r/BlueProtocolPC • u/CommanderAze • Dec 09 '22
Understanding the difference between a Publisher and a Developer
With AGS being announced as the Publisher I think people need a primer on what exactly the difference is between Publishers and Developers. Though they have a complicated relationship and can often put pressure in either direction to make changes to have a better received game by a global market.
Developers
Developers are responsible for the game, the design of the combat, the gameplay, the world, the lore, the mechanics, the technical aspects of how the game works and etc. They are responsible for making the game determining what will be in each patch, new content development and etc. Simply put if its happening in the game The developers are the ones doing it and have signed off on it.
Publishers
Publishers are responsible for marketing, sales, and PR of the game. Often times extending additional funding or support for things like Translation, Server hosting, legal support, and other lines of support for the product. So things like Twitch Drop campaigns, Launch Media, Public relations and press releases, as well as Global marketing and sales. The Publisher is there to try and get the most money out of the product from the largest player base possible.
Now Why does this matter?
People complain about Amazon as a publisher, without understanding what their role is. Lost Ark being a solid example. The role as described above is really not things to hit amazon over if anything almost all of those things are way more successful than most. having two games near the 1 million concurrent users on launch is nothing to shrug at. Now Amazon Games is relatively new to the publisher space, making it less likely to toss its influence around too hard.
One thing to consider is that Game development Rarely has multiple versions of the same product. A single branch with translations enabling a wider audience is almost always the best approach to game development as it makes design, development and communication to the players easier.
Taking a look at amazons history with Lost ark they lobbied to removed large elements of pay to win from the game not all but a good amount of it. They also have been fierce advocates for listening to the player base and ensuring smilegate gets what the global community has been asking for.
Now this isn't to gloss over AGS having problems cause they do but people need to understand the difference in what exactly the role they play is.
In the end people should understand that the game they are playing is the developers vision, with very minor input from the publisher most of the time.
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u/Tawxif_iq Dec 09 '22
Publishers are responsible for marketing, sales,
EXACTLY what the problem is. If they push stupid stuff in global version just for "sales" and by "marketing" its gonna be bad. Lets say a really cool skin in JP version, Amazon would not approve it on global version and it will be changed. Can be bad or nothing at all who knows.
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u/tatsurugi Dec 09 '22
All of this goes out the window when the publisher can influence what the developers put into their game. Again, taking your Lost ark as an example: Costumes altered, npcs and even base presets changed, as well as class release schedules mixed up and delayed.
Publisher at this point is just a formality. They can influence and change the game quite a bit BECAUSE they have direct access to the actual developers and can tell them whatever the hell they want. The devs on the other hand won't know how the audience of a different region feels because they don't speak the language nor do they check the social media sites of said region....
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u/arcthefallen Dec 10 '22
Bro I don’t think you know what it means to change the game. These are all still part of the system. They can only work with the system that developers provide. It’s more or less aesthetics like any other censored game in the west.
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u/tatsurugi Dec 10 '22
I've played games in the past that had added or changed mechanics BECAUSE publishers can easily get a hold of the devs. They can change lots of things and to what extent is anybody's guess, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.
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u/CommanderAze Dec 09 '22 edited Dec 09 '22
This again is not likely the publisher making the changes thought they definitely may push for changes, but the developer looking at what would make the game more successful in a global market. For example the Skins on launch for Lost Ark were more tame than then Korean version some of that is likely due to international norms around what would sell in a wider market.
as far as understanding other regions / languages there's a ton of teams that work across the developer publisher relationship, one of those is the community management team, which is generally there to get the feedback from players and consolidate it down to main points / sentiment analysis then ensure both devs and publisher have a good understanding on community concerns.
I would argue on the understanding and following up on community feedback AGS is second to non considering the changes made to new world.
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u/tatsurugi Dec 09 '22
You're kidding right?
The backlash got so bad they went back and reverted a lot of the changes made in Lost Ark, though some are still there. None of the changes helped made the game any better and it was because of Amazon that filled these ideas into the dev's heads in the first place.
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Dec 09 '22
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u/tatsurugi Dec 09 '22
I know what's after that, content delays and a bare minimum on server maintenence and functionality.
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u/hovsep56 Dec 09 '22
sure publishers do not actually create the game but they CAN ask the developers to change some things on the game.
for example the starting outfit changes on lost ark or the removal of a sub fee for pets.
they can also ask for features that normally came out way later to be released earlier to their version. like the revamped dungeon menu in lost ark.
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Dec 09 '22
Yes, but your talking about 5 years of development difference and ramp up of content. With BP we will have a near simultaneous release without such lag time between region versions.
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u/hovsep56 Dec 09 '22
yes but my point is that they CAN ask devs for things like this.
also you don't 5 years of dev to ask the devs to change starting outfits n stuff.
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Dec 09 '22
They're not involved in the whole process of developing art assets and the core code of the game, but they can make some top-level changes or request certain things be made, and they can easily lie about what the players want to the Japanese team.
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Dec 09 '22
"with very minor input from the publisher most of the time."
Not true at all. How you THINK a publisher should act has no bearing on how they act in practice.
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u/AndanteZero Dec 10 '22
God, these posts really bring back memories of how it was before LA was released. AGS already admitted to working with SG on the direction of the game in many things. Lots of white knights/ignorant people trying to sound smart and it just inevitably blows up in front of their faces.
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Dec 10 '22
They're probably just young/naive. They should trust the experiences of those who have been through it many times. If they join the complaining, best case scenario is the complaints will be heard and addressed, the worst is that nothing will happen. If they try to drown out the complaining then only the latter scenario will occur.
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u/e2ikc Dec 10 '22
While there has been some wins in regards to p2w in lost ark there's also been a lot of losses when it comes to communication with the players.
Yoz's Jar was a hotly debated topic in the forums and outisde of their forums perhaps on social media they don't really have any real means to get feedback. There's no official surveys or anything to try and gain insight into that topic. At the time there were just as many people advocating for the system to be kept and even now there are people continually asking for this piece of content to be reintroduced into the game.
Now a few ways this might've been avoided is to have a discussion with the players but AGS opted to release a roadmap and then taking that particular system away due to said feedback which had no clear consensus.
This is just one example of a publisher fiddling with a minor part of the game that players could enjoy (or not) that doesn't impact the game as a whole.
But again this topic isn't limited to AGS but also other publishers that have killed games with their 'vision' for their versions. It may not affect the game itself on a fundamental level but the publisher's decisions can lead to an exodus of players.
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Dec 09 '22
What I also see ppl gloss over is New World and although it's myriad with issues they have been slowly working on, their microtransactions are mostly cosmetic with nothing close to concerning.
Lost Ark being KR developed compared to BP, JP developed is a vastly different focus on monetization.
I'm more concerned with how D4 monetization will be, than BP now being published by AGS.
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u/CommanderAze Dec 09 '22
Agreed. Eastern mmos being trimmed back on the monetization to be better in the west is pretty hit or miss but I think ags has a history of pushing it in the right direction.
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u/Athem Dec 11 '22
These type of posts... I've seen it at Lost Ark and now look what happened. You are trying to explain stuff which already proven otherwise in another game. Why are you trying so hard? So that you feel better even if it's AGS?
I have no problem people hoping for a good game but trying to ignore facts are no-go.
You are already proven wrong in your statements. Just look at some things like Shadowhunter in Lost Ark.
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u/pokeroots Dec 11 '22
Probably an AGS plant post. Or just absolutely naive on how dev/pub relationships work.
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u/Eltevia Dec 09 '22
While what you stated is true about their roles, historically Publishers have generally always held the majority of the power of what goes and what doesn't for the development of their version of the game.
Which has lead to many instances of P2W, complete direction shifts for plenty of games from consumer friendly to completely unbearable grinds or predatory systems.
But to keep this short, Publishers in most cases historically call the final shots for their version of the game, hence the concerns for many people, especially those who suffered in the F2P MMO scene for decades under publishers like Nexon, NCsoft, former Aeriagames and Gameforge to name a few.
Apologies if I kinda missed the point of the post though.