作者：Brandon Sheffield

在过去40年里，发行商在游戏中的角色发生了巨大的改变。他们从80年代的毫无经验，变成了90年代的必不可少，变成了2000年代中后期独立热潮中的可有可无，而现在，它甚至变成了让人充满好奇的领域。还记得在5年前我曾说过，发行商的唯一用处便是能够带给你收益并帮助你解决问题。而现在对于独立开发者来说，他们是否还需要发行商的帮助？

谁需要发行商呢？

在Necrosoft Games，我们总是在寻找下一个投资来源，寻找能够营销我们自己的有效方式或传统发行商所提供的其它内容。

但其实除了开发资金外，如今的大多数发行商似乎已经不再有用了。而如果是这样的话你还需要他们吗？如果现在的你可以通过众筹等方法去获取游戏资金，那么大多数发行商便会失去作用。

市场营销方法

现在销售游戏比过去复杂多了。如今我们再也看不到Sega Genesis时代那些很容易受牵制的用户。在那时候如果你拥有一台主机，你的祖母可能会因为听说你喜欢《蝙蝠侠》并且知道你拥有主机而为你购买面向Genesis发行的全新《蝙蝠侠》游戏。在这种环境下像Acclaim等传统发行商简直如鱼得水。他们甘愿为游戏掏钱，因为他们知道这里存在潜在用户并且人们知道什么样的内容正流行。

现在的游戏诞生率高于过去的任何时候。所以你很难在保证祖母们是否了解如何赠予玩家Steam码，她们当然也很难猜到玩家想要什么样的游戏。除了发行商以外，大多数游戏开发者甚至未听过半数以上悄然成为Steam上受欢迎的游戏的名字及其开发者。（游戏邦注：你是否听过《Verdun》？这款售价25美元的游戏已经卖出50万份了。）

而只有极少数的发行商能够使用全新的市场营销方法去解决这一问题。像TinyBuild和Devolver等公司通过使用streamer，YouTuber和一些社交媒体能在游戏发行前对其进行宣传。这也的确是有效的方式。

但大多数发行商其实仍在使用静态的发行方式，即将游戏零售和展会展台作为主要的营销方式。但这种方法早已不再可行了。就像我的朋友便曾将他们的游戏带到各种展会上，如PAX和E3，但是他们的游戏销量却未因此得到提高。为什么会这样？因为他们只做了这些事而未采取其它营销方式。前往展会并获得媒体报道并不能真正帮助你出售游戏。也许你能因此接触到YouTuber，但是你还必须为此做出更多调查，千万不要想着去依赖巧合。现在开发者可以采取各种各样的市场营销方法，但是许多发行商却并非真正擅于做这些事，因为他们大多被古老的方法所包围着。

不过即使发行商缺少创造性，他们也会因为拥有固有用户而把握优势。假设你拥有一款JRPG。那么Square Enix，XSEED等发行商便会适合你。而如果你所创造的是一款暴力行动游戏，那么你便可以选择Devoler。如果你能够将其中一个发行商的名字和你的游戏捆绑在一起，你的游戏可能会卖得更好，因为这些发行商拥有一批不断追随着你所创造的游戏类型的死忠粉丝。如果是这种情况，那么不管发行商是否能够有效执行市场营销便不再重要了。

然后你将面对一些更加常见的发行商。一种便是我之前提过的会提供给你资金，但是要和你平分收益，并且不能通过真正有效的方法去帮助你推广游戏的发行商。不幸的是这正是今天大多数发行商的面貌。这些发行商通常都是保留着那些知名度较高的游戏并将独立游戏作为一种“尝试性”投资，希望它们能够变身热门游戏，但如果游戏不能获得成功他们便会选择直接放弃。

即使在游戏发行后，市场营销也是仍需进行推动的一环。如果发行商不能或不想这么做，那么除了能够提供给你资金外他们便不能带给你任何帮助。更准确地说便是，这些钱是远远不够的。你最好期待着游戏的销售额能够支撑着你们想出下一个游戏理念，或者最理想的情况是能够资助你的下一款游戏。

Screenshot(from gamasutra)

如果当你在宣传游戏时，唯一对游戏感兴趣的发行商是这样的发行商，那么你最好选择独立发行自己的游戏。至少你能够获取所有利润并且不管成功与否都取决于自己的能力。就像在Necrosoft，我们便决定比起发行商自己营销游戏会更好。

所以开发者到底该如何识别对自己有帮助的发行商？以下便是我们的一些经验之谈。

1.你是否听说过他们？如果听过的话，先了解他们的用户基础。如果他们的用户与你所创造的游戏的目标群体相吻合，你便可以试试这一发行商。

2.阅读他们的员工所写的有关市场营销，发行等等内容的文章。了解他们是否在尝试创新？实际上如果他们在编写有关市场营销的文章便是一个好的迹象。如果你发现他们在做的一些事很有趣，这便是不错的结果。

3.他们的名声怎么样？询问你的开发者朋友该开发商是否适合合作。这点非常重要。

除此之外你只能凭借直觉了！

资助开发很重要，但有时候你可能只需要获得这笔资金。如果你最终选择了一个将会资助你的游戏，但是之后便会将其忘记的发行商，你就必须承担起独自营销游戏的责任。你将独自负责联系streamer，制定游戏发行计划，准备媒体发布会，给粉丝发送tweet等等。当然这绝不是开发者会喜欢的工作，但是如果发行商不帮忙做的话，你们便不得不去做这些事。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Publishers for indies – are they useful anymore?

by Brandon Sheffield

The role of publishers in games has changed massively in the last four decades. They’ve gone from fledgling (80s), to absolute necessity (90s), to near-irrelevance (indie boom of mid-late 2000s), to the curious interstitial place they’re in now. Five years ago, I’d have said the only point of a publisher was to give you money and get out of the way. Now, for indies, I think they are either not even good for that, or massively more important, depending on which type you’re talking about.

Who needs them? (Almost everyone, but only sometimes)

I am, at any given time, pitching a game or two to publishers. At Necrosoft Games, we’re always looking for that next source of funding, a fancy way to market ourselves, or some other such thing that a publisher traditionally provides.

But when it comes down to it, most publishers today aren’t actually useful beyond the money they provide for development. And if they’re not useful beyond the money they provide, how much do you really need them? If you can crowdfund or bootstrap your game, most publishers will be of limited use to you.

The marketing problem

Selling a game is more difficult than ever. There’s no captive audience like there may have been in the Sega Genesis days. If that was the console you had—well, your grandma was buying you the new Batman game for Genesis, because she heard you liked that movie and she knows you’ve got the console. It was in this sort of environment that traditional publishers like Acclaim thrived. They paid money for a game, and they knew they could sell it because they knew where the people were and had a good idea of what might be popular.

Now, more games are coming out than at any other point in history. You can’t guarantee Grandma knows how to gift you a Steam code, and she certainly doesn’t know which particular game you want, because it’s not plastered all over the inside of a Toys “R” Us. And it’s not just publishers. Most game developers haven’t even heard of half the games that become quietly Steam-popular and make millions for their devs. (Did you know about Verdun? It sold 500k units at around $25 each. I sure didn’t know, til my programmer Shane Marks found it.)

A very small number of publishers combat this problem with innovative marketing. Companies like TinyBuild and Devolver use streamers, YouTubers, and smart social media stunts to hype games before they launch. This actually works.

But most publishers still use static press releases, a few game trailers, and an expo booth as their big marketing drive. This just doesn’t work anymore. Friends of mine have brought their games to over a dozen expos, from PAX to E3, and it didn’t affect their sales. Why? Because that’s all they did, nothing more. Going to expos and getting press writeups doesn’t sell games. It might get you to a YouTuber, but you’ve got to make that happen with legwork, you can’t rely on accidents. You’ve got to have a multipronged approach to marketing, and many publishers simply don’t have the expertise to do it, because they’re too entrenched in the old ways.

Even if they’re not innovative, though, a publisher can be useful if they have a built-in audience. Say you’ve got a JRPG. Atlus, Square Enix, or XSEED might be the publisher for you. If you’re going for a violent action game, maybe Devolver is the thing. Simply by putting one of these publishers’ names on your game, you’re likely to sell more, because they’ve got a fan base actively looking for the type of game you’re making. In this case, it doesn’t matter as much whether they do any aggressive marketing, because their fans are already looking for that kind of game from them. (Devolver is a one-two punch though, because they do both.)

Then you’ve got the more common sort of publisher. The one I mentioned before, which gives you a bit of money, takes a recoup and a revenue share, and doesn’t promote your game in any way that’s going to help it sell. This is, unfortunately, most publishers out there today. They also usually don’t have much of an identity (like Atlus does). These publishers tend to stay in business with their bigger marquee titles and use indies as a “try it and see” sort of investment in the hopes that it’ll hit—but will leave games to flop if they don’t, without putting in any real effort.

Marketing needs to be a continuous push, even after launch. If a publisher can’t or won’t do that, it’s not really going to help you do anything other than pay for exactly how much your game costs to make. And let’s be clear, that is not enough money. The sales from that game have to pay you at least until you can get another deal, or ideally make you enough to fund your next game yourself.

When pitching around, if the only publishers who are interested are of this kind, you might be better off releasing your game on your own. Then at least you get all the profits you earn and can live or die by your own skill. At Necrosoft, we’ve come to the conclusion that we can market our own game better than most publishers. Not nearly as well as the good ones, but… there just aren’t that many good ones, so if none of those wind up being interested, we might as well skip that whole thing.

So how the heck do you identify the good ones? Here’s how we feel about it.

1) Have you heard of them? If so, see what their fan base likes. If you can identify that and it lines up with what you’re making, maybe it’s a good match.

2) Read articles written by their staff, about marketing, publishing, and so forth. Are they trying new things? The fact that they’re writing articles about marketing is already a good sign. But study what they’re doing. If it seems interesting (read up on TinyBuild’s Punch Club initiative for an example), they might be pretty good.

3) Do they have a good rep? Ask your developer pals whether they’re good to work with. This is pretty important.

Other than that, go with your gut!

Funding development is important, to be sure, and sometimes you just need to get the cash. So if you do wind up going with a publisher who’s going to fund your game, then fire and forget, be aware that all the marketing will be on you. You’ll be responsible for contacting streamers, coming up with a game plan, making press meetings happen, creating cool things to tweet out to fans, et cetera. It’s no developer’s favorite job, but somebody has to do it – and there’s a very good chance your publisher won’t.（source：Gamasutra）