Thoughts about being self published

inkmmo

inkmmo
Recently we saw many flaming posts both here and on Reddit - more less inspired by latest 1.1 patch. One of them was something like:

...that's the poor quality you get when you are self published...
Click to expand...

I personally find this untrue. Yes self published is hard but it doesn't mean it is ensured disaster. I wonder how come those players are so biased and do not remember that many popular games started as self published?

I will save you some time and give you some examples of very popular games originally self published:
  • Riot games and their well known League of Legends (most popular online game in the world)
  • Mojang AB and Minecraft (they recently sold it to Miscrosoft for a huge sum of money)
  • CCP games and Eve Online (the only MMO out there that since release had their player population rise and never drops)
  • Hirez Studios and Smite (third most popular MOBA and really risky but different approach to genre from a very small studio)
and many others...
So some well known titles are there and they are self published.

Now the true reason why I am publishing this is inspired by recent events regarding Sony Online Entertainment being bought by Daybreak Games and they just fired some big names from company including Dave Georgeson

https://twitter.com/DaveGeorgeson/status/565587111353778179

more on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1xVK3sCroU

Right now, we have no reason to believe that EverQuest Next will be just another MMO which wasn't original idea.
For those who don't know he is pretty big name in MMO industry and when he can be so easily removed I come to conclusion:

I am so glad that Elite Dangerous is self published.

It would be nice to pause and think about this whole new situation happening in the MMO gaming industry and refrain yourself from such extremest claims such as

...that's the poor quality you get when you are self published...
Click to expand...
 

Flappers

Flappers
There are most certainly pro's and con's to being self published.

Pros -
You set your own deadlines
You set your own goals
You fulfill your own visions
You decide what is good and bad for the game
Your decision on monetization

Cons -
Less funding
Less advertisement
Less resources
Less ideas

You can't weigh the amount of pro's and con's because each one has it's own value.

But ultimately, I think it's good for ED to be self published. Yes, we have a rocky ride with patches and releases. But if there was a publisher behind it, it would be a LOT worse than it is. Plus they would be forced to find ways of adding more ways to gaining revenue. The scary thought of buying credits for real money... *shudder*
 

Skip Intro

Skip Intro
It's not as if Frontier are one person in a room, writing a book and putting it out through Smashwords. I don't particularly think that there's less ideas from an independent game, though being your own boss sometimes means you can lose focus.
 

Loskene

L
Frankly, traditional game publishers are going the way of the dinosaur. Self-publishing is the way to go these days. I wouldn't tie the publishing method down to the quality of the game though, that's entirely in the field of the developers, and self published or not the game could just as easily turn out good or bad.
 
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