Developers vs. Publishers

An anonymous reader writes "CNN's Chris Morris takes a look at the increased animosity of late between game developers and publishers in the latest installment of Game Over. The column examines this weekend's catfight between Valve and Vivendi, where Vivendi threatened to sue Valve for authenticating copies of Half-Life 2 that had been sold before the retail embargo date; the misery that is crunch time and the recent campaigns against Electronic Arts miserable working conditions."

Re:Why are people pissed off about steam?

[JohnFluxx]

I will bitch about online activation.

I have the internet at work, but not at home.
How do I play? I'm a student live in rented accommodation without a phoneline.

I could protest and just not play - but I doubt they care. So screw it - I'm going to steal it and crack it as soon as I can.

Publishers also fund games.

[DrStrangeLug]

While likes of Valve & ID can afford to fund development of a game themselves there are a lot of smaller development houses who are employed by publishing houses to develop games. I'd even hazard a guess that the major of games publishers fall into this catagory. The question [that a lot of people are asking] of how to remove the publisher from the loop extends to more than just getting the game onto the customers PC . Don't get me wrong, I liked the steam process and bought my HL2 from it. I love the idea that 100% of my money went to valve and not split between the shop and the guys who printed the box. So the prime question facing game development today is not "how do we do away with the publisher?" but "how do you fund new game development without a publisher?". I'd like to see a system where you could develop mini-games using the source SDK or an open source engine and sell them on a steam service for $5 a time or at a price that compares with renting a game from BlockBuster. Turn the games from monolithic creations into episodic series. Small games that equate to an evenings entertainment, both financial and in terms of enjoyment, positioning themselves alongside movies and TV as entertainment mediums. A subscription gaming network episodic games. Now that would scare the TV giants.