So many businesses operate on debt and investments. "If you're going to gamble, do it with somebody else's money." A lot of opportunities to acquire funding for developing video games have just dried up.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but supermassive don't seem to go that way, which is why I was pointing out the publisher thing.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The publishers acquire funding this same way. Sony, 2K, and Bandai Namco have all operated as the publishers for their games, and they're all publicly traded companies. They pay the upfront cost for development that both partners in that deal wish to make a return on, and right now, the publishers or other investors (which may still exist regardless of a publisher deal) are scared of throwing money at lots of game pitches these days.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Public companies don't take private investment without issuing new shares. Which is not a common thing.

If you think publicly traded companies are taking investment like privately traded companies then I think you are likely somewhat uninformed.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

What I said was that the developer may have other investors in the studio or the project even if they have a publisher. Immortals of Aveum, for instance, was published by EA but largely funded by venture capital.