Publishers

[alphadog]

I think many will agree that publishers (game, music, movies, etc), as a concept, served a necessary role by providing a model of "selector, manufacturer and broadcaster". However, given the advances and penetration of technology into everyone's lives, this model is in danger of becoming less useful and relevant.

What do you think will happen to publishers in the next handful of years?

[rouncer]

selling cheap 50c games on the mobile market.

[Reedbeta]

Well, I don't really see consoles going away anytime soon. And as new consoles require a massive up-front investment to develop the hardware and an initial set of games, I don't see publishers going away either in that space. It is possible to imagine a new console being created by some kind of consortium of independent studios, but that seems extremely unlikely in practice. :D

PC games, casual games and mobile games may be a different story, though.

[JarkkoL]

You will still need to have massive amounts of money for developing and marketing your games which very rare developers have luxury of doing independently (speaking of AAA games), so publishers wont be going away anytime soon.. unless of course if you can figure out other alternative financing models and investors to abuse you (: Publisher's role as manufacturers and broadcasters will definately change though when digital distribution becomes more predominant, maybe for the next console generation?

[Utra]

i dont see publishers takeing muthc of a blow in the recent future looking at past events developers are at bigger risk nowdays because so few publishrs are willing to take risks on new ideas and impmentations witin games and films, as they ether are vesy sucsesfull or the exact oposit.

[poita]

I think they'll always be around, but I also think that they're becoming less mandatory.