Independent game development is a subject that has been subject to much debate and news over the past year.  With publishers seeing less revenue and greater losses, they are turning back the clocks to the old way of publishing.  EA and THQ Partners are two of these divisions that harken back to true "independent" development.  The developer gets to hold onto the intellectual property, while the publisher does the rest of the hard work and then the two parties agree on a percentage for each.  Generally speaking, the publisher makes about 25% while the developer, a studio or team, make about 75%.  It is no longer viable for a publisher, outside of its own internal staff, to own the IP and hire an outside studio for the legwork.  Many, many instances, including the Infinity Ward debacle, help prove this theory.

The largest publisher in the world Activision has learned this lesson the hard way.  Their wholly owned studio, Infinity Ward, was the creator of the definitive and most profitable franchise this generation, Call of Duty.  The problem occurred when the heads of the studio decided that they did not like the way that their property was being handled.  In turn, they started, allegedly, to shop around to other publishers.  These actions upset the management of Activision greatly, so they decided to fire the heads of Infinity Ward.  The firings caused a mutiny at Infinity Ward, subsequently forming a new studio, Respawn Entertainment that recently signed a deal with EA Partners to publish their new IP.  We have not heard any news about their new game, but it will be a huge surprise if the game is not a new FPS in the vein of Call of Duty.  It is this instance that has changed the minds of everyone and even Activision has changed their ideas on IP.

Once upon a time, a little studio named Bungie created this small franchise called Halo.  Ever since, it has become one of the largest FPS franchises and has evolved on three separate platforms.  Now that they have fulfilled their contracts with Microsoft, they have signed a deal with Activision, for 10 years, to be exact.  The difference this time around is that they get to keep control over their IP.  Basically, this would be the same type of deal as one with EA or THQ, without the partner name.  Even other studios who have forever been stuck on singular platforms, like Insomniac Games are moving toward this new, old partner model.  Some of the largest, and most well known developers in the industry realize how important control over IP can be and realize that exploitation and profit are the new way, so they want to go back to the old way.

Geoff Hathaway is a writer/contributor for GamingBits.com and is trying to break into freelance writing.  Follow him on twitter: GHNVT3