Who is the Best Publisher?

[Xarathox]

I would self publish since anything I would make would be:

A) PC only.

B) Either self funded if it's just a niche little indy title, or funded through Kickstarter if more ambitious. And finally...

C) Distributed digitally free of charge.

That's just me. I like to share.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Still Konami. Yes, yes, I know about Silent Hill HD collection, and you are right to bring that up. This whole last generation was a wash for them, with some major embarrassments. Though, they did patch Zone of the Enders HD and that looks pretty good now.

However, from Castlvania and Contra on the NES, those and Rocket Knight and TMNT on the SNES. Plus a domination of the PS1 with Metal Gear, Suikoden, Castlevania: SotN, and Silent Hill. Then to continue all those series into the PS2 with MGS 2, 3, Silent Hill 2, 3, 4, and Suikoden III, and adding ZoE makes them the best, bar none.

 

[endtherapture]

Bethesda are a big no-no. Sure TES and Fallout are cool, but Obsidian didn't get a bonus for making New Vegas because the Metacritic score was 1 point too low. How ridiculous.

 

[Colt47]

The best video game publishers I can think of are Konami, XSeed, Atlus, and Valve. The major publishers are generally too strict on the games they allow out their doors or have their eyes turned a bit too far towards cash grabbing. This doesn't mean the major publishers don't release good games, just that they end up bungling up in other ways.

 

[dancowan15]

All three of these publishers have their flaws, but I love Bethesda, Sony, and 2K for one reason: they have the guts to publish things that UbiSoft and Activision wouldn't even go near, and I think we're a better industry because of it. I mean really, do you think UbiSoft would have published Dishonored, Journey, Shadow of the Colossus, or Spec Ops: The Line?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The only one I'd even think about getting into bed with would be Valve.

I thought you'd go for Rockstar in some complicated deal where one of the clauses is that they bring RDR to PC.

 

[DarklordKyo]

I'd probably say Atlus, they're not exactly a publisher that would compromise my vision (if Rock of Ages is of any indication).

 

[madwarper]

Who publishes the Etrian Odyssey series? Atlus. That's who.

<3 Etrian Odyssey.

 

[Fox12]

I think I'd go with Sony as they seem to not force you into having a certain checklist of features (like your main character has to shoot things and you have to have multiplayer). They let Team ICO do what they do (who the fuck knows what's going on with The Last Guardian though), they funded and advertised a AAA adventure game in Heavy Rain and now Beyond: Two Souls, they let thatgamecompany make stuff like Journey and Flower, big devs like Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch seem to be able to do what they want for the most part, they let a game like Sly 4 get made, they heavily marketed games like LittleBigPlanet, they published 2 freaking karting games this gen, etc. It really seems from my perspective that Sony will let you make what you want and be rather hands-off while being pretty good to you on the marketing side as well. Therefore, I feel if I went to Sony, I'd be able to make the game I wanted and have it marketed well so if the game fails, it's pretty much the game's fault instead of blaming bad marketing on the publisher (like Sega). Lastly, I would just have to make the game for one set of hardware.

Yeah, Sony really seems to appreciate their developers and customers. I would probably be torn between Betheseda and Sony, but I think Sony would have the edge here. They've always done right by me on an individual level, and they always seem to do right by others as a business.

 

[Sandernista]

I'm partial to Bethesda myself. They seem to know what they're doing and aren't prone to screwing over developers.

I'm torn between Bethesda They've been doing right by me for awhile now

Yea...

Tell that to Obsidian...

 

[SajuukKhar]

Yea...

Tell that to Obsidian...

Right..... because following agreed upon contracts is screwing people over now?

 

[WoW Killer]

Publishers aren't the good guys. Maybe some are better than others, but it's just different flavours of turd.

The only good publisher is...

Spoiler

You.

That's right. Cut out the middle man. Get the people who want to play the game to be the people that fund it. No need to get any suits involved. Games made for gamers, by gamers, and funded by gamers. It's the future.

 

[AITH]

Erm... are you sure about Bethesda? IGN broke a story a while ago about how Bethesda properly screwed with the developers of Prey 2, Human Head, in order to try and lowball them and buy them out on the cheap. To summarise, they unofficially promised the developers a cash loan to help finance development, then went back on their word and arbitrarily started rejecting milestones. This meant the developers started running out of development cash, and couldn't finish the game. Bethesda then offered to buy Human Head for an extortionately low amount of money. Human Head instead went on strike, and ended up handing the game back to Bethesda to go work with a different publisher on something else.

The sad thing is, there's a rumour that this is how they managed to purchase Arkane Studios, the developers of Dishonored- bullying them into a corner, then buying them at an extortionately low price.

While Bethesda may not have the same allergy to new IP that other publishers do, there's evidence to suggest they're just as big a bag of dickweeds, if not moreso.

Dang, that's messed up. While this seems to be an intentional power play on Bethesda's part, Human Head shows how green they are by not getting that extension in written form.

 

[octafish]

The only one I'd even think about getting into bed with would be Valve.

I thought you'd go for Rockstar in some complicated deal where one of the clauses is that they bring RDR to PC.

I know, I'm like a dog with a bone. I was really looking forward to that game.

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

Square Enix have really gotten their shit together with PC games over the past few years.
All of the recent SE games I've played on PC have had excellent ports and most of the games themselves have been excellent overall.
Seems that in recent years for everything that they've done wrong with FF they seem to have done something right on hte publishing front. So Square, keep fucking up the FF series please.

 

[Strain42]

A big part of me wants to just say Atlus because the vast majority of games I buy these days are ones published by Atlus, with usually about 2 or 3 per year.

But admittedly almost all (not all, but several) of the games published by Atlus that I play are simply the ones they develop themselves. A lot of the ones they didn't develop I usually don't care about all that much (but of course there are exceptions like the Touch Detective series or 3D Dot Game Heroes)

If I had to pick someone besides Atlus, I give it to Chillingo.

They publish a lot of great iOS games that might not have been able to get off the ground without their help.

 

[TrevHead]

I have a soft spot for both SEGA & Rising Star Games (who have published alot of niche Japanese games in PAL)even though they dont seem to be all that active atm.

I also quite like Ubisoft, they're far from perfect but I do like the fact they put out many games like Outlander, M&M Clash of Heroes and Rayman that have a Japanese flavour to them, or like in Child of Eden's case publish Japanese games in the west.