ok, well maybe not “on”, but there definately seems to be a lot of missunderstanding and irritation between the 2 groups recently (mostly due to micro-transactions).

Something occured to me the other day while thinking about this, and I think the issues between most devs and publishers is this.

Most game devs see game development as 80% art 20% business.

Most publishers see game development as 80% business 20% art.

(with “art” meaning, doing it for more then just financial reasons).

I think therein lies the problems. Obviously this is not true of ALL game developers or ALL publishers (especially as a lot of game developers also have their own portal), but in general I think the point stands up.

I think both sides can learn from the other. Game developers to continue to develope HAVE to look upon what they do as a business. This is something which took me a little while to learn. It’s fun to try out unique and original ideas, but (unless you get lucky) they won’t pay the bills. As a game developer you need to pay close attention at the market and see what games do well and which don’t.

Likewise I think some publishers can look upon the whole endevour as a money making exercise only. I think this alienates the game developers, and doesn’t make for a particularly good games portal for the players. There is only so many “dress up”, “match 3″, “Casino” games the internet can handle, and I think the best portals are ones that try to push the quality threshold. This although is also dependent upon their particular already established audience.

All in all, we all want the same things. When new tech comes along we need to find ways to embrace it TOGETHER, and find solutions which mutually benefit us all.