"It used to be that there would be this hard console transition every five years," Bass says, "and it would be very painful for developers and very painful for publishers.
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Private Division released OlliOlli World on the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 last month, but like most publishers has actively continued to support the older consoles as well.
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In the period since Private Division opened its doors, Xbox and Sony have also launched new consoles, which are now both in their second full year. To date, Murray says, Private Division's portfolio has performed "really, really well," showing the publisher that it's "on the right path." So it feels like right now, we're definitely in a consolidation phase, and the prices for things are going up astronomically and that's pretty incredible to watch."Īmid all this, Murray says that Private Division will try to go on being a "viable funding source and a publishing partner" for studios who want to their game to market. "Right now there's a lot of consolidation, and I think in a couple years, we'll see the pendulum swing the other way, and we'll probably see a bunch of new independent studios flourish, and then they'll build cool IP and then those will get acquired and they'll make new independent studios and so forth. "I've been in the industry for over 20 years and I kind of step back and look at the cyclical nature of things and how this has happened before," Murray says. Murray calls the recent trend, which has seen Xbox acquire Activision Blizzard and Sony gobble up Bungie, "cyclical." Right now there's a lot of consolidation, and I think in a couple years, we'll see the pendulum swing the other way It has also acquired studios of its own, adding OlliOlli World developer Roll7 to its stable in 2021. One of the first games it worked on was Obsidian's Outer Worlds, which was announced less than a month after Microsoft acquired the famous independent RPG studio. In the five years since its founding, Private Division has borne witness to the acquisition fever that has overtaken the games industry. An easier console transitionĪ Take-Two Interactive subsidiary originally founded in 2017, Private Division provides support to smaller studios depending on where it feels it can "add value," whether that's in marketing, production, or distribution.
"Part of the reason we got drawn to Piccolo Studio is we started hearing about Arise when it started getting nominated for Game of the Year categories," Bass says.
Yellow Brick Games is currently working on an action RPG in a fantasy setting with an emphasis on "emergent systems" that will help it create a "rich, interactive world."Īs for Piccolo Studio, it drew Private Division's attention because of the strong word-of-mouth afforded Arise: A Simple Story, "an emotional journey of losing the love of one's life." Meanwhile, Bass says that Private Division was drawn to Yellow Brick Games because "we really wanted another RPG," calling it a gap that needed to be addressed. The studio is using a more powerful version of Whitehead's pixel art game engine, which Sonic Mania helped make famous. The studio is a darling among retro fans, having been founded by several key members of the Sonic Mania development team, including Australian programmer Christian Whitehead. According to Vice President of Marketing Tom Bass, Private Division is motivated to work with "some of the greatest creative talent in the industry."Įvening Star is emblematic of the studios that Private Division is seeking to work with in 2022.
The new agreements mark Private Division's steady evolution from an indie publisher into what it hopes will be something of a prestige label. Private Division also signed agreements with Piccolo Studio, the Barcelona-based outfit behind Arise Evening Star, which is working on a "fully original 3D action platformer," and Die Gute Fabrik, which most recently produced Mutazione. They include Yellow Brick Games, the Quebec-based studio founded in part by Mike Laidlaw, who is best-known for his work on the Dragon Age series.
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