When Humble Games laid off 36 employees this July, amid the general sense of unease and distaste was something more specific: déjà vu. Humble's downsizing came just days after the launch of its latest game, Bo: Path Of The Teal Lotus, a situation painfully reminiscent of Embracer's closure of Versus Evil late last year, which left Broken Roads developer Drop Bear Bytes without a publisher weeks before its planned release. Meanwhile, Humble owner Ziff Davis labelling the move as "restructuring" brought to mind the fate of the Take Two-owned Private Division, which remains in flux after most of its employees were laid off in April.
It hasn't been an especially good few months for indie game publishing, then.
But is the situation completely - as Mike Rose, founder of publisher No More Robots, put it during an interview with Game Developer "fucked"? One developer likely to back that assessment is Bo developer Squid Shock Studios. The Humble situation has been disastrous for the studio, co-founder Chris Stair tells us. Before the restructuring, he was in talks with the publisher about sourcing extra funding to support the game over the post-launch period. Now, funds are "dwindling fast", leaving Squid Shock to turn to Patreon to seek direct support from its audience (you can pledge a monthly amount, from £1 upwards, at patreon. com/squids-hock). "I wanted to have more control over the financial support of the studio, rather than relying on the publisher," Stair explains.
Meanwhile, Squid Shock been left unable to release patches for Bo's console versions, a pipeline that was handled by its publisher. And while Humble has put an interim team in place, Stair is not optimistic about the outcome.
"Our trust level is absolute below zero with these new people. I have no idea who they are, I have no idea what they're doing."
It's a bitter outcome for a relationship that, before July, had been mostly positive.
"I didn't regret working with Humble until what happened," Stair says. "It was our first game. They helped us a lot; they held our hand a lot." He adds that having milestones in place also helped to push the team to finish the game, which he thinks is a "big problem for a lot of indie devs - they don't really have that fire lit under their ass to keep them moving and finishing and delivering a product." But Stair says he would think twice about signing up with a publisher again.
Not that being able to find one in the first place is, by any means, a foregone conclusion. When we previewed delightful record-shop sim Wax Heads back in E397, the info box listed its publisher as 'TBA'. Catching up with co-creator Murray Somerwolff months later, he tells us that this is still very much the case. Somerwolff has been pitching Wax Heads to publishers since February, and is still to sign a publishing deal, despite a raft of positive previews and its project leads' track record in games.
"We've been talking to one publisher since March, and on so many metrics, it's all thumbs up," Somerwolff says. But there's an overabundance of caution about "anything that can be flagged as a risk" such as the fact that Wax Heads is being made using Godot rather than the better-known backbone of Unity.
"I kind of have the feeling that if this was two years ago, we would have been signed months ago," Somerwolff sighs.
According to Jónas Antonsson, CEO of publisher Raw Fury, he’s probably right about that. “It ties back to money being exceptionally cheap during the COVID years, and then becoming very expensive very quickly, which hits everything very hard,” he says. While this is very much a ‘now’ problem, Antonsson says it’s not necessarily a new one: “This is not the first cycle of economic turmoil within the game space I’ve lived through, and I think that this happens every time. That mid-budget range, however you define it, is always the hardest hit when it [comes to] getting funding during these sort of periods.”
And Wax Heads’ scope falls directly into that middle ground. “I think, for future projects, we have to make a decision,” Somerwolff says. “Which end of the spectrum are we going for?”
Meanwhile, Antonsson says Raw Fury has mostly been “operating like we’ve always done,” although he notes that it is now “a little bit more discerning when it comes to higher budgets – let’s say anything above one or two million.” So, from one indie publisher head to another, how does he feel about Rose’s assessment of the landscape? “I don’t think indie publishing is fucked, and I don’t think indies are fucked,” he says, although he agrees that everyone involved faces stern challenges. “The biggest one is discoverability and curation – that is a real problem. But I don’t think that just pertains to indies. I think that this is becoming a very big challenge in general: how do you cut through the noise?”
One indie developer that has managed to get its signal heard is Innersloth, the studio behind multiplayer hit Among Us. But while it’s a success story now, the team still remembers what it was like in the early days. “They were approached with different publishing deals which weren’t great, to put it nicely,” says Innersloth communications manager Victoria Tran.
As the one on the sharp end of those deals, Innersloth co-founder Forest Willard has been left with an understandably grim view of the situation. “Unfortunately most publishers and devs don’t really have aligned goals,” he says. “The majority of devs can’t make things at a scale publishers can make a timely profit on.” And that, according to Willard, results in the kind of risk-averse attitude where only perceived safe bets, such as sequels or derivative games, get signed. And even when they do, publishers often underdeliver on vital services such as marketing, QA or localisations, so that developers’ needs “simply don’t get met”.
Antonsson acknowledges that there are plenty of predatory publishers out there. “I mean, there are bad apples in every bunch, right?” He knows what it’s like on the other side of the fence – “I ran a development studio for ten years” – which is part of why he’s so keen to use his position to “push back on bad business behaviour in the industry.” The best way to do that, he believes, is “much more transparency.” It’s for that reason that Raw Fury made its standard contract public in 2020, to provide developers with “a starting point that [they] can then compare to whatever is being offered from someone else.”
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1725452903/articles/5t83QX4XA1725519113076/5555984214.jpg]
Willard’s answer is more radical still. Outersloth, announced at June’s Summer Game Fest, is capitalising on the success of Among Us to fund a host of projects from other developers. Vitally, though, Outersloth isn’t a publisher, and won’t be handling the likes of QA or marketing.
“We really don’t want to add services,” Willard says, without excluding the occasional piece of help or advice. This isn’t surprising, since Outersloth is a two-person operation. But Willard also believes it’s important that developers learn the ropes for themselves.
“A less...
It hasn't been an especially good few months for indie game publishing, then.
But is the situation completely - as Mike Rose, founder of publisher No More Robots, put it during an interview with Game Developer "fucked"? One developer likely to back that assessment is Bo developer Squid Shock Studios. The Humble situation has been disastrous for the studio, co-founder Chris Stair tells us. Before the restructuring, he was in talks with the publisher about sourcing extra funding to support the game over the post-launch period. Now, funds are "dwindling fast", leaving Squid Shock to turn to Patreon to seek direct support from its audience (you can pledge a monthly amount, from £1 upwards, at patreon. com/squids-hock). "I wanted to have more control over the financial support of the studio, rather than relying on the publisher," Stair explains.
Meanwhile, Squid Shock been left unable to release patches for Bo's console versions, a pipeline that was handled by its publisher. And while Humble has put an interim team in place, Stair is not optimistic about the outcome.
"Our trust level is absolute below zero with these new people. I have no idea who they are, I have no idea what they're doing."
It's a bitter outcome for a relationship that, before July, had been mostly positive.
"I didn't regret working with Humble until what happened," Stair says. "It was our first game. They helped us a lot; they held our hand a lot." He adds that having milestones in place also helped to push the team to finish the game, which he thinks is a "big problem for a lot of indie devs - they don't really have that fire lit under their ass to keep them moving and finishing and delivering a product." But Stair says he would think twice about signing up with a publisher again.
Not that being able to find one in the first place is, by any means, a foregone conclusion. When we previewed delightful record-shop sim Wax Heads back in E397, the info box listed its publisher as 'TBA'. Catching up with co-creator Murray Somerwolff months later, he tells us that this is still very much the case. Somerwolff has been pitching Wax Heads to publishers since February, and is still to sign a publishing deal, despite a raft of positive previews and its project leads' track record in games.
"We've been talking to one publisher since March, and on so many metrics, it's all thumbs up," Somerwolff says. But there's an overabundance of caution about "anything that can be flagged as a risk" such as the fact that Wax Heads is being made using Godot rather than the better-known backbone of Unity.
"I kind of have the feeling that if this was two years ago, we would have been signed months ago," Somerwolff sighs.
According to Jónas Antonsson, CEO of publisher Raw Fury, he’s probably right about that. “It ties back to money being exceptionally cheap during the COVID years, and then becoming very expensive very quickly, which hits everything very hard,” he says. While this is very much a ‘now’ problem, Antonsson says it’s not necessarily a new one: “This is not the first cycle of economic turmoil within the game space I’ve lived through, and I think that this happens every time. That mid-budget range, however you define it, is always the hardest hit when it [comes to] getting funding during these sort of periods.”
And Wax Heads’ scope falls directly into that middle ground. “I think, for future projects, we have to make a decision,” Somerwolff says. “Which end of the spectrum are we going for?”
Meanwhile, Antonsson says Raw Fury has mostly been “operating like we’ve always done,” although he notes that it is now “a little bit more discerning when it comes to higher budgets – let’s say anything above one or two million.” So, from one indie publisher head to another, how does he feel about Rose’s assessment of the landscape? “I don’t think indie publishing is fucked, and I don’t think indies are fucked,” he says, although he agrees that everyone involved faces stern challenges. “The biggest one is discoverability and curation – that is a real problem. But I don’t think that just pertains to indies. I think that this is becoming a very big challenge in general: how do you cut through the noise?”
One indie developer that has managed to get its signal heard is Innersloth, the studio behind multiplayer hit Among Us. But while it’s a success story now, the team still remembers what it was like in the early days. “They were approached with different publishing deals which weren’t great, to put it nicely,” says Innersloth communications manager Victoria Tran.
As the one on the sharp end of those deals, Innersloth co-founder Forest Willard has been left with an understandably grim view of the situation. “Unfortunately most publishers and devs don’t really have aligned goals,” he says. “The majority of devs can’t make things at a scale publishers can make a timely profit on.” And that, according to Willard, results in the kind of risk-averse attitude where only perceived safe bets, such as sequels or derivative games, get signed. And even when they do, publishers often underdeliver on vital services such as marketing, QA or localisations, so that developers’ needs “simply don’t get met”.
Antonsson acknowledges that there are plenty of predatory publishers out there. “I mean, there are bad apples in every bunch, right?” He knows what it’s like on the other side of the fence – “I ran a development studio for ten years” – which is part of why he’s so keen to use his position to “push back on bad business behaviour in the industry.” The best way to do that, he believes, is “much more transparency.” It’s for that reason that Raw Fury made its standard contract public in 2020, to provide developers with “a starting point that [they] can then compare to whatever is being offered from someone else.”
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1725452903/articles/5t83QX4XA1725519113076/5555984214.jpg]
Willard’s answer is more radical still. Outersloth, announced at June’s Summer Game Fest, is capitalising on the success of Among Us to fund a host of projects from other developers. Vitally, though, Outersloth isn’t a publisher, and won’t be handling the likes of QA or marketing.
“We really don’t want to add services,” Willard says, without excluding the occasional piece of help or advice. This isn’t surprising, since Outersloth is a two-person operation. But Willard also believes it’s important that developers learn the ropes for themselves.
“A less...
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Edge Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2024