Game developer Nine Dots Studio, noteworthy for the open-world RPG Outward, is starting a game publishing venture called Nine Dots Publishing. This new division plans to publish games and has a good deal of money to do so.
Update: We received a message from Nine Dots PR to clarify how it works, and have updated the article with their quote.
Nine Dots Publishing is set to develop games aimed at dedicated gamers who “value freedom” and “exploration” in their gaming. So it looks like an open-world and RPG type of game. The company has said in an interview on this that they are against excessive hand-holding, microtransactions, and subscription models.
Normally, publishers will take all of the money until their initial investment has been repaid, and only then will the developer get a cut of the royalties. This works out because the publisher paid the developer’s costs and marketing fees, alongside getting the game on certain platforms. Nine Dots wants to give developers a real chance to earn money for their work.
Nine Dots Publishing has said they will allow the developer to make 30% until they break even. Then, they will split it 50/50. Nine Dots reached out to us to clarify how this works, and it sounds really great for what you get. I research this kind of thing a lot, and I’ve never heard of a company that is this kind about it. I recommend reaching out if you’re looking to make a game.
To quote directly:
“A typical publishing agreement will provide an advance to the developer and then split 50/50 the revenues, then will recoup on the royalties from the developer before giving them one cent from the sales. This can lead for instance to a game that covered its own development costs twice without the developer making a cent back, while the publisher already made back its own investment almost twice over. At Nine Dots, instead of taking 100% of revenues from sales until the advance is covered, if we are funding most or all the development costs, we will let the studio make 30% until we break even, then split 50/50. If the developer already took a significant financial risk before we get involved, we won’t wait for a recoup or break even before giving the developer their revenue share.”
Nine Dots PR
While the company plans to support various types of games, they want to avoid flooding the market with too many similar titles. They have decided not to release mobile or blockchain games due to a lack of expertise and concerns about the ethical implications of the latter’s business model. There has been plenty of talk around that genre, and even we would stay away from commenting on it.
Initially, Nine Dots Publishing intends to invest between $1 million and $2.5 million in different publishing projects. Nine Dots Studio CEO Guillaume Boucher-Vidal has outlined the broader goal of Nine Dots Publishing as “improving” the game industry. He expressed concerns about current practices being unsustainable and potentially leading to negative consequences for developers and players.
This does sound like a really unique model, but many publishers have had issues lately. Apparently, they’re off to a good start because Nine Dots Publishing has already signed one external development deal and has two games in the works for self-publishing. They are currently putting together a marketing team dedicated to supporting external developers. We’ll see where this goes, but pushing a radical cost split may change how profit is distributed in future deals.
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