A video game publisher is a company that publish games that they have made or that they have bought to be made by a video game developer. The publisher pays for the development of the game. Because of that, they can tell the developers exactly what kind of game they want. The publisher is responsible for the making and marketing of the game. Big publishers also distribute the games that they publish. Smaller ones pay for other companies to distribute the game for them. Publishers also usually design and make the copies of the games and write the manual.