for whatever they're worth, chime in if you like (thread)
before thinking publisher vs. self-published, I think anyone making commercial STG needs to consider, first & foremost, how much time and money they're willing to invest in a game that will in all likelihood struggle to break even; in that sense, a publisher might be able to (>)
help you finish a game or hit a certain level of polish that wouldn't otherwise be possible, but that commitment to the publisher may end up tethering you to a game for longer than one might really be able to justify
put bluntly, the average sales ceiling for new STG is very low & anyone who chooses to stake their livelihood on them ought to think hard about making them as quickly & cheaply as possible so that, in the likely event that their game makes no money, they can recover & move on
that's not to say ppl should cut corners or rush to release games before they're ready, just that there's a very real chance you won't get back the money you put in, and if your game launches below expectations then there won't be a lot you can realistically do to turn it around
ofc this is true of indie dev in general but I think some STG devs/pubs, moreso than some other niche genres, still cling to the idea that new games in this genre can reclaim the mainstream attention they used to get just by getting the attention of the right ppl/outlets, but (>)
I think it's painfully evident that no amount of "exposure" is going to get these games over anymore—nobody can guarantee that sort of coverage, for one, but either way, visibility isn't the issue; people aren't necessarily unaware of these games, most just don't & won't care
that said, the level of mainstream awareness of STG is definitely higher in Japan than elsewhere, and so cultivating awareness with Japanese players is particularly beneficial for smaller games, and 🇯🇵 press outreach is a genuinely useful lower-level service for a pub to provide
(to give one recent example of the bigger 🇯🇵 audience for STG: despite the relative ton of press & buzz it got overseas and 🇯🇵's traditionally small % of pledges & general reticence when it comes to crowdfunding, 60% of R-Type Final 2's $1m+ take came from Japan)
(also, I don't have numbers but my vague recollection is that, despite the lingering notion that 🇯🇵 players aren't on PC, recent commercial PC STG like Blue Revolver and ZeroRanger found sizable primary audiences in Japan, helped in part by lengthy interactions with 🇯🇵 community)
ofc the other big consideration is consoles & sure, you could ostensibly self-publish there too but getting into that club isn't always as painless as it's made out to be and again, it means one has to familiarize with lotsa new & time-consuming bullshit that you may not wanna do
even if you can do all these things for yourself—marketing, ports, cert, QA, boring business stuff—or don't see the value in splitting your revenue to make them happen, the tradeoff may be that one can simply save themselves a lot of work & get their game out the door way quicker
so ultimately, the potential benefit of a publisher is they can help minimise the amount of drudgery you're putting into a game that won't recoup, but before you sign you have to be frank about whether you've already crossed that point & whether a pub would just be another anchor
oh and maybe don't give any of your time to Ben Judd, jfc
forgive my should-be-working rambling, I hope it's coherent
forgive my should-be-working rambling, I hope it's coherent
