Survival of the Fittest: Is There a Future for Game Publishers?

Paul Quinones writes, "Is there a future for game publishers? If so, what is their role in the future of interactive games and software?

[NYC_Gamer]

Publishers will adapt and make changes to stay in business

[JBSleek]

This.

And the ones that don't will wither away slowly.

[pdqprogrammer]

It will be curious to see how many survive. With the rapidly growing costs of development and the dropping of stock prices for big publishers, the outlook is not good at the moment. More developers are finding ways to make games without a publisher's help. There will be those who survive mostly by staying lean and not biting off more than they can chew. I am curious to see how many publishers will still be around in the next 5 to 10 years.

[Ck1x]

Because of the cost of making such high profile HD titles that each company no doubtedly wants to be known for. The margin of era gets smaller with each generation and has been the sole reason we've seen so many developers close shop already. I just don't want to see it end up becoming only 3-4 main publishers that control everything being developed. Then creativity will go down drastically and franchises will be run into the ground in rotation. Gaming needs for the smaller developers to survive and keep rememberance that this is all just a form of entertaiment still...