GamesCity BuilderManor Lords"Don’t bank on being the next viral hit": Manor Lords publisher urges other studios to “take care of all the devs” instead of hunting for their golden gooseWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesCity BuilderManor Lords"Don’t bank on being the next viral hit": Manor Lords publisher urges other studios to “take care of all the devs” instead of hunting for their golden gooseWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Slavic Magic)
Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse has shared some advice for both developers and publishers navigating viral success, recommending an even-handed approach over a hasty search for hits.
In an insightful interview withRock Paper Shotgun, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender expanded on the holistic lens through which the publisher views its catalog of games. Spurning the perpetual chase for a golden goose that’ll please investors, Bender seeks to maintain a business model that doesn’t result in any financial pressure that might trickle down to the developer level.
(Image credit: Hooded Horse)
Without naming names, Bender railed against publishers that treat their business like a venture capitalist firm, investing in several projects at once knowing full-well the majority of them will flop but hoping for just one viral success to carry the whole thing. “It’s just a horrible way to think about things, right? It’s opportunistic and predatory,” Bender said. “People are trusting you with their lives and dreams, they’re trusting you with the future of their studio and their employees.”
I don’t have the time or the insight to explain the intricacies at the center of thelayoff crisis battering the industry this year, but a common theme sure seems to be companies rejecting the long road in the interest of short-term profits that’ll look good in quarterly financial reports. All too often that materializes in redundancies among teams whose projects didn’t immediately meet or exceed sales expectations, even if the larger studio they’re under has historically performed well.
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“What you do for the median game, and what you do for the game that struggled the most, and how you’re trying to come back, how you continue to put your efforts into all your games fairly, and live up to the obligations of what you promised those developers, when they trusted their game to you - that means so much more, in terms of whether players should trust a publisher and say, ‘oh, I’ll try their next game’,” Bender said. “That shouldn’t be based on the viral hit. And whether a developer who’s considering a publisher should trust that publisher, because don’t bank onbeingthe next viral hit.”
We don’t give business advice, but we do have some clutchManor Lords tipsany aspiring land baron should heed.
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