I think I have a little experience in every side in this issue. This is the price one pays for using a publisher - one gives up a lot of freedom, there are alwa

I think I have a little experience in every side in this issue. This is the price one pays for using a publisher - one gives up a lot of freedom, there are always strings. The story told here is similar to several attempts I made in the 2000's, one has to self fund a passion project to retain creative freedom. At that time the switch from 2D to 3D was in full swing and the costs of production for a game went through the roof. From the other side of the fence I have worked for a publisher and gotten to try to resurrect multiple projects that were cancelled after the outside developer failed to meet milestones - the main common theme is I wish the publisher had retained some sort of code review because my post mortem evaluation were that the projects were duct taped together and barely working to meet milestones, though some people think shipped games are like that, even one I worked on :). There's one outside project I remember being completed was used as a lesson learned to never outsource again to get better control over the features/schedule.