"People can hate me for this if they want": Manor Lords publisher says most indie publishers are "predatory and opportunistic," and "not particularly competent either"

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"People can hate me for this if they want": Manor Lords publisher says most indie publishers are "predatory and opportunistic," and "not particularly competent either" News By Dustin Bailey published 27 January 2026

"It is very viable to self publish these days"

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Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender says most indie publishers are bad news. That might seem like a weird thing for the boss of the indie publisher supporting strategy hits like Against the Storm and Manor Lords to say, but he suggests indie devs should be very, very careful about who they choose to partner with.

"People can hate me for this if they want," Bender tells our friends at PC Gamer, "but most indie publishers are not people indie developers should work with. The vast majority of indie publishers, in their whole structure, are predatory and opportunistic."

Bender, of course, argues that "ethical treatment of developers is critical" at Hooded Horse, but he's not the only one sounding the alarm about bad deals from indie labels.

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• "If we're publishing the game, 'no f***ing AI assets'": Strategy and city builder powerhouse Hooded Horse bans AI art

Vampire Survivors creator Luca Galante told us last year that the plague of publishers that "try to exploit the platforms just to make money" was part of what inspired him to turn his studio Poncle into a safer option for other indie devs. It's a similar story at Palworld dev Pocketpair, which also recently turned its success into a safer publishing home for other indies.

The bad publishers, Bender argues, are "looking to sign a bunch of games, to invest in the ones that are otherwise successful, make them bigger, ignore and drop – basically abandon – the ones that aren't, while sucking up whatever they can through recoup. They're not particularly competent either, most indie publishers; they don't add a lot."

In the end, Bender warns indie devs that they need to "research and be careful," and if they're "in doubt, self publish. That's really what it comes down to, because it is very viable to self publish these days."

"If we're publishing the game, 'no f***ing AI assets'": CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse bans gen AI art and calls it "cancerous."

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Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Dustin BaileySocial Links NavigationStaff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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