what's the realstionship between a game develop team and a publisher?

so every knows crytek, the game development company that made Far Cry and Crysis, but what's strange is that when Crytek made Far Cry, the publisher was Ubisoft, but last year EA was the publisher for Crysis, and right now Far Cry 2 is again Ubisoft.
So a game development company doesn't have to stick with a certain publisher? i always thought a publisher like EA owns several development team to make games and publish them. Obviously i was wrong, but thought i'd let everyone else know this too, if they haven't already.

 

Development team does all the actual game making. Publisher does everything with sales (marketing, packaging, printing discs, etc...). Some publishers do own the development teams, Crytek is independent though.

 

Some developers are owned by publishers, but lots of them are independant and basically contract with the publishers for each game. The publishers usually own the intellectual property after the game is made though.

 

Ubisoft probably owns the Far Cry franchise but not the Crysis franchise.

 

alright, thx for the infomation!

 

Actually Ubisoft is developing Far Cry 2, not Crytek.

 

EA owns crysis, Ubisoft owns Far Cry, and no one owns Crytek.


Its the producers job to pay the development team as little as possible for their hard work while making as much as possible through advertising and securing shelf space.

That is why valve (seriously pissed off at everyone) opened up their own online store (steam). they get 100% of their own profit, and we get great deals like the Orange Box.

 

This is true.

 

I believe this is a neccesary contribution to this thread.

*ahem*[BestMonoToneVoice]I LOVE VALVE/STEAM[/BestMonoToneVoice]