Publishers go Hand in Hand with Stockholders, Unfortunately

Let me tell you about publishers, from what little I know, they are the corporate giants that provide the funds necessary for developers to make triple-A games. They only know what makes themselves money in the gaming industry. When you're dealing with games that cost millions upon millions of dollars to make, you need to get that money from somewhere, or rather, someone. Publishers, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, get said vast amounts of money from stockholders. That's not to say that they get all that money from stockholders, some comes from investors, and some comes from profits, but those are different stories.

Stockholders buy stocks, of the publisher, which means they own part of its net worth. The stocks will rise in price if the stockholders think the publisher will be worth more in the future. It's a little more complicated than that, but I'm keeping it simple. What publishers like EA are doing is trying to please stockholders, instead of gamers, so that their net worth will increase, thereby forcing their stock prices to go up. That's the problem right there, it's much more immediately profitable for EA to siphon money from stockholders than waiting years for a game to be developed, marketed, sold, with the very real possibility of said game simply dropping dead like a fly at market.

So, at major events like E3, publishers, and even hardware manufacturers, cater to their stockholders. Now, stockholders know near nothing about gaming, publishers know a little more, and developers know a whole lot. What I'm assuming EA did with their stockholders, is they told them that by, say, adding more action to Dead Space 3, they will gather some of the Call of Duty crowd. This is wrong in every way, but like the gullible fools they are, the stockholders bought it (I'm still assuming here). The stockholders think everything will work out because if Activision publishes action games and makes absurd amounts of money, then EA can too. But, EA is going to market Dead Space 3 as a horror/survival game, and underneath the facade of their marketing, it will be an action packed Call of Dead Space. The casual Call of Duty group their aiming for will likely miss the memo that Dead Space 3 was made with them and horror/survival fans in mind, because it will be marketed as the very thing they're not looking for. Horror/survival.

To be completely honest, I'm not even sure if EA has figured this out yet. If they have, it means that they're getting enough money out of their stockholders to remain profitable even if Dead Space 3 should fail (however, here's hoping it doesn't because many developers rely on that game to succeed). If they don't realize it, then they are simply being a foolish publisher. Moving on, because the core fans of the Dead Space series are being completely ignored by EA, some will likely buy the game, dislike it, and not buy the sequel. Some will buy it, like it and buy the sequel, but for the sake of my credibility, I'm going to say that more consumers will dislike its weird combination of action/horror.

Publishers should stop catering to their stockholders. They should let their developers on a longer leash, we'll call it the Leash of Free Will, so that developers on said leash may use their wise, honed skills to develop mind-blowing, original polygonal worlds. When the gamers begin buying their games in droves, they'll make enough money back that they should be profitable. Stocks will rise steadily over a long period of time, instead of rising sharply, only to fall, over a short period of time. It's the long term method, let's call it the Very Long Leash method. Bad name? Publishers will buy it, don't worry. With this method in mind games can be made specifically for certain genres, without trying to attract the consumers of another genre, which often turns out horribly. I suppose it's up to the publishers, whether or not they want to stick around until next generation, or ride the Roller Coaster of Financial Disorder. Good name? I think so.