Mixed reactions to introduction of Bigmode

Online games news Tedious Retro Gamer, 27-09-2022
Online Games Bay

Quite popular youtuber videogamedunkey just announced that he has established a publishing studio called Bigmode, which will be focusing on indie productions. That announcement was met with mixed reactions, but not for some sinister reason.

While most of the reactions were quite encouraging, videogamedunkey, who has over 7 million subscribers on his youtube channel, described what was behind his decision in words to the effect of "throughout the years I played many games and I had good sense which games are good", which rose some eyebrows. Not because it is not true, but those words could apply to 90% of the reviewers that write for magazines or publish their video reviews.

As far as we can tell he never had anything to do with publishing games or developing games, as far as we know he never was in charge of a company (any company to be precise), which lead some people to conclusion that his approach might be a bit naive.

Of course he has his audience, who consider him a good reviewer, he has his 7 million subscribers channel, which could be a platform to promote Bigmode productions, but at the same time lack of experience in business, and in game publishing business specifically, could be a red flag. As some people mentioned just recognizing good games is not exactly a qualification to be a good publisher, not to mention you need to have connections to people who can help you and in-depth knowledge of game design (yes, publishers do take part in designing process, although they should rather provide guidance and not interfere in the process).

On the other hand each of those people, who think his approach is naive, were at some point in their lives in the same spot as he is - they knew nothing about this business, so if he is smart, if he is keen to learn he might actually succeed. And that is the conclusion of the controversy surrounding that announcement - no one is actually accusing him of anything bad, they just worry that he has no idea what he puts himself into.

But just to give a simple example - one of the well known youtubers, DrDisRespect, last year established his own AAA game studio to make the best FPS ever and... year later they hardly have anything impressive to show. They put up a small demo of environment, they put up small demo of multiplayer interaction, but in bare environment and... that is about it. Which is not a lot.

Of course we can underestimate videogamedunkey, he might become a huge success, but taking under consideration how such projects worked for other youtubers, you have to be sceptical. Just like in real life - just because you can tell which food is better doesn’t make you a chef, just because you can tell which film is better doesn’t make you a film director, just because you know which game is good does not necessarily make you a good publisher... But we will have to wait and see who was right.

27-09-2022