Self-publish or not?

[thirstyoctopus]

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and since my VN project is on schedule to release in third quarter of 2019 on Steam, I'm wondering whether to self-publish or get a known VN publishing house to do it. I'm not entirely sure what the pros and cons are or who owns the rights (developer or publisher?) but although I've seen VNs developed and published by the same studio / individual, there are a lot that are published by studios I know but developers that are new to me.

Any thoughts on this? This is my first VN so I don't know if it would benefit me by employing a publisher that's already got a good catalogue of games already under their belt.

Thanks in advance
Michael

[papillon]

Do you need cash upfront to finish your game? Then you might benefit from a publishing arrangement, if you can find someone who is interested enough in your game to put some money down to help you finish it.

Otherwise, in most cases, signing up with a 'publisher' these days just means that you give away a large share of your profits in exchange for... well, I don't know if the publishers even help you upload your game to Steam but hopefully they at least do that?

You're going to have to do some work promoting your own game no matter what. Having a better-known name as your publisher will not turn your game into a success. People who are interested in visual novels will check out your game anyway, and either buy it or not buy it based on how cool it sounds. If no one's interested it will still flop with a publisher; if it takes off, it will take off fine without one.

There are many specific individual things a publisher might be able to help you with. But YOU need to know very specifically what you're looking for and what you're hoping to get from them. If you want, say, to have a Japanese translation made for your game? Then you need to go around shopping and asking people for exactly that, and only sign to someone who will offer it to you. Or any other weird specific thing that you want that you can't do on your own. If you know what you want, then you have a bargaining position.

But don't sign away your rights hoping that some nebulous good thing will happen for no reason.

[thirstyoctopus]

Thanks for your reply. I mean, although the game was funded on Kickstarter I have blown the budget due to my stretch goals that I really miscalculated. It was my first campaign so I guess you learn from your mistakes. Currently I'm paying my own money now to finish the artwork and to publish to Steam when it's ready. I am aware that by bringing in an external publisher means sharing profits in their favour but I felt that self-publishing might be a lot of work for me, and it will mean putting in more money which I'm running rather short of. Making any profits on this game will take some time but I'm hoping that if gets enough interest I can get more people to recognise my name and then purchase future games I've planned.

I guess I'll think on it a while longer, and do some research.