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Comment by orlp | Hacker News Reader

> This is a real shame for anyone who cares about really distinctive, original games.

Is it though? Annapurna is a publisher, they didn't make those games. The games you listed were made by:

  - Outer Wilds: Mobius Digital  
  - Stray: BlueTwelve Studio  
  - Lorelei and the laser eyes: Simogo  
  - Cocoon: Geometric Interactive  
  - Neon White: Angel Matrix

I'm confident that creators of distinctive, original games will be able to find other publishers.

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> I'm confident that creators of distinctive, original games will be able to find other publishers.

That confidence is (partially) misplaced. It's a really rough world out there for indie devs, and if you do find a publisher, many times they are not interested in paying as much attention to your title as you are.

they can self publish then. thats always an option.

They can’t self fund.

most publishers dont give money without seeing a fairly elaborate demo. And making games is something that can be done with zero budget unlike endeavors in many other industries.

Outer Wilds was in production for 7 years. Practically nobody can fund years of full time work without some external funding. I don't have any proof, but I am confident that Annapurna poured some amount of money into that venture during those 7 years.

IIRC Mobius Digital got their initial money for Outer Wilds from crowdfunding after a much more limited demo of what they wanted to achieve, then I assume Annapurna came on the scene later when they went professional and needed support for multi-platform. The period where kickstarter was more commonly accepted for game projects is over, and fewer projects could get a similar starting point that lets them spend years on their first release

most games dont take 7 years to make so making a point with outliers is not a very good argument.

Most games aren't good. If we don't talk about the outliers we'll be stuck talking about roblox maps, king.com games, or assassins creed. Everything Annapurna interactive funded was an outlier, that's what made it interesting.

That’s definitely one of those easier said than done things, that someone who’s never tried to do will think.

Publishers have benefits, there’s a reason some game, developers, and other type of media creators will eagerly sign away a big chunk of their revenue. Not true for every media or genre, but there’s a reason these companies exist.

of course publishers bring benefits. but lets not pretend self publishing is not a thing in the games industry.

Nobody said it wasn’t

Exactly, and if you take stray or Neon White as examples, part of the reason they got so much attention was the reputation that Annapurna Interactive had gained by publishing a game as excellent as Outer Wilds. So people took much more notice of those games than they might have done coming from some random indie publisher with no track record. As excellent as those games are, this might have made a very big diference to the traction they got at the start.

I didn't know that. I was wondering how a team of only 25 people could make so many games. This makes it less of a big deal in my mind. Sure the publisher can be important in providing funding for games and which games get a marketing budget but they still aren't making them.

Simogo is fully owned by Annapurna.

Edit: Oops, no they're not, see below. But it sounds like they're contractually prevented from working with a different publisher.

It looks like they just have an exclusive publishing agreement with them not owned by them? At least that's what wikipedia says? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simogo

Oh, you know what, I'm completely wrong. I was remembering this blog post from years ago:

https://simogo.com/2020/03/10/simogo-annapurna-interactive-t...

In my memory, this post said "we're now owned by Annapurna." But I read it again and it literally says the opposite.

But yeah, it sounds like they can't just switch publishers.

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