Publishers, What Are They Good For?4

This is a quick post with relatively little of my own commentary, but I just want to share the story because it’s so absolutely ridiculous. Plus, in light of the hyper-popularity of Kickstarter these days as a good way to fund video games, it highlights the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Namely, the shitty way to fund games, in which publishers have all the control.

I’ve linked to an article on Nightmare Mode, mainly because it adds some commentary to the original story from Destructoid (breaking news on an independent video game blog!) You don’t have to read it, though - here’s the basic summary:

• Obsidian Entertainment made Fallout: New Vegas, which was published by Bethesda
• It sold really, really well
• Obsidian Entertainment received no royalty payments from the game’s sales, because their contract required they get a score of 85 on Metacritic to receive their “bonus” of an actual cut of the sales
• It got a score of 84 on Metacritic

According to Nightmare Mode, the game sold five million copies. 5,000,000 copies. $60 each (well, they probably weren’t all full price, but it’s a lot of money at any price).

Obsidian Entertainment didn’t get a single cent from any of those sales. All they got was a flat rate for completing the game. Since then, they’ve had two rounds of lay-offs.

F*cking what?!