I was thinking about switching to a very small project I had thought up. Honestly the biggest appeal I see to it is just in quickly saying that I have finished and published a title, and with that get some experience with actually putting a game on steam and maybe a console (last I checked it seemed pretty feasible to do that.)

As I thought about this, I wondered about the possibility of getting a publisher. But then I began to wonder what a publisher could even do for such a small title.

For a sense of scale, let's say I'm making the original Bubble Bobble (but single player only) and selling it for three bucks.

Obviously I wouldn't be looking for financial support to develop it. Localizing it would be so trivial that it's almost a non-issue. As far as I can see that just leaves marketing as something worth considering. And while I really don't know that much about marketing, it still sounds like any publisher would be hard-pressed to make any money promoting such a game.

But I think - well, I really don't know that much about this kind of stuff, so maybe I'm wrong. This brings me here. For a project of that size, is there going to be any publishers worth offering my game to? Is there going to be anything a publisher could really do for such a project? How could I even find someone who would be willing to look at a game like that?

I don't know for sure, but I'd suspect the profit margin is too small for a publisher to look at.

If your selling it for $3 would you be ok if the publisher got $2 of every sale?

likely not.

It doesn't sound like it's worth the hassle for both parties.

Most devs go to publishers to fund development for games they can't scope and make by them selves.

The main thing a publisher can give you, other than a loan/advance on royalties, is marketing.

Publishers know how to get a game into channels, where to place advertising, how to coordinate social media, they have lists of popular streamers and reviewers to send review copies to, and so on.

Also, a “simple” game for gameplay, doesn't need to mean that your game has low earnings potential. Consider Candy Crush Saga, for example. Very simple game (at least, initially!) and very profitable.

That being said – a publisher will not spend their limited marketing effort on anything they don't see generating significant revenue (i e, at least “millions” of dollars, not “thousands.”) So, depending on what you want to do with the game, perhaps the best option is to make it for a mobile or console game store, and put it there as self-published. For extra cred, put it in multiple stores on multiple platforms, to learn and demonstrate the capability to develop something that's portable.

BTW, if you self publish, unless you put as much effort into marketing as you did in developing, you will probably get approximately 0 customers. There are, literally, millions of published titles in the world. The chance that your game will somehow be randomly “discovered” and rise out of obscurity, even for a small audience, is approximately zero, unless you spend a bunch of effort to increase the odds of that happening.

Development funds, marketing, QA and testing facilities, skilled producers, contacts at other companies, and more.

Beware of groups who only “publish” by getting a contract for your revenue without guarantees about their contributions. Some unscrupulous companies will do little more than put your game on a website listed among thousands of others, and if you ever happen to get money the contract gives it to them instead of you.

Get an industry lawyer to review the agreement before you sign. Consider your portion of the deal is a game with a bunch of work in it, an equivalent perhaps of a hundred thousand dollars or more. If they aren't contractually bound to give resources also worth tens or hundreds of thousand dollars, they really should not be getting a cut but a direct single payment instead.

hplus0603 said:

That being said – a publisher will not spend their limited marketing effort on anything they don't see generating significant revenue (i e, at least “millions” of dollars, not “thousands.”)

Doesn't that depend on the publisher?
I haven't done a lot of research, but I was under the impression that there are smaller publishers who focus on smaller games. There are scores of indie games out there, and it sounds silly to think that there isn't someone trying to capitalize on that. To say that there are no publishers who would pursue revenues in the “thousands” sounds unlikely.

I was thinking more along the lines of: just how small can we go? Is what I described something that there are still publishers who would be interested?

Not counting the unscrupulous companies frob mentioned.

Marscaleb said:

I was thinking more along the lines of: just how small can we go? Is what I described something that there are still publishers who would be interested?

There are two major models among legit publishers.

The one most people think of first as a publisher is the company that partners up, handling revenue and marketing and giving a loan to the studio.

The other model is simply providing a publishing service at a fee. Think more like Steam or the phone app stores. The studio gets no money up front, has no advertising deals, and gets standard services at a known price.

If you are paying, you can get what you want to buy.