Okay, my question is if its possible to release a commercial game without revealing your identity to anyone.

And i mean literaly anyone, not even to the people whith whom you are making the commercial contract.
I searched this topic before and the only thing i found was the "Tohou" creator, ZUN:
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/ZUN
But i don't know if there anyone else who is an "Reclusive artist" in the videogame industry.
It looks that this guy could hide his identity (for some time only) being the only one responsible of the entire franchise so he wasn't contacting with other people.

I just want more information about this, since it looks like nobody considered this posibility.

Well your publisher and business partners are obviously going to know your name, but they've got no reason to go publishing it on the intarwebs.

If you sell your game yourself, then depending on where you live, you may just be able to sell it under a trading name, assuming you do all the right tax paperwork etc... You'd have to look into your local laws (might want to specify a jurisdiction in your post) as to whether the general public are allowed to uncover the identities behind sole trader's trading names.

Whats the idea behind this anyway? Making a rapelay knock-off?

Possible? Yes.

Very unlikely though. Realistically, you're going to need some identity (even if it's a pseudonym, fake ID, or corporation) to release a game even in the most casual of environments. If you want to get paid for it that raises the bar quite a bit.

As Telastyn has said its possible but my question is this, why would you want to do that?

Wait a second, i didn't said i want to do that, hell, i didn't even said i want to publish any videogame.

More or less i intrested in the videgame market as a form of investment and this kind of situation popped in my mind.
After all there are no benefits from hiding your name, since there are only advantages of having your name linked to a project.
But in my opinion this situation will appear sooner or later because:

1) The market of videogames grows and grows every day. And there are lots of different people involved in the videogame industry.
Its not impossible to find guys who are willing to work for masses of people but dislike being in the media attention.

2) We already have projects made by only one developer "Dwarf Fortress", "Tohou Project" for example. Still, these games requiered a lot of time
and despite being developed in the last years look like from 90s. Still this didn't stop the creators. I guess the guys who made this games stated
them as an individual project which progressed to what it is now.

3) The tecnology progress every day and its hard to think that games created for the NES requiered a lot of work and teams of people to be completed.
But now the can be made by only one person.


With this three ideas combined i think the game world will have anonymous artists in the future but for now this idea is pointless.
So i was interested in the subject but didn't find any clues on the internet.

BTW i didn't understood this statement :

Whats the idea behind this anyway? Making a rapelay knock-off?[/quote]

This is a Business question. Employment contracts sometimes have an inventions clause, which might be one reason someone would want to remain anonymous. Inventions clauses have been discussed before on the Business forum (where I'm moving this thread to).

If a developer is just reclusive and doesn't want to be bothered, he can simply ask not to be credited on the game. Mark, you say "it looks like nobody considered this posibility," but as you can see from the responses, most people would want to be credited for the work they do on a game, and don't understand why someone would want anonymity.

Edit:
Another reason someone would want to remain anonymous is for fear of legal repercussions (either because the game knowingly violates someone else's IP or because the author has warrants out for his arrest).

Another way to get anonymity is to use a pseudonym. I've seen that lots of times before. For some strange reason, some of the contributors to "Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2" wanted to be credited pseudonymously.

3) The tecnology progress every day and its hard to think that games created for the NES requiered a lot of work and teams of people to be completed.

It's not hard for me to think that. I was there.

But now the can be made by only one person. [/quote]
A small iPhone game, yes. A small Flash game, yes. If you're thinking bigger than that, though, most people would want a team to support their efforts.

You seem to think that because of new developments in game engines, that team sizes must be shrinking. The reality is just the opposite, when talking about mainstream games and packaged product games and MMOs and social games.

Okay, my question is if its possible to release a commercial game without revealing your identity to anyone.

No.
If you enter into a legal agreement or accept any form of payment (apart from cash) then your business partners will need to know your legal identity (if only due to money laundering regulations).

If you use a trading name most countries require that you clearly state {real name} trading as {trade name} on your paperwork. If you register a Ltd company you will need to provide proof of your identity to the accountant/lawyer setting up the company for you (money laundering again) and your name as a Director or Shareholder of the company would be a matter of public record.

What you could do is limit the number of people who know. Your bank will know because they have to (yep money laundering again) but you could hire an agent to act for you and keep your identity secret. They would handle all business and then just pass the proceeds to you.

However, if by "publish" you actually mean "distribute" then it might be possible. You could anonymously send a disk to a magazine and hope they include the game on their cover DVD.

No.
If you enter into a legal agreement or accept any form of payment (apart from cash) then your business partners will need to know your legal identity (if only due to money laundering regulations).

If you use a trading name most countries require that you clearly state {real name} trading as {trade name} on your paperwork. If you register a Ltd company you will need to provide proof of your identity to the accountant/lawyer setting up the company for you (money laundering again) and your name as a Director or Shareholder of the company would be a matter of public record.

What you could do is limit the number of people who know. Your bank will know because they have to (yep money laundering again) but you could hire an agent to act for you and keep your identity secret. They would handle all business and then just pass the proceeds to you.

However, if by "publish" you actually mean "distribute" then it might be possible. You could anonymously send a disk to a magazine and hope they include the game on their cover DVD.
[/quote]

Well if this is not possible then how about revealing his identity in this mentioned points but keep it hidden to the public.
After all this points you mentioned are not of the public domain, in fact they have a policy on privacity around them.
Still this would be a lot of troubles to gain even more troubles.

An agent would be the best way, IMO. Just like reclusive authors use.

But it seems pretty pointless. Honestly, the makers of Dwarf Fortress did a good job and are cool programmers and all, but "media attention" is probably a bit of an exaggeration. People who play the game know of them. Programmers might know of them. But that's probably as far as it goes. If the developers choose to collaborate with others, they can, and they'll have a popular game behind them. They are not dodging hordes of fans or anything like that. And for most people, their online avatar is plenty anonymous for all intents and purposes.

I don't think that you'll see anonymous developers popping up, aside from illegal works (IP infringement, etc.) and potentially embarrassing works (porn). It's a lot of trouble to go to when in all honesty no one will know or care who the developers of most one-man or small teams are.