In the video game industry, and especially at E3, it is easy to get wrapped up in the hype for the big titles from the big publishers that sell hundreds of thousands of copies. What if you are small a developer that has a game that you know will only sell a few thousand copies, but even that is enough with your lean and mean development group? The big publishers won’t touch you because the numbers just don’t support their overhead. What do you do?

Tri Synergy offers an answer: self-publishing.

Unlike a large publisher with a traditionally-structured publishing deal that will expect certain controls over a developer’s intellectual property to publish a game, Tri Synergy demands no such control. They are simply a service purchased by the developer to get their game on the shelf. The developer pays them to perform all the functions that the publisher normally assumes as a matter of course in the traditional deal. When a developer hires Tri Synergy to publish their game, he can expect a full suite of services from the creation of industry-conforming packaging to disc duplication, game promotion, sales to the retail channel and fulfillment of orders.

This year Tri Synergy has as one of its highest profile titles The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript. (To be in no way confused with that minor book that came out a few years ago.) In Secrets of Da Vinci the player goes back to the year 1522 to unravel the secrets of Da Vinci’s last writings. Developed by Nobilis, the game is slated to ship before the end of the year.

Also being published through Tri Synergy is an expansion to Microsoft’s Flight Simulator called Wings of Power: World War II Fighter. In this expansion players are given the chance to fly detailed-performance models of five of the greatest fighters of the Second World War.

Another promising title is D1rT (pronounce it “Dirt”) from developer NuGeneration. D1rT is an action RPG that takes place in a sci-fi setting as the heroine of the story fights to save her friends from mutant insects and black-ops commandos while discovering her own past.

As the industry has become more hit driven and risk adverse, it is nice to see that there is an alternate path for independent publishers that feel they have a good idea and want to get it on the shelf. And while the idea of fronting the cost to publish your own game may not be for every developer, at least there is an option when mega-super-game-corp turns you down. - Will Jayson Hill.