Publishers are barely even necessary anymore. Word of mouth is king. Marketing is annoying and untrustworthy. Cut out the unnecessary middlemen that have been choking the creativity out of gaming for years now.
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Why Toby Fox went with Materia I'll never get. Was it because of the console space? (If he stuck to just PC could he have remained an independent stakeholder?)
Consoles, especially Nintendo ones, make it practically impossible to publish as "just some guy" yeah. It's almost always a calculation for the dev: is is the vastly increased audience exposure (and sales that come with that) worth dealing with this blatantly predatory "partner" company? And the main useful thing the publisher does is deal with the even bigger, even more predatory companies Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft.
Indie publisher is a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it?
The publishers aren't indie, but they publish lots of indie games. Assuming you define indie as not big established studio instead of how they are published.
Indie is short for independent, as in, independent from outside support, specifically a publisher. Publishers frequently dictate how a developer does certain things as a result of wanting a return on their investment. The whole indie movement came from studios who wanted to do their own thing without a publisher squashing their ideas, and would therefore self publish.
There's a huge misunderstanding that pervades the gaming industry where people associate small studios with being indie. They really aren't. You can't be indie if you depend on another entity to handle marketing, distribution, etc., who as a result has influence on your work. Being a small studio who uses 8 bit graphics or other stylistic devices doesn't make a group indie, it just means they are trying to emulate being indie. "Indie publishers" know this is a marketing ploy that sells, and will therefore invest in and influence such projects.
Common misconception, but not technically. Good publishers provide real value like funding, marketing, testing, localization, etc. while also giving the team full creative control.
Yeah, an unfortunate truth, most publishers are people with money who want to make more using the passion of another person. And games are like movies and everything else in this world to them, just another asset to make continuous profit from.
I will still not forgive AnnPurna for being run by the shitty daughter of the Oracle Ellison family. I think they only released good games when the passionate people got to work and she wasnt paying attention.
Hooded Horse is like my favorite publisher in recent years. The fact alone that they got MandaloreGaming to make this deranged video was enough to get me hooked
Sure most publishers suck but indie devs also have to be honest with themselves and their ability to market. Like even writing out their Steam page and selecting screenshots. Video games and music have the lowest barriers for widely popular monetized distribution but marketing/localization/testing/etc are all valuable professions that a publisher could provide better service than what an indie can manage on their own. Especially when they're new devs.
Indie filmmakers pretty much always sign up with publishers/distributors around the world. Established ones can manage multiple publisher deals before their movies are in full production for funding the creation. Do what you can. If you can successfully self distribute, do so. I'd bet most would do better retaining ownership of their creation but still licensing their work to a publisher for distribution/whatever else they offer. Just got to find a good publisher if you go that route