Warren Spector on Game Publishers

I've talked alot about publishers interacting with game development, and keeping and controlling IP on this blog many, many times before. Games industry veteran Warren Spector (System Shock, Deus Ex, Ultima VI, TSR, Steve Jackson Games) recently spoke at SXSW about his recent experience with game publishers and IP:

But, according to Spector's experiences, the problem is control over IP and publisher influence, in the current market, as he continued: "The equivalent [of a distributor] in the game business is " and I'll try not to swear here: a bleeping publisher. The guarantee of distribution has to come from a bleeping publisher. And the publishers don't want this to happen because they lose control over the IP, they lose control over the financing. They lose control over me. And nobody wants that." "So what happened was, there was a publisher...I call them 'third world publishers'. There was a little publisher that really wanted... the little publisher that could, you know? "I think I can, I think I can." They really wanted to get over that mountain and become a big deal. But they didn't have the war chest to finance five twenty million dollar games. They were stuck making five million dollar bets. And you can't compete in the AAA space for that kind of money. You'll get destroyed." And so, unfortunately, after this publisher said, "We're in, we'll publish this stuff", all the money guys, after a while, looked at that publisher and said "We don't believe they can actually distribute this stuff -- and the money guys pulled out. And guess what? I'm back looking for a publishing deal."