Video game company

[atromoby]

I was surprised that some of the recently released PC game from us/european developers were published by a japanese company.
Does anyone know that the game publisher actually take parts in game develoments or they just help marketing the game?

[Nurizeko]

It all really depends on the publisher/dev combo.

EA for example, being the big horrid monsterous wart on the gaming industry it is, owns most of its devs, and is big enough to bully about outside devs if it even goes to them, they call the shots.

[bloodthirster2]

video games did start in japan.

from what i have heard, its 50/50. either pubs are 100% involved, or the devs have to go looking for a publishers.

[Eboli]

video games did start in japan.

from what i have heard, its 50/50. either pubs are 100% involved, or the devs have to go looking for a publishers.
Pretty sure video games didn't start in Japan, but rather in the USA. Atari and Magnavox and probably things before them come to mind.

[Capytan]

I think it was the Russians :P but anyway, it all depends on interest the pub has for the game. With a game like Metroid Prime, Nintendo helped guide Retro to what it wanted with the game, and I believe helped finance the game's budget (because Retro was a small company and couldn't support the finances).

Other games like with BF2, were left all alone when making the product. EA just financed the game and marketed it (commercials, advertisements, and the like).

[Mithie]

Pretty sure video games didn't start in Japan, but rather in the USA. Atari and Magnavox and probably things before them come to mind.
I'm fairly sure ENIAC had its share of text adventure games.

[Eboli]

I'm fairly sure ENIAC had its share of text adventure games.
Even though ENIAC was an American computer I still don't think text adventure games qualify as "video" games. I'm thinking more along the lines of Spacewar.

[HunterX]

Even though ENIAC was an American computer...

Especially when you consider that ENIAC didn't have any video terminals, or paper tape teletype terminals for that matter, and all data and commands were entered via switches with output by lightbulbs.