Ami Langton Guest Lecture Report

 

During Ami Langton’s guest lecture she discussed the vast array of roles a games publisher performs within the game development cycle. She informed us on the pros and cons of not using and using a publisher, the networking side of publishers, the talent scouting publishers do to find worthy teams to invest in, he legal side of publishers acquiring rights to use certain engines, sounds, images, ideas, people and voices.  Other things she told us that publishers do include managing the teams so they work efficiently as possible, aid the teams in technical manners such as art styles, asset production, and quality assurance as well as localising the games to different companies. Publishers also communicate with big names in social media and other forms of media to get publicity for the games they publish.

 

One aspect of all these roles that interested me was the legal side of it all, as Ami talked about certain parts that where quite surprising. She mentioned that making sure the games company doesn’t breach copyright laws and making sure they have licenses to use everything they want to. An example of this that she told us about the Eiffel tower in Paris, the tower itself isn’t copyrighted as it is over 50 years old and is considered public property, however the last that light it up at night are copyrighted. This means that if a games studio wanted to make the Eiffel tower so it’s during the day that is completely fine and doesn’t breach any laws, although if they did it at night and used lights it would breach copyright laws. This made me realise that using a publisher is massively useful as they will sort out any issues you have like that and also be able to see all the issues even the ones you wouldn’t even expect to be an issue.

 

Guest lecture reference:

Langton,A.2015.The Role of a Videogames Publisher.GAM5000 Games Design. Friday 8th May, University of Bolton.