Although the publisher and the developer seem to have one common interest – that is making a successful game – the interview data reveal that the difference in their interests and priorities is one of the other challenges between them. This relationship is fundamentally formed because of “competition for ideas” for the publisher and “access to funding” for the developer (Allan – publisher senior executive). Ethan, a developer studio head, explains how a disparity in objectives and priorities between the developers and the publishers affects the publisher-developer relationship:
148
The goal of the publisher [is] to maximize shareholder value, the ideal scenario is I don’t want to share any of the wealth with anyone other than my shareholders.
That is the logic [behind] a lot of the breakdown in the relationship. There has always been this tension [between the publisher and developers] (Ethan – developer studio head).
It seems the discrepancies between the objectives create some clashes between the publisher and the developer. One of the main reasons the developer forms a partnership with the publisher is because of their need for the publisher's funding. However, the developer emphasises that they are game enthusiasts and their central focus is on creating a game that is fun to play. The developer insists that the publisher's priority, on the other hand, is only the financial gain. Ben, an experienced development studio owner, states:
“It's always been an industry which is just so aspirational and populated by people who just want to make the toys that they enjoy playing with… whereas a lot of the publishers, the senior management, just genuinely like money and power” (Ben –development studio owner). The developer describes the strain of the publisher-developer relationship as the tension between objectives, between the developer’s creative freedom and the publisher’s priorities to make money.
While depicting themselves as product-driven, the developer claims that the publisher is not necessarily interested in the quality of the game. A developer creative director describes publishers as “being obsessed by the amount of money that they are investing”
(Dylan – developer creative director). He continues to state that “it is funny how rarely [he]
meets people in publishers who even seem to care of what are good games, they don’t seem to care much about that” (Dylan – developer creative director). As a result of the tension between objectives, one money-oriented and the other product-driven, there seems to be a divide between the two partners.
Due to these differences in objectives, the developer insists that they are not able to communicate to the publisher. They express how difficult it is for them sometimes to relate to the publisher because they know the publisher doesn’t care about the games. Nigel, a developer director, admits that “[he] never ever respected any of them [the publisher team]
as game developers themselves or even games players, cause they [the publisher] don’t
149
seem to care much about games. It’s all about the money for them” (Nigel – a developer director). Paul who has worked as both a publisher producer and a developer producer explains that developers feel more invested in the game they are developing, therefore they find it difficult to be directed by the publisher's team "whose only concern is money". He says:
Studios make games, and they're in there every day, and have heart-felt discussions on what's going to make a great product, what's the vision for this thing and so forth, and I think, it's a difficult kind of parameter to take all that passion and take all that kind of day-to-day vision and sweat and everything you're putting into it, and have what's perceived as a slightly cold publishing team, kind of walking into a meeting room saying, "Well, we're not sure we like that bit. And what's that bit all about? And why don't you cut that out?" (Paul – publisher producer).
Here Paul points out that the directions from the publisher are not received well by the developers, because they feel that the publisher’s feedback and impact on the game is only driven by their financial intentions for production.
The interview data suggest that there are some inherent differences between the publisher and the developer that will create tension in their relationship. Both parties regard themselves as "different machines" whose relationships always have a "missing link"
(Laurence – publisher senior executive). They persist that the differences in knowledge and skill sets, as well as their disparate objectives and priorities, create a lack of understanding between the two. If one peruses the structure of the companies and the skills employed in each, it is evident that one is creative and the other is more finance oriented. Perhaps these differences in skill sets and expertise justify the dependencies and the collaboration between the two.
In order to explain the nature of their cross-boundary work, the participants not only repeatedly referred to the "natural" tension between the two parties, they also highlighted the power inequalities between them. They insisted that these differences and inequalities would lead to an "unending battle between the publisher and developer" (Adrian – owner of a renowned development studio), or "a one-sided toxic relationship" (Jacob – developer
150
creative director). The general picture that the industry portrays of this relationship is that of a monstrous publisher versus an innocent developer, where one is formidable and the other weak and frail. The nature and impact of these seemingly unequal powers are elaborated in the next section.