Manor Lords' publisher believes that much of the games industry's current unrest stems from corporate desires that conflict with game development reality.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Snow Rui, CFO at Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, was one of many indie publishers to discuss the wave of layoffs that has rocked the industry over the past two years. "A lot of the cuts and unrest come from public companies; 'shifting corporate priorities'," Rui suggests.
"I believe there's some inherent tension between public companies' desire to have predictable revenue trending well at quarterly and annual intervals, and the reality of game development." That reality, Rui says, is "fundamentally unpredictable both in timing and in results."
- Atomfall boss "very familiar" with Baldur's Gate 3 director's frustrations with publishers, as he recalls horror advice that games are "faster to make" if you "make fewer bugs"
- Palworld dev says he's swamped with offers for Pocketpair's new publishing company, which is all about "giving devs the financial freedom to make games they want"
In other words, massive corporations want to be making the same (large) amounts of money every quarter, and that's not really how game development works. Larger influxes of cash will come in around launch and sales windows, but it's hard to predict what will succeed and what will fail. Manor Lords - a smash hit despite its niche genre and mostly being made by a single person - is a perfect example of the fact that success can come from anywhere. The same is largely true of failure, but that's not something that really works for the bottom line of large corporations and their shareholders.
That could be bad news for indie developers, but Rui points out that it might also be bad news for those same publishers, since devs can simply decide to go to work for themselves. "Self-publishing and the knowledge needed to do it well has never been more available," she says. "Publishers will really have to prove their value and offer good terms, as self-publishing is not a bad alternative right now, and that's as things should be."
Hooded Horse, it's worth pointing out, does seem to be a notable exception to some of these concerns. Back in April, as Manor Lords surged up Steam's wishlist charts around its release, the company's CEO, Tim Bender, told GamesRadar+ that "we can ignore profits when we should. We're not non-profit or anything, but everyone agrees on it not being the only motive." That philosophy meant that the company could afford Manor Lords the delays it needed to launch in the best possible state. Not every company would afford a game that space, but if Rui's prediction that self-publication is more attractive than ever rings true, that might not matter for too much longer.
Bender is also a fan of self-publishing: "If I had a game, I would not sign with 90% of publishers"
