Earlier these few months, an article popped up educating indie devs on how to attract a publisher and it basically boiled down to “appeal to their money-grubbing soulless husks”, because investors don’t care about games, they care about making profit out of an investment.

But it defended this kind of practice because profiteers care about results. They want a game to be successful, because it makes them money. However, they’ll also cut their losses early if it doesn’t look good.
Developers on the other hand just want to express their creative vision, even if this might bring them to ruin. And it’s this cooperation between realism and idealistic, when done properly, that brings out the greatness of a game. Or so they said.

Unfortunately, a lot of the decision makers involved are idiots who fail to understand the need for balance between the costs of production and unhinged desire for success, artistic or material.

Kingdoms of Amalur failed because the people in charge spent their money like crazy on comfort and knickknacks.

Concord failed because the publisher threw a large sack of money at the devs and then fucked right off without a care in the world, leaving a bunch of headless chickens to run around it with no purpose or direction.

New World failed because it was a project run by scammers looking to scam investors (or so I’ve been told).

Highguard failed because the owner was dumb. And probably still is. Also, Tencent was their silent investor, who pulled out when shit went sideways.

Indeed, the formula for a good game doesn’t guarantee success. Even the best of games will fail if the conditions allow it. Yet, for those who simply do not give damn about what they’re making, their carelessness will make damn sure they guarantee its failure.