Could someone fill me in one what constitutes a "publisher" for games? We all throw the term around, and I know who are considered to be "publishers" . However I'm no longer entirely sure what being a publisher entails.

If I approached this from an "actions define meaning" perspective. What would I have to do in order for me to say "I do X, Y and Z, therefore I am a publisher"?

I'm talking purely from a gaming perspective here, I get it for the rest of the media.

Someone who handles distribution, manufacturing and promotion for your game.

Excellent, that was my initial definition. So once you're distributing online, what are they then?

A publisher is usually the company that actually owns and sells (as in distributes) the game. Often enough they also finance the development.

The developer is "only" the company that makes the game. Indie is when a company develops and distributes a game themselves.

Investors.

In addition to distribution and promotion, publishers often make deals with developers and fund their projects. Because it's their money, a lot of the times publishers will demand developers to set certain deadlines (rushing production if needed), add or remove certain elements from the game (e.g. adding multiplayer or removing 'complicated' gameplay elements so they can widen their target market), or otherwise influence the development of a game.

This is why some developers like Obsidian have gone the Kickstarter way. Crowd funding = no more demands and restrictions from publishers, giving the devs more freedom to do what they want.

This is good to know. So basically, with the rise of online distribution, we are seeing the twilight of the publisher.

So in future, who will own the rights? The Devs, or the Investors?

It depends. Big games need a lot of money investments. More than kickstarter can provide.

It certainly will change in some way. I expect more investment coming from outside the classic gaming venues. But the investors will always want securities, and usually the game is one of them.

Traditionally, there are three entities:

- Developer: creates the game

- Publisher: provides funding, manufacturing, marketing; selects the distributor

- Distributor: Brings the game to the customer, may add his own marketing

That's the theory. Reality isn't quite as clear-cut. Ther e have always been developers have have also taken over some of the tasks that would usually fall into the realm of the developer, and there have always been developers who have distributed their games on their own. Recent developments (crowd funding, digital distribution) have muddled the categories even more, though they still do exist, and remain distinctive, for the majority of products.

Worth noting Microsoft requires a publisher to be on XBLA, and this could end up happening on other digital services if the number of releases become immense.

Also advertising and some help funding will always be needed by some, digital or not.

One should add that just as in case of production companies for movies publishers often hold a tight grip over the project itself. Even when the idea for a game comes from a developer the publisher may enforce a certain number of things. Often they tell devs what to include, what idea to scratch etc. For example it was EA's idea (and condition) to make System Shock 2 officially a sequel to System Shock, the devs originally planned to create an original IP for this game. And sometimes of course the publisher even is the one with the idea and then "orders" the game from a team he considers the right one for the job (quite common in case of "another sequel" for a popular franchise or games based on a movie license).

I find it interesting that most people seem to forget the most important detail.

In just about any major release the publisher owns the game. They do all the stuff described because they own the game. The developer is little more than a contractor. Even when the developer approaches the publisher with an already established concept, the rights to the game get switched to the publisher.

The publisher isn't just some guy handing out flyers, they are integral in the whole process of making their game. That is why they are so invested in this.

Obviously there are exceptions and they became more frequent with the rise of the indies, but usually the publisher is the owner of the game.

Unless the game has different publishers in different regions, I assume? Not all of them can own the game, can they?

Those "regional publishers" are actually what a publisher would be in the "non-game" sense of the term. The guy who handles publishing for a region. But as (apart from the proverbial indie scene) most game don't get financed in-house, "main publishers" who owns the games and make all the external dealings and licensing have established themselves.

In the end, you can say that the definition of publisher is roughly as clear cut as those of "indie".

So I think you are confirming the thing that prompted me to start the thread. The term "publisher" is inacurate. We are usually in fact referring to the "owner".