Game industry veteran Alyssa Kollgaard created a tool called Publisher Pathfinderwhich helps developers find publishing partners and investors that match their game's needs.
The tool is designed in the style of an old-school text adventure game where developers answer various questions about their game, such as target platforms, game content, and how much funding they are looking for. Once the user has completed their request, Publisher Pathfinder provides a list of publishing partners, investors, and service providers that match the developer's needs, selected from a database of nearly 800 companies.
Kollgaard, who is now Akupara Games' COO, previously helped lead Indie housesa group of publishers, which includes such Unbridled Rage And Fellow traveler. “It was really nice to share information and resources and be part of the same team,” she said. GamesIndustry.biz. “Someone at some point casually remarked that it would be interesting to create a website with sorting hats for seven Indie House publishers, and that idea has always stuck with me. “I decided to expand it to ALL publishers and change the theme to something outside of the Harry Potter universe because I truly believe it will be a useful resource for the community.”
Publisher Pathfinder is the result of many months of work compiling and validating publisher resources. Collgard began by merging and consolidating three existing databases: Alan's Resources for Game DevelopersSeyed Publisher and Investor Database for Indie DevelopersAnd IndieGameBusiness.
“They already had MOST publishers and a fair amount of vetted information,” Collgard said, “though I added my own criteria, such as major areas and additional services. I also added venture capitalists and investors from two high-profile leaders in gaming that I advise who are currently raising funds for their companies at scale.
“It then took me about 100 hours over five months to fill in the missing details using publicly available and verifiable information from official sources. It was very difficult!”
Collgard hopes that Publisher Pathfinder will prove a valuable resource for developers. “The game publishing ecosystem deserves as much clarity, craft and design thinking as the games themselves,” she said. “I know first-hand how difficult it can be when it comes to funding and publishing games. So I decided to cut through the noise and create an easy-to-play and searchable resource with the goal of making the opaque business of game finance more transparent, actionable and fun!”
In addition to Pathfinder Publishing WebsiteCollgard created Discord server for users, and also includes Publisher Pathfinder. bluesky And X.
