Should indie game developers partner with publishers?

For small-scale indie game developers, how to sell a game after developing it is always a big problem.
My opinion is that partnering with a publisher should be an option, and I would like to write a little bit about this this time.

A publisher is a company that specializes in selling games. Developers are the ones who develop games, and publishers are the ones who sell them. (*Hereafter, developer will be referred to as “developer”)

By partnering with a publisher, developers can focus on game development, and with publishers paying for advertising, even indie developers can use a major sales strategy.
If done correctly, partnering with a publisher can have significant benefits for developers.

However, in Japan’s indie game world, there is a tendency to not look upon developers very favorably.

(I feel like there is a tendency in the Japanese indie world to avoid partnering with publishers (though it’s not as bad as it used to be these days), and there’s a strong belief that if they just take a share of the revenue, they don’t have to pay for advertising. It would be better for me to work if I paid for advertising and got half the share of the 10 million yen in sales, rather than 1 million yen in sales from my own pub, but I don’t think it’s possible to make that kind of a split.)

If your strategy is to “stick to in-house publishing,” that’s fine, but
There are indie game developers who avoid publishers for various reasons, such as they don’t like publishers, find it troublesome to deal with publishers, and think that profitable publishers must be exploiting developers. I think it’s a huge waste.

It’s not that I don’t understand why publishers are somehow not good at it, and it’s a hassle to communicate with them about business, so they choose in-house publishing. There are many people who think that because they are not good at such worldly things, they can live freely and live as indie game developers.
For these people, we do not recommend forcibly collaborating with a publisher. However, there are some publishers who work side by side with indie game developers and support them as good collaborators, so I would like you to talk to them as much as you can.

What I see as a problem is that there are quite a lot of indie game developers who hate publishers for no apparent reason or out of prejudice.
I think this is a huge waste as it simply limits business possibilities.
Of course, there are bad publishers in the world, but there are also good publishers. When working with a publisher, it is part of your job to determine this.

I think some people find that kind of troublesome. I think that is also one of the unknowns. However, if that’s the case, you’ll need to do your own marketing to get more people around the world to play the game.
With more than 10,000 games released each year on Steam alone, it’s not enough to just develop a good game.

We need a strong movement to explore various possibilities and deliver games to users.

The reason why individuals are hesitant to partner with companies in Japan is not just a problem on the individual side, but also because of the existence of Japanese companies that force unreasonable contracts on freelancers, for example. It is believed that it is risky for an individual to sign a contract with a company.
This is a social custom that Japan should really reflect on.

I would like to live in a world where indie game developers can think about whether or not to partner with a publisher in a more level-headed manner, and when they do, it is normal for them to sign contracts with fair terms.

(To talk a little bit about this,

From a foreign publisher

“Don’t Japanese developers want money? I sent them a contract and they just signed it without any negotiation…”

I’ve been told this.

Naturally, the contract that the other party issues has terms that are advantageous to the other party, so it is natural to look at the details and negotiate for rewriting. You may end up in a contract where you lose money.

In the above example, it would be reasonable to pay around 5 million yen a month, but when I proposed 500,000 yen for negotiation, they signed the contract, so yeah! ? That’s what happened.

Well, I totally understand why you don’t even want to interact with publishers because it’s normal to have to negotiate, but it’s tedious and mentally exhausting.

But if you can increase your income by 10 times just by saying a few words, I think you should do your best and use that money to make a good game.)