Meta Publishing: "We have limited the size of our catalog to 4-6 games per year"

We continue the mini-series of interviews within the framework of the WN Dev Contest. In them, the jury of the competition shares tips on working in the game market. This time we talked with Oleg Zelikman, Director of Business Development at META Publishing.

Oleg Zelikman

Do you think a developer who is just getting ready to meet with a publisher should hire a lawyer?

In our opinion, this is not necessary. For example, our publishing agreement is drawn up in fairly simple language, all the terms of the transaction are clearly spelled out in it. You can sort them out without the help of a lawyer (which is what many of our partners do).

However, this does not mean that publishing contracts cannot contain "pitfalls" at all, so if the developer has doubts about the terms, wording, etc., it is better to use the help of a lawyer.

I'm not just asking. There are different things. For example, when the producer does not find a common language with the team. For example, he has one vision, the team has a completely different one. How do you handle such situations?

We respect the artistic vision of the teams and try not to interfere in the creative process. This is one of the basic principles of our publishing policy, so the likelihood of such conflicts is low.

At the same time, we try to advocate for the interests of players in games, conduct relevant research and help teams optimize production processes. If disagreements do arise, we bring our position to the developers in a reasoned manner — with figures and examples — and in most cases find a mutually acceptable solution.

Or here's another controversial case. There was a time in mobile when publishers took publishing projects just to increase their portfolio. They spent just a little bit on launching, looked at the indicators and, if the game did not reach the necessary metrics, lost interest in the game. At the same time, they were not going to give the project away. We used his residual traffic for cross-promotion. Is there such a practice in the PC market today?

Yes, this practice exists. There are enough publishers on the market with large catalogs, in which, along with hits, there are many poorly selling or not selling games at all. Our approach is different: we deliberately limit the size of our catalog, planning to publish 4-6 games per year. In this case, we are confident that we can devote the maximum of our time and efforts to the games we work with, ensure effective promotion before release and proper support after it.

The realities of the modern market are such that due to the huge number of projects coming out, even a very good game needs effective promotion in order to be noticed and appreciated. So the quality of the games and our work with them is definitely more important to us than their quantity.

Since you're talking about the games themselves, let's talk about this. Last year was marked by new stars — the cooperative Fall Guys and Among Us. Have publishers' priorities changed against this background? Should the teams that prepare single projects be afraid that their games will not be taken?

These games really "shot". Their huge success came as a surprise to the industry. However, this does not mean that now players and publishers are only interested in cooperative games.

And pay attention to the fact that in 2020 there were also many very successful single-player-oriented games: Hades, Factorio, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Noita, Wolcen.

But I'll add: if the developer has the opportunity to add a co-op mode to the game, it's definitely worth doing.

What type of games are you looking for in the competition?

We do not focus on a specific genre, we are looking for premium projects for PC and consoles (and even mobile) with an interesting concept and high quality in any genre. Except that we focus on the mid-core and hardcore audience, and not casual. In general, we really like funny games, but we also have serious and even gloomy ones.