Indy Developers, VWs to Usurp Publishers?

“Video game publishers are dead. They’re walking corpses. They just don’t know it.“ 

Fighting words from Corey Bridges, a veteran of Netscape who in his time has also been involved with some other interesting projects. Bridges, who is a co-founder of The Multiverse Network Inc., was speaking at the South by SouthWest Festival in Austin, Texas.

Bridges predicted that the future of games development would mirror the history of Web itself. He said that the initial belief that large media companies would provide quality online content turned out to be false, that the majority of interesting content on the Web is created by everyday people, and that the most important Internet media companies (Google, Youtube, etc) got their start outside the existing media establishment. 

Bridges maintains that game publishers are already in trouble, due to high costs of development, short shelf life of games and low developer profits. These factors discourage experimentation and create stressful conditions for employees, he said. 

Bridges believes that these conditions, coupled with the increasing availability of broadband and middleware have created an environment that encourages indy game development, which is happening simultaneously with an increase in the popularity of virtual worlds (for which Multiverse is a universal client and tool).

The future of games, according to Bridges, involves new genres for a variety of gamers, not just the hardcore ones. Playing games will lose its stigma as an entertainment medium, much like manga in Japan is accepted. Virtual worlds will begin to blur with the Web in general, and the virtual world, game, and social network industries will cross-pollinate. Publishers will [continue to] consolidate and will survive, but with more competition from “boutique firms” who will offer developers financing, management, marketing, and recruitment without as much need for physical distribution.

It’s a bold statement. Can indy developers truly hope to compete in the long run against the big publishers, with all their industry clout and resources? We know that games developed independently can be lots of fun – but do they have the chops for a 12-round bout with the likes of EA?