Platinum Games to begin self publishing their future titles, teases two unannounced games

Varia · May 5, 2019

Interesting indeed. Perhaps Bayonetta 4 will be on the PS5.

Arras · May 5, 2019

jumpman17 said:
What are the hurdles a company needs to go through to self publish games in this day and age? Why do companies still publish through main AAA publishers?

I think it's probably just safer and easier to publish through a big publisher. Since it's often contract work (at least it often is for Platinum), they likely get paid when the game is done, even if it doesn't sell all that well. And while digital distribution is easy for any self-published company nowadays, physical distribution is still a pain in the ass to do.

Deleted User · May 5, 2019

Varia said:
Interesting indeed. Perhaps Bayonetta 4 will be on the PS5.

Too spicy for Playstation

pedro702 · May 5, 2019

jumpman17 said:
What are the hurdles a company needs to go through to self publish games in this day and age? Why do companies still publish through main AAA publishers?

money lol, you need to put alot of upfront money to do physical releases and even develop a game, and even if you know the game will sell well you need money first so you can get the profit latter, they probably now have enough money that they dont need to borrow from another studio publisher to release a new game and develop it, but afew flops can shut them down easily.

mr allen · May 6, 2019

Varia said:
Interesting indeed. Perhaps Bayonetta 4 will be on the PS5.

As cool as that would be, Platinum doesn't own the Bayonetta IP.

jt_1258 · May 6, 2019

Ayy, props to them, with how good there work is I have full faith in them.

r5xscn · May 6, 2019

Snugglevixen said:
I want a non square Enix nicer automata

I doubt the story will be as good as Automata. The key person is Yoko Taro and he and Cavia created NieR Gestalt/Replicant (without Platinum Games) which is one of the best games that I have ever played. But yeah, I hope they can develop a new game that is better than the predecessor.

aykay55 · May 6, 2019

interesting

just wondering, what exactly do publishers do that developers can't? Like, I understand when going physical it can be a lot harder cuz of distributors and stuff, but just to release something on the eShop or any other digital storefront isn't terribly hard to do, is it?

BraveDragonWolf · May 6, 2019

"Enter resting"...

Hells Malice · May 6, 2019

Pretty cool. Really hope this helps make their games even better. My bank account has a much different opinion.

Ericthegreat · May 6, 2019

Publishers are really only good for promtion, if they can handle that almost as well, id say great. Though a full size ad on a virtual stores market im sure helps a lot.

TJHeartnote · May 6, 2019

Please let this mean we are going to get scalebound!

ertaboy356b · May 6, 2019

jumpman17 said:
What are the hurdles a company needs to go through to self publish games in this day and age? Why do companies still publish through main AAA publishers?

Marketing probably.

Kadji · May 6, 2019

Reasons why you might want a publisher:

- Gives money to fund your game idea while in return they get a (major) cut off every sale (or all the money with a fixed payout for your game if the contract sucks)
- Has a production line / already established contacts to publish your game not only in digital but also in physical form
- Some years ago it was very hard for a indie dev to get a SDK for console development. Only through big publishers did you have the chance to bring your games to sony / ms / nintendo
- Might provide additional support such as in house QA or in house translation services

Reasons why you don't want a big publisher:

- Takes over your game, hinders you on fulfilling your "true" game idea because they think that gamemechanik xyz would generate more money (lootboxes, seasonpasses, games as a service)
- Shitty contracts might mean that you loose your IP and the AAA publisher gets all rights to it.
- Indie games are very well recieved in this day and age, having a big AAA publisher behind your game often leads to people beeing more sceptical of the final product.
- Nintendo (and also MS and Sony) are very indie friendly this generation, getting a SDK is no problem if you are realy serious about it

For me it realy depends on the type of game you are going for. Is it a big multiplayer focused game that does need tech-support and also gameservers? Going with a (good) AAA Publisher might be a good idea but can also backfire (Rising Trials, a great game with some forced social bullshit sprayed over it).
Your game is a narrated singleplayer experience? Try to self publish your game and to fullfill your true vision for the game without any outside influence (See the many very interesting indie games of the last few years such as Baba is You).

gameboy · May 6, 2019

Kadji said:
Reasons why you might want a publisher:

- Gives money to fund your game idea while in return they get a (major) cut off every sale (or all the money with a fixed payout for your game if the contract sucks)
- Has a production line / already established contacts to publish your game not only in digital but also in physical form
- Some years ago it was very hard for a indie dev to get a SDK for console development. Only through big publishers did you have the chance to bring your games to sony / ms / nintendo
- Might provide additional support such as in house QA or in house translation services

Reasons why you don't want a big publisher:

- Takes over your game, hinders you on fulfilling your "true" game idea because they think that gamemechanik xyz would generate more money (lootboxes, seasonpasses, games as a service)
- Shitty contracts might mean that you loose your IP and the AAA publisher gets all rights to it.
- Indie games are very well recieved in this day and age, having a big AAA publisher behind your game often leads to people beeing more sceptical of the final product.
- Nintendo (and also MS and Sony) are very indie friendly this generation, getting a SDK is no problem if you are realy serious about it

For me it realy depends on the type of game you are going for. Is it a big multiplayer focused game that does need tech-support and also gameservers? Going with a (good) AAA Publisher might be a good idea but can also backfire (Rising Trials, a great game with some forced social bullshit sprayed over it).
Your game is a narrated singleplayer experience? Try to self publish your game and to fullfill your true vision for the game without any outside influence (See the many very interesting indie games of the last few years such as Baba is You).

yea, R.I.P.BIOWARE

Kadji · May 6, 2019

RIP <insert small gamestudio> getting bought out by <insert EA / Ubisoft>

DarkKaine · May 6, 2019

Kadji said:
Reasons why you might want a publisher:

*looks at long list of kickstarter projects that were too ambitious and flopped hard*
Yep, that's why.

Kadji · May 6, 2019

DarkKaine said:
*looks at long list of kickstarter projects that were too ambitious and flopped hard*
Yep, that's why.

Even if this is kind of offtopic i want to add my thoughts about kickstarter:
I think there are 2 (Edit: 3) major reasons why so many kickstarter projects (and also indiegogo) fail to delvier.

a) You have the people running the kickstarter project that are often very ignorant to the amount of work that goes into developing a game.
Often times the people creating the kickstarter project have 0 experience in software development while at the same time having the highest ambitions for their game.
Sure, you can do a small game with 2d pixel art with a team of like 3 - 4 people in a reasonable amount of time. But a high quality, polished 3d game? There is a reason why AAA companies have teams that are so huge that the credits take like 15 minutes to scroll through. You need people that are experts in many different fields, such as coding, graphic design, 3d animation, cgi, sound production, QA...

b) You have the consumers that still have not understood that kickstarter is not selling a finished product but rather an idea you can invest into.
People need to evaluate the chance of the project beeing successfull and not fund a project because it has a big name behind it.

Remember Mighty No. 9? This is the perfect example that shows that even with talented, well experienced team members (Keiji Inafune was the creator of Megaman after all) games can flop hard.
This clearly shows that, even if you have worked in a professional company before (not that I would call Crapcom ürofessional but whatever...) building up an own company from scratch is the most difficult thing to do.

I only trust small Indie devs that have already shown that they are realistic in regards to scope of the game, the required money and the required development time.
Case in Point: Celeste, Hollow Knight, A hat in Time (not sure on that one, I heard mostly positive).

Edit: Extra point c)
In the current day and age we have so many tools that help with game development that even people which have a limited grasp on software development can start making games. Just look at all those bad IOS games that start to appear on the Nintendo Switch. If you can do a small smartphone game than surely you can do the next big multi million dollar game, funded by kickstarter...

FAST6191 · May 6, 2019

Was a Bayonetta sequel stymied by Sega or the lack of money it made back?

jumpman17 said:
What are the hurdles a company needs to go through to self publish games in this day and age? Why do companies still publish through main AAA publishers?

Publishers seem to provide funds, code (simple libraries or fancier ones), engines (or cheaper access to them), some amount of advertising, probably access to loans (we are working with EA sounding a bit better than we are doing our own thing), possibly some measure of business support (recruitment, HR, legal...), business support might also include a schedule of works as it were (good at code does not mean good at business), said publishers probably also can get loans at a better rate (the difference between being rich and basically a venture capital fund rich, and doing the venture capital thing of pump out the games until you have a mega hit and make it all back and then some), possibly some measure of recruitment (we gave them our division to do the CGI/boss battles/multiplayer/...) or flexible employment if you need to spin up a division for a few months for one portion before shrinking back down (don't know if that also includes say big boy physicists for those few months it is needed), port support, translation support (20 people in some US state might have no clue as to how to arrange a German translation, your publisher probably has them on staff or at least in their little black book).

None of those are mandatory and with modern dev and business practices you can probably replicate that, or have pubs come to you after you are sitting there with a hit in a big market. On the other hand those are some nice perks.

BORTZ · May 6, 2019

Reminder that Platinum has had a troubled past, with some great games, but even more flops. While they are one of my favorites personally, Their development cycles have been fraught with nasty setbacks and delays. Mad World, Infinite Space, Vanquish, The Wonderful 101, Stat Fox Zero and Guard, might have all been good games or favorites. But none of them were commercial or critical successes. Self publishing is the "dream", but there are very good reasons many many companies don't do such a thing in house.

I wish Platinum Games the best. Some of my favorites are in their library. You don't see the level of creativity and innovation (WHEN THEY HAVE THE TIME AND RESOURCES TO DO SO) from many other devs. Platinum is great, but they have had their fair share of missteps.

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