Creator Crazy Viking Studios 4 days ago
@ Crosmando This is Taron (normally its Kris making all the comments). I wanted to chime in on this and say, I had exactly the same thought at first. We are an indie company, this is an indie game, and I absolutely refuse to allow any "publisher" to step in and make me change something. If I wanted that I would have stayed working for other game companies. So fear not! We are not "selling out". Let me explain more...
The people we are working with are really only a "publisher" in terms of how Steam views them, which allows them to put games on Steam without having to go through Greenlight or other avenues of approval that self-published games need to. They actually refer to themselves as a "marketing partner" when dealing with us, but claim the title "publisher" when dealing with Steam so they can access avenues that Steam usually only gives to publishers.
They are not providing any funding of the game itself like a normal publisher would. They also have no rights over the IP and no say in the creative content of the game whatsoever, and as Kris mentioned, no involvement at all in the Kickstarter backer copies or sales on Humble and other places like GoG, Desura, Gamer's Gate, etc. They actually contacted us through this very kickstarter campaign, so they are well aware of our indie self-funded status!
The deal we are looking at is that they provide marketing (and they are in a VERY good position to do so) and use their position as an official "Steam-approved publisher" to get us on Steam without having to go through Greenlight, in exchange for a cut of the profits from any copies purchased from Steam.
So, yeah, being able to bypass Greenlight and have an awesome well-loved company like this provide marketing would be a big help for us, and I'm making absolutely sure before I sign anything (with an attorney and everything!) that this deal would not at all compromise our creative freedom, give away any rights to our IP, or change our status as an independent developer. As Kris said, these guys are awesome and not a group you are likely to guess at since they are not generally known as a game publisher at all.