Really depends on the size of the developers I would guess.

I bet studios like Bungie, Epic Games, Sony Santa Monica, Naughty Dog etc etc can get far better deals in place, and thus have much more say in their products than smaller developers.

I agree. I remember reading somewhere that Sony wanted ND to implement the Move in U3 and ND simply said no thank you. Also, from watching making ofs and interviews they seem to do pretty much what they choose to do. I'm sure it's the same with other big developers. Small developers, on the other hand, probably have much less influence on their own products.

I would say that's an unfortunate side effect of the fact that they have been under Activisions thumb/ownership for so long, Bungie & Epic Games are privately owned for example (And Epic Games at least has more than enough cash to only need the publishers for the actual publishing jon), and I believe that they both reserve the right to all of their ip's from now on.

Not sure if ND was against or for the online pass to start with? Maybe they agreed with Sony's decision? idk...

Edit: Whisperer clarified a bit, thanks!

I know what you're trying to say, but I disagree developers make games and that's their baby!

Shame on SONY and EA. I'm sick of online passes, they are completely unjustified.

Think of it as artists vs RIAA. RIAA "works" for the artists. (But we all know where all that collection money go.)

I think it was simple desire to be fully independant again, and being able to create projects which are not Halo, which makes sense, after 9 years of working on the same IP, I would want to do something else too.

I'll have to look it up though.

yea, thats how i remember it. they wanted to do something other than halo and create a new ip

Do developers have to listen to the people who pay there bills?

Why yes... yes they do...

and there isn't anything wrong with that.

If you want to completely see your own vision go make indy games... or just do the gruntwork "movie tie in" games that they get random devs to do so you can self fund your own game.


Otherwise, yeah you'll have to do what the developer wants unless you can convince them it's a bad idea.

It's only fair really.  I mean, who wants to give 5 million + dollars to someone without having any say in what they're doing at all?

But they make those games with the money of the publishers, so it's pretty understandable for them to do what they think is needed to get their money back, even if we don't like it.