Poncle, the developers behind the smash action game Vampire Survivors, announced it’s launching a new publishing arm, seemingly targeted at indie creators.
Originally reported by a GamesIndustry.biz writer in Liverpool at the Game Republic's Pitching to Investors and Publishers, the announcement is meant to bolster games and studios with “sincerity, passion, and depth.”
It’ll be a non-traditional publisher, implied to be acting with less oversight than other companies often have (versus, say, Square Enix publishing Life is Strange or Tomb Raider) and more as a support company to fund people to "make their games." On top of funding, it’ll give tools for more peripheral support such as QA, localization, platform adaptability/submission support, development advice, and more.
For smaller teams wanting support to bring "replayable, affordable, and fun" games to the public eye, this new arm will also offer marketing support.
However, there are a few “insta-nos,” namely anything that touts modern, fast-fashion, LinkedIn-buzzword gimmicks such as generative “AI” or Web3 content (NFTs, blockchain, etc.).
Vampire Survivors itself is actually free on mobile devices, though it costs money to download DLCs to give more characters and maps, while it’s $4.99 on Steam and other platforms. However, it’s one of the biggest indie smash hits of late and has constantly released new DLC, costing only up to $2.49, so its returning player base is essentially supporting new games, too. Neat.
This isn’t the first indie studio to make such a move, either, as Innersloth, the studio behind Among Us, has created its own indie game dev fund, “Outersloth,” for unique indie projects. Its biggest breakaway hit so far is definitely Clickolding, which is exactly the sort of slimy, bizarre horror narrative you think it is if you get what the title implies (it’s good, though, I swear).
