“Publishers need to earn their place”: How publishers are redefining their value

• As self-publishing tools, AI, and alternative financing options become more accessible, publishers are under more pressure to justify their role.
• The value of publishers is shifting towards measurable outcomes including growth, retention and revenue.

The role of the games publisher has evolved over the years and is currently still undergoing one of the most significant shifts it has ever seen.

As developers gain access to more self-publishing tools and new ways to strategise through alternative funding models, AI production and direct-to-consumer channels, the traditional publisher begins to look different.

These questions around the future of publishing will be explored at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona 2026, taking place June 15th and 16th.

One of the sessions addressing this is ‘What does the role of the publisher look like in 2026’, which brings together perspectives from across the industry on how publishing models are adapting to a more competitive, fragmented landscape.

Redefining value

Among the speakers is Asi Burak, chief business officer at Tilting Point, who states that publishers must now actively justify their role through tangible, compounding value rather than legacy services.

“In today's world, where self-publishing is more accessible than ever, AI is everywhere, and financing is widely available, publishers need to earn their place,” he says. “Developers have more tools and more paths to market than ever before, so the old model of ‘we provide funding and access’ is no longer enough.”

For Burak, the modern publisher is defined less by capital and more by optional depth across both mobile and PC markets, where the likes of discoverability, live ops and other growth systems are becoming increasingly complex.

A key structural change he notes is the growing importance of direct relationships with players, as platform dynamics and acquisitions continue to shift and ad networks become less predictable and more expensive.

“Owning the player relationship is now strategic, not optional,” Burak says. “The more a company understands, communicates with, and retains its players directly, the more resilient the business becomes.”

These shifts also change what success looks like for studios post-launch, with a wider emphasis being placed on long-term operation rather than initial release performance.

“Launching a game is only the beginning; the real job is operating a live service and a long-term business,” he explains. “A successful launch matters, but most of the value is created after launch through content cadence, events, economy tuning, community management and long-term product iteration.”

Burak notes that publishers today need to help developers build businesses, not just ship products. Another factor that Burak highlights is the role of AI as a structural enabler rather than a surface-level production tool.

“Publishers need to use AI not as a stunt, but as a systemic advantage,” he says. “The real opportunity is applying it across the organisation - from creative production and localisation to marketing, player support, analytics, testing, and live operations.”

Alongside operational scale, publishers today are also having to think more about where and how games can exist across platforms and other channels and how they can engage their communities in these spaces.

Burak notes that “players no longer experience a game only inside the game itself”. He adds that discovery, engagement, community, content, commerce and retention all happen across platforms such as Steam, Discord, TikTok, YouTube, mobile stores, web shops and live events.

The overall implication, he states, is a more accountable publishing model where value must be consistently demonstrated through performance.

“At every stage of the relationship, publishers need to prove their value with measurable results,” Burak says. “The developer-publisher relationship should be grounded in outcomes, not promises.”

Burak adds: “Some people argue that publishing in mobile and PC is dead. I think that is premature, but it reflects a real shift. Publishers are under more pressure than ever to justify their role.

"The ones that survive and thrive will be those that bring measurable. Specialised, and compounding value beyond capital.”

Specialised models

Offering another perspective on the same market shifts, Nikola Cavic, chief executive officer at GameBiz Consulting, argues that much of what publishers traditionally provided is now accessible at a significantly lower cost and complexity.

“The core value publishers once provided, such as UA management, creative production, MMP integrations and basic analytics, can now be handled by a small team or even just a single person with a credit card and access to the right tools,” he says.

While he acknowledges that publishers still bring value, particularly in certain areas such as funding, opening doors to major networks and distribution platforms as well as general expertise, he suggests that the economics of the traditional revenue share models are increasingly more difficult to justify.

“The current value proposition does not justify revenue share splits that were common before,” he states. “Why give up 30% to 50% of your revenue when you can set up most of the infrastructure yourself or with the help of a few experts and fund the UA operation with readily available US financing options, at a fraction of the cost a publisher would charge?”

Looking ahead, he expects publishing to become more specialised and service-oriented, rather than broadly centralised.

“Moving forward, I expect publishers will be less relevant as an ‘all-in-one’ place, but rather become more relevant in specific regions where publishing is restricted, focus more on certain narrow niches or offer specialised publishing operations as a service, rather than as a publishing deal.”

Together, these perspectives highlight a wider shift in publishing where access to distribution is no longer the key, with success now defined by the ability to deliver consistent, measurable, specialised value.

These discussions will continue in more depth at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona 2026 on June 15th and 16th, where leaders from across the games industry will explore how the role of the publisher is evolving.