Publishers, why?

[limberer]

So I've been around this site for a while now, don't post very often but this is the first time I've ever started one. My question is, what's the point in video game Publishers nowadays?

I mean I know that they're mainly there to advertise, support, get dev teams work into stops and a act sort of logo of approval to get some games into stores but other than that they just seem to act as interfering 'middle men' and hindering peoples work. In my opinion most of these jobs are redundant in these days of digital distribution in this day and age.

Take the whole Catwoman fiasco bat when Arkham City was released. I didn't really see anything wrong with them handing over a character, which had little to do with the main story, to people willing to buy the game new and directly from them, but I seem to be recognizing a pattern here where they are selling DLC to people already buying their product weeks before release, a la Mass Effect's From Ashes DLC. This is an obvious attempt to force people into paying more for than the usual price of a video game.

So tl:dr what is the point of video game publishing companies today, other than to make games worse?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Publishers have all the monies.

And monies makes the biggest games.

Hell, Journey isn't a huge game, but it has the biggest budget of any PSN title ever made.

Thatgamecompany wouldn't have had a chance without the support of Sony.

 

[HarryScull]

to give the huge amount of up-front cash needed to finance a games
however some game devs are looking into alternative means like the whole community funded idea but i have little faith in that idea working, what i see happening is this
1. fanboy pays some money towards a game
2. fanboy gets really hyped over the game
3. the game doesn't live up to the fanboy's expectation
4. massive fucking flame war between devs and fanboys
5. devs get fed up and go back to publishers

 

[limberer]

Publishers have all the monies.

And monies makes the biggest games.

Hell, Journey isn't a huge game, but it has the biggest budget of any PSN title ever made.

Thatgamecompany wouldn't have had a chance without the support of Sony.

I understand this, but what i mean is there surely has to be better investors than most publishers out there, I'm sure there are a few out there at the moment that are giving devs full control over things like dlc, i can't think of any, but there must be some out there.

 

[Hal10k]

Publishers have all the monies.

And monies makes the biggest games.

Hell, Journey isn't a huge game, but it has the biggest budget of any PSN title ever made.

Thatgamecompany wouldn't have had a chance without the support of Sony.

I understand this, but what i mean is there surely has to be better investors than most publishers out there, I'm sure there are a few out there at the moment that are giving devs full control over things like dlc, i can't think of any, but there must be some out there.

Budgets for triple A games sit in the tens of millions. Nobody relinquishes a sum of money like that lightly. Typically the best way to achieve that sort of funding is to seek out an investor specifically dealing with the type of media you're dealing with- i.e., a publisher.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

They are basically the older version of Kickstarter where they back up the project they think will do well plus a few perks. They also appear to be clueless most of the time.

 

[Ranorak]

Welcome to the entertainment industry.

Games are stuck with publishers.
Movies are stuck with Studios
Music is stuck with record labels.

This is, sadly, nothing new.
Or uncommon for that matter.