I'm not surprised that Xbox has made a converted effort to include developers. Their indie programs and outreach has been, at least to an outsider, far better than Sony or Nintendo's. Watching the various special events and reading anecdotes from the studios who worked with them in recent years, it seems like a deliberate effort was made to ensure that developers were given full credit and spotlighted. This could also be because of Microsoft's rampant consumption of studios while promising autonomy....but I am glad to see that they have at least done this step.
I'm curious about who is in control of the hyperlinks in the studio name on Steam. Sometimes you get directed to Steam search with the developer field filled in but, more often than not, they link to the publisher's page. The most unlikely case may be a studio having their own "landing page", unless they self-publish. Could it be the publisher who fills that data in when submitting the game to Steam?
Interesting, but I'm curious how much of an artifact this is of the way rights are assigned (bought, sold, etc) for games. The other examples you list have long, litigious histories to get to where we are now, authors and performers (musicians, actors, etc) in particular have been around a lot longer than game studios.
Closer examples to game studios might be backup bands, songwriters, and screenwriters who are not credited anywhere in any marketplace where I've bought music or video content. Although, I have started seeing more screenwriters visibly credited during the crawl of late, but usually because they "bought in" as executive producers, functioned as a showrunner, or (more likely) stipulated to it in their contract. I don't think Taylor Swift's band (who make her sound amazing) gets credit anywhere prominent.
Do studio contracts often include credit rights or just work for hire? The marketplaces that do list them obviously think that it's good for sales because studios do have fans (just like all the other examples I listed—but they're tiny niches). Perhaps because Microsoft owns a bunch of studios, they maybe "get it." Epic seems to still remember being the "little guy." It doesn't surprise me that Nintendo and Sony don't think game studios have fans or even if they do that it doesn't matter, because the brand and IP is what Nintendo and Sony believe sells games.
One more storefront, for posterity: Meta (for Quest / Rift) lists both publisher and developer on store pages and also frequently curates "spotlight" sections for individual developers, combining their titles from across different publishers.
If Hades II comes out on Switch the same year as Balatro and Infinite Wealth, I will literally have to quit my job to keep up.
I'm not surprised that Xbox has made a converted effort to include developers. Their indie programs and outreach has been, at least to an outsider, far better than Sony or Nintendo's. Watching the various special events and reading anecdotes from the studios who worked with them in recent years, it seems like a deliberate effort was made to ensure that developers were given full credit and spotlighted. This could also be because of Microsoft's rampant consumption of studios while promising autonomy....but I am glad to see that they have at least done this step.
I'm curious about who is in control of the hyperlinks in the studio name on Steam. Sometimes you get directed to Steam search with the developer field filled in but, more often than not, they link to the publisher's page. The most unlikely case may be a studio having their own "landing page", unless they self-publish. Could it be the publisher who fills that data in when submitting the game to Steam?
Interesting, but I'm curious how much of an artifact this is of the way rights are assigned (bought, sold, etc) for games. The other examples you list have long, litigious histories to get to where we are now, authors and performers (musicians, actors, etc) in particular have been around a lot longer than game studios.
Closer examples to game studios might be backup bands, songwriters, and screenwriters who are not credited anywhere in any marketplace where I've bought music or video content. Although, I have started seeing more screenwriters visibly credited during the crawl of late, but usually because they "bought in" as executive producers, functioned as a showrunner, or (more likely) stipulated to it in their contract. I don't think Taylor Swift's band (who make her sound amazing) gets credit anywhere prominent.
Do studio contracts often include credit rights or just work for hire? The marketplaces that do list them obviously think that it's good for sales because studios do have fans (just like all the other examples I listed—but they're tiny niches). Perhaps because Microsoft owns a bunch of studios, they maybe "get it." Epic seems to still remember being the "little guy." It doesn't surprise me that Nintendo and Sony don't think game studios have fans or even if they do that it doesn't matter, because the brand and IP is what Nintendo and Sony believe sells games.
One more storefront, for posterity: Meta (for Quest / Rift) lists both publisher and developer on store pages and also frequently curates "spotlight" sections for individual developers, combining their titles from across different publishers.