With the internal focus though it wouldn't matter, especially with such a huge amount of games now being released.
I don't think there is really such a huge amount of games being released. Not on console. I've pointed out how Activision have whittled down their properties to basically CoD + Blizzard + licensed games. Do you have some examples of big publishers who have increased their output on consoles since say 2008?
Ubisoft and Rockstar are especially good at this, when one project falters they have plenty of other pies for the employees to switch to.
Just going from Wikipedia (using TakeTwo since Rockstar aren't a publisher):
Ubisoft:
Defunct
Wolfpack Studios in Austin, Texas, U.S, founded in 1999 and acquired on 1 March 2004. Closed in 2006.[29]
Ubisoft Vancouver, started on 3 February 2009 after acquiring Action Pants Inc.[30] Closed in January 2012.[31]
Ubisoft São Paulo, started on 24 June 2008 and on 20 January 2009 they acquired Southlogic Studios and integrated it into this studio.[32] The studios were closed in late 2010 to focus on games distribution.[33]
Take Two:
Defunct
2K Australia in Canberra, Australia, folded into 2K Marin[23]
Frog City Software in San Francisco, California, founded in 1995, acquired by Gathering of Developers in 2004, consolidated into Firaxis Games in 2006
Gathering of Developers in Texas, founded January 1998, acquired May 2000, closed September 2004; brands merged into Rockstar and 2K
Gotham Games, started in 2002, eventually closed
Indie Built, Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah, founded as Access Software in 1983, acquired from Microsoft in 2004; closed April 28, 2006
Kush Games in Camarillo, California closed in 2008
PopTop Software in St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1993, merged into Firaxis Games in 2006
TalonSoft in Baltimore, Maryland, founded in 1995, acquired in 2000, closed in 2005; most brands sold to Matrix Games
Rockstar Vienna, founded January 4, 1993, as neo Software, closed May 11, 2006
Venom Games, Ltd. in Newcastle upon Tyne, founded in 2003, acquired in September 2004; closed in July 2008
PAM Development in Paris, France, founded in 1997, acquired in 2006; closed in 2008
So they're especially good at keeping their studios busy? I'd hate to see a publisher who was especially bad at that.
Keeping the work internally means they can leverage ALL of their assets as they wish. We hear stories all the time about Rockstar noticing a project (RDR or Max Payne 3 lately) having issues so they pull everyone off their current projects and throw them at the one project to get them over the line and avoid it being a fuckup.
What you've described is already a cost blowout and a fuckup.
The cost blowout in relation to marketing is more based around those contracts, a developer will reluctantly go to a publisher hat in hand and say that without extra time and money and pushing to the public it won't be profitable and won't be good.
That's nothing to do with marketing, that's development.
By making development internal a publisher won't have to wait to find that out
Why do you think there would be any real difference? A lot of the time we're talking about a studio in a different city or country than the beancounters, whether it's internal or external. There's no particular reason that communication is going to be any better. Internal communication within big companies is usually pretty poor.
That last time I posted about a cost blowout I was actually talking more about the effect it has on the external developer, a situation where they sink all their money
With the kinds of games we're talking about, the developer is not spending their own money, they're spending the publishers money.
The point is that EA are moving away from the old style of a developer pitching a project to them, which they then fund all the way to our hands, to the EA partners system where they reduce the amount of money they have thrown up in the air hoping will land in some profitable places.
So basically they've stopped funding as many games? This is my point. Distributing games that someone else has made isn't risky and obviously EA aren't the only ones distributing those sorts of games.
Basically my point is that publishers are making fewer games for consoles and this why studios are reporting there is less work available for them. It's not because internal studios are a magical land where magic happens.
