There’s obviously a very good chance you already know this, but just in case: when a developer is bought out by a publisher, it’s usually the case that they then don’t see any ongoing royalties from the games they make for them, or indeed for any existing intellectual property that was swallowed up as part of the studio acquisition. It’s standard practice, knowingly agreed by both parties during the dark deal some studios made to ensure immediate financial viability and larger project budgets. But what it does mean is that a great many of the PC games we regularly celebrate around these parts are no longer bringing in any money for their creators, despite still being on sale. Whenever we excitedly see an old classic appear on Steam or GoG (such as Thief last week), chances are very high that whatever we pay for it goes purely to the publisher and the download service. The men and women who toiled over that game’s creation won’t see another penny from it.
Veteran developer Simon Roth – now working with Frozen Synapse creators Mode 7 – has compiled a partial list of some of the games for which this is true. I have selected just a few of the most renowned, including Deus Ex, System Shock, Vampire Bloodlines, Dungeon Keeper et al, but there are many more listed on his site, and many, many more yet to be compiled.
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