goldgolem wrote on Mar 11
th, 2020 at 5:08pm:
These quotes from the massively article should tell you all you need to know about who pulls the puppet's strings...
Who is Standing Stone Games' CEO right now?
Jerry Snook: We don't have a CEO, but Rob, the Executive Producer, is our studio head.
You can’t provide an answer as to whether or not you have the ability to change publishers if your studio wanted or needed to?
Jerry Snook: We’re talking high-level legal stuff, so it’s probably better to leave these kind of questions to them.
If you dont have a CEO and arent free to do what you want, you are not in control. And the only reason that situation would exist in a business context is if DB called the shots
A CEO is just a title. It is more in vogue than President. But for a long time companies had a President and Vice Presidents. Now they have CEO's and CFO/CTO/CMO/COO, etc. (Who are also Vice Presidents. Typically Executive VIP's technically, but whatever). Some companies go with a General Manager or Managing Partner as the head of the company. IN a n newspaper, it would be the Editor in Chief. In a game studio an Executive Producer title might make sense. Someone is running day-to-day operations and has P&L responsibility. That person does not need to have the CEO title. I'd not get hung up on labels.
As for the publisher/studio relationship: I'm in software development. My company makes programs we license/sell directly to customers. We also have products that we sell to two different partners. They then resell/distribute the product to their customers. This could be white label, it could be grey label, VAR, etc. Regardless, we have a contract with those two partners. Each one is a 5 year term with a lot of requirements on both sides for performance and strict rules around notices, IP ownership, confidentiality, competition, solicitation, etc. related to termination or non-renewal. I'm sure the relationship between DB and SSG has some language addressing these issues. Maybe Cordovan is familiar with it. Maybe he isn't. Either way, there is no way he is discussing it on a podcast. I know I wouldn't for any of my partners. His dismissal of that question is to be expected and implies nothing as to the relationship between DB and SSG.