Some publishers may not realize this, but developers eventually catch on. At this point, we realize that royalties are a sham, that on paper the product isn't going to make much of a profit and we'll never recoup our advance even if the game does moderately well. Which means our interests are no longer as aligned with the publisher's as we might like: if we're going to have to recoup an advance, we either need a megahit to start seeing those royalties or, probably the smarter thing, is to do as little as possible on the product since we're already getting all the money we're ever going to see.
You can argue that we dev should still put in the extra effort to make the game great, because it's our name on the product, because it might be a megahit, because we want to maintain a good relationship with that publisher. But I'd argue that's bending over and letting yourself be exploited.
Happily, some publishers have figured out that we've figured out the sham and are no longer calling the funding an 'advance', so the developer makes money with their first unit sold. Obviously this is much higher risk for the publisher! We can expect these deals to have lower prepaids - or that the publisher will ask for exclusivity or rights of refusal. Still, I think it's great, to be connected with the fruits of our labor again. And I think we'll see more and more of this, particularly now that developers have so many options.
On another note, Chris Natsuume of BoomZap had a saying: a developer can get prepaids, royalties, or keep their IP, and they get to pick two. I'm not sure where BoomZap even found those deals, because at Torpex, when we talked to publishers, we never even managed to sign advance+royalties deals. In hindsight, we probably were asking for overlarge advances, but also in hindsight, I have to wonder why we were even asking for royalties, when we knew full well the chances of them ever paying off were slim to none. The Torpex strategy was doomed to failure: it was essentially work-for-hire, and all it could possibly do is keep us afloat until hopefully we found a better strategy. Sure, staying afloat sounds better than sinking, but maybe if you're just treading water it's time to seriously think outside the box.
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