Talk:Video game publisher

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Contents 1 Interplay & LucasArts 2 Former Publisher 3 Investor interest 4 Publisher question for you smart people

[edit] Interplay & LucasArts

Are Interplay Entertainment and LucasArts video game publishers? I thought LucasArts was a developer and that Interplay was owned by Electronic Arts. —Frecklefoot 19:12, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

LucasArts is still a publisher. Interplay is majority-owned by French publisher Titus, but is still a separate company (IPLY.OB). Interplay was a publisher for years and recently shed many, but not all, of the normal functions of a publisher.

[edit] Former Publisher

I started a 'notable former publishers' section which I'm not sure is a great idea -- what's a 'former' publisher? Microprose, for example, merged with Spectrum Holobyte, then the whole entity was purchased by Hasbro Interactive, which then went over to Infogrames (now Atari) in a long term license. At this point Microprose is just a brand and not an organization, so is it a former publisher? If an X-Com game comes out, they might brand it as a Microprose game. Perhaps the 'former' list should show what happened to them to make them 'former' publishers.

That's not a bad idea. Weird things do happen and it'd be nice to have an explanation as to what happened. I added Accolade, but they were swallowed up by Infogrames which is now Atari!

How do you know so much about the game industry anyway? I used to be a game programmer (kind of wish I still was) so I was involved in a lot of the changes.

BTW, great edit on the Hasbro Interactive article. I like your wording much better. :-) —Frecklefoot 20:27, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Investor interest

The section was rewritten as it was stated that "video game publishers who are publicly traded on stock markets are not known as a successful group." This is either subjective, misleading or plain false: many publishers' stocks have outperformed the S&P over the years. Shawnc 15:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. EA is the only pure video game company that has succeeded "over the years". Activision has been hot for the last three years but before that was in the dumps, and of course was bankrupt before that. Take Two's success is a recent story, not something that has lasted even ten years. Infogrames, Majesco, Interplay, Midway ... there have been many disasters. Can you cite even three video game publishers that have outperformed the S&P over a long period of time? Microsoft and Sony don't count, of course. Tempshill 00:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Publisher question for you smart people

If company A develops a game and it is published for, say PS3 by company B. In 6 years time, who would have the rights to allow it's emulation on the PS4? The developer or the publisher?

It depends on how the publishing agreement was worked out. If the developer (A) retained the intellectual property (IP) of the game (like the characters, universe, plot), they have to right to develop any derivitive works based on the IP. But often the publisher gains ownership of the IP (or owned it to begin with, and just contracted A to develop the game using it). But the copyright of the game itself is another matter. It all depends on how the details were worked out in the publishing contract. Sometimes the developer has the copyright, sometimes the publisher does. But, I'd say, most often, the publisher has the copyright.

But emulation is another question. I don't think you need anyone's "permission" to truly emulate a game. For example, if I own an old Apple II copy of The Oregon Trail and I rip the disk image of it and use it on an emulator on my PC, I'm not violating anyone's right. I'm using the software that I paid for, but using it on a piece of software that uses the original software. If you're talking about making a clone of the game—using the same characters, setting and whatnot, than it depends on who owns the copyright. But if you're talking about writing a true emulator, well, I would assume that the PS4 would be backwards compatible with the PS3, so there would be no need. :-) HTH — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)