When a publisher funds a game the developer will not receive money until the publisher has broken even on the game. There could be some exceptions but this is what happened with thatgamecompany.
“When the game makes money, the money first goes back to pay back the money they’ve invested. So, that’s going to take a while – Journey cost multiple millions of dollars to make. Once that money is recouped, then we will get royalties,” thatgamecompany’s founder Jenova Chen told Joystiq.
“But for almost a year, we are not going to be relying on the money from Journey to keep the company going.”
They did receive an investment from venture capitals of $5.6 million. He also mentioned that working with a publisher and venture capital is the same thing.
“When we switched to a venture capital, we raised the money because we pitched the project; we sold them on the vision. They believe it, they want to support us to make that happen. So, creatively I’ve never gotten any input from the venture capital. It’s actually very similar, we are always ourselves, and no one is really messing around with us. With Sony, it was the same thing.”
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