Description
Explore the most comprehensive and current compilation of video game publishers with our Game Publisher list Q1 2024. This meticulously researched list features a total of 1,011 video game publishers, including 635 active publishers, 351 closed publishers, and 25 publishers with undetermined status.
Among these identified companies, 259 publishers are solely focused on game publishing.
- 318 publishers handle both their own games and third-party projects. There are 40 publishers involved in both publishing and financing games, while 43 publishers engage in all three activities: publishing, developing, and financing video games.
Of the total list, a significant number are involved in the indie game market. Specifically, 403 publishers focus on publishing indie games, while 257 publishers do not publish indie games.
Goals and Objectives of the Research
- Compile a list of video game publishers.
- Identify the characteristics of monetization models from the publisher's perspective.
- Investigate the proportion of indie publishers in the industry.
- Analyze the traffic on publisher websites.
- Explore technological developments from the perspective of video game publishers.
- Examine regional differences among publishers.
Research Methodology
- The list was compiled using data parsing from Wikipedia and SteamDB.
- Website traffic and domain age were determined using the SimilarWeb service.
- Operational status was determined based on the activity of official social media accounts and the functionality of the website:
- If a company's website is active and there is at least one post (on the website or official social media) from June 1, 2023, or later, the company is considered active.
- If the website is non-functional and there are no updates on official social media, the company is considered closed.
- In all other cases, the operational status is deemed unknown.
- The role was determined based on the company's statements and services provided:
- If the company only publishes games developed by others, it is considered a publisher.
- If it publishes both its own games and those of other developers, it is considered a publisher and developer.
- If the publisher's services include financing, it is considered a publisher and fund.
- The IPO status of the company was determined based on the company's statements on its website and/or the publisher's CrunchBase page.
- The country of the headquarters is selected based on a match from at least two sources: the official website, social media, CrunchBase page, or headquarters location on SimilarWeb.
- The publishing region was gathered from official websites.
- Information about game types and indie publishing was collected from company statements on their website, social media, and project portfolios.
Disclaimers
The collected information does not claim absolute completeness.
To classify a publisher as focusing on a specific type of game, it is sufficient to have at least one published game in that category.
In the absence of information about a specific region, it is assumed that the company publishes games for a global audience.
The headquarters and the main production site may be located in different countries. The country of the publisher is considered to be where the headquarters is located.
Only publishers with active or unknown operational status are included in the counts.
Given the significant variance in website traffic (with a maximum of 1,162,339,039 for April 2024 and a minimum of 64, and for June, a maximum of 1,201,354,825 and a minimum of 33), the median is used as the average indicator. It is assumed that traffic to publishers with game stores is generated by both developers and players, while traffic to publishers without stores is primarily generated by developers. The groups are not separated in the study.
The traffic of the top 10 most visited companies in April and June is influenced by publishers involved in gadget development, software, game distribution, and comic publishing.
Conclusions
As a result of the research, a total of 1,011 video game publishers were identified, including:
- 635 active
- 351 closed
- 25 with an undetermined status
Among the identified companies:
- 259 are solely focused on game publishing.
- 318 publish both their own games and third-party projects.
- 40 publish and finance games.
- 43 engage in all three activities: publishing, developing, and financing video games.
Of the collected list of publishers:
- 403 publish indie games
- 257 do not publish indie games
Future Goals & Extensions
- Explore the development paths for companies for which game publishing is not the sole activity
- Supplement the study with information on the presence or absence of a game store
- Determine the reasons behind the traffic increase or decrease over 2 months
- Conduct a follow-up study in one year and analyze the changes
- Expand the study based on additional client requests
