Hacker News Reader

In general the publisher pays for development. For big games from known studios, you get a several million dollar advance that pays for development of the game. The game's royalties payback the advance and hopefully you earn something.

That is why EA owns so many game studios one big flop and suddenly you owe EA a couple of million.

View on HN

No one owes the publisher anything for a commercial failure in standard publisher contract where they are funding development. The publisher is taking the financial risk; that’s the point. The developer will make additional money beyond the advance based on terms of the publishing contract (common terms would be developer starts getting paid royalties when publisher has 1XX% recouped development + marketing spend).

TIL, I always thought advances had to be paid back on underperformance.

In that case, would there be any purpose going to a publisher rather than a bank directly? You’d be paying infinite royalty on success in exchange for.. marketing & distribution?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com