Publisher
Publisher ( English to publish "to publish" or "to publish") is the English term for publisher or publisher . While the term can be used for any form of publishing, it is often used as a foreign word in German, especially for companies that publish and sell computer games or computer programs .
Fields of activity
Similar to the tasks of a book publisher , the publisher takes on the production of data carriers , the marketing and distribution of a computer game or program. The framework conditions are defined by means of a publishing contract with the developer . In return, the developer grants the publisher the right to publish the title in one or more countries.
Similar to record labels or, in the case of book publishers, using imprints , some publishers structure their offer by publishing under several labels . Take 2 Interactive, for example, maintains the Rockstar Games and 2K Games labels , the latter with the sub-labels “2K Sports” and “2K Play”.
For large companies in the video game industry, software publishing is just one of the different lines of business. Hardware manufacturers such as Nintendo , Microsoft , Sony and THQ also act as publishers. Companies like Electronic Arts , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard have their own development studios. Many of the smaller publishers, on the other hand, do not have their own development resources.
Economic factor
The computer game industry has become an important economic factor. In 2007 it expects sales of around 34 billion euros . Activision Blizzard , currently the world's largest computer game publisher in terms of sales , was created in 2008 through the merger of Vivendi Games , a subsidiary of the French media group Vivendi , with the American company Activision . This transaction cost $ 18.9 billion. For the development of a sophisticated and technically up-to-date computer game, development costs now run into the three-digit million range.
Rankings
Great publishers
The following are the largest publishers are after their sales in billions of dollars listed.
| 2018 | Publisher | Sales in $ billion |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Tencent
|
19.74 |
| 2 |
 Sony Interactive Entertainment
|
14.28 |
| 3 |
 Microsoft Studios
|
9.75 |
| 4th |
Apple
|
9.45 |
| 5 |
Activision Blizzard
|
6.89 |
| 6th |
Google
|
6.49 |
| 7th |
NetEase
|
6.18 |
| 8th |
Electronic Arts
|
5.29 |
| 9 |
Nintendo
|
4.29 |
| 10 |
Bandai Namco Games
|
2.74 |
Medium-sized publishers
Below are the top medium-sized video game publishers, determined by Metacritic in February 2017 based on game quality by ratings compared to last year.
| Position 2015 | Publisher | Position 2016 |
|---|---|---|
| 7th |
 Paradox Interactive
|
1 |
| * |
Sega
|
2 |
| 4th |
Microsoft Studios
|
3 |
| 6th |
Take-Two Interactive
|
4th |
| 8th |
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
|
5 |
| 1 |
Bethesda Softworks
|
6th |
| 20th |
 Team17
|
7th |
| * |
Degica
|
8th |
| * |
Devolver Digital
|
9 |
| 17th |
 Daedalic Entertainment
|
10 |
| 11 |
Curve digital
|
11 |
| * |
tinyBuild Games
|
12 |
| 22nd |
NIS America
|
13 |
| 12 |
Aksys Games
|
14th |
| * |
 505 games
|
15th |
| * |
 Gambitious Digital Ent.
|
16 |
| 16 |
 Focus Home Interactive
|
17th |
| * |
 Artifex Mundi
|
18th |
| 15th |
Koei Tecmo
|
19th |
| * |
 10tons entertainment
|
20th |
| 19th |
Idea Factory
|
21st |
| 14th |
Deep Silver
|
22nd |
| * |
Digerati distribution
|
23 |
| - * (new in the list) | ||
Games publisher in German-speaking countries
Video game publishers have also existed in German-speaking countries since the mid- 1980s . One of the first German companies of this kind was Rainbow Arts , through which games such as Turrican , The Great Giana Sisters and Katakis were published. Compared to the international market leaders, however, German companies are of relatively minor importance in this sector.
Well-known active publishers in German-speaking countries include:
- Aerosoft
- Astragon
- Bitcomposer
- Crytek
- Daedalic
- Deep Silver
- Gameforge
- Kalypso Media
- magnussoft
- rondomedia
- TopWare Interactive
- THQ Nordic GmbH (Vienna)
Well-known video game publishers from German-speaking countries that are no longer active today are Ariolasoft , Blue Byte , cdv Software Entertainment , JoWood , Rushware , Rainbow Arts , Softgold , Sunflowers , 10tacle Studios , Software 2000 , Starbyte and dtp entertainment . Many of these former companies were both publishers and developers.
Software publisher in German-speaking countries
Often started as an IT specialist publisher with an extensive range of EDP and IT books, independent software departments were set up to publish computer programs. The principle is similar to the production and marketing of books. The distribution channels were still identical at the beginning of the 1980s, as many booksellers had an extensive range of software. Instead of a book author , a software developer is contracted to develop a computer program for the publisher . In most cases, the publisher takes on the further processing or refinement of the product by commissioning manual authors to create an introduction and documentation for the use of the software. The publisher also takes on the linguistic editing, testing and packaging design. The most important task of the software publisher is the marketing and distribution of the product. The software publisher acts as a refiner and aggregator in order to offer the software developer the broadest possible sales platform.
The pioneers in the industry include Data Becker , SYBEX-Verlag , BHV (Verlag) , Markt + Technik Verlag , who built up their software departments before 1985. Later, Franzis-Verlag , G Data CyberDefense , SAD , tewi , United Soft Media and Systhema were added.
Due to the Internet and the download options for software, the distribution channels via trade channels such as bookstores or electronics stores have lost their importance. This means that the software publisher's aggregation function has also become less important for software developers. Software developers can advertise their products on their own website and offer them for download.