thatgamecompany Goes Multiplatform and Fully Independent
Big news thatgamecompany faithful, the company announced today that they secured $5.5 million of financing from Benchmark Capital’s Mitch Lasky. This will allow them to publish titles on multiple platforms. Previously the studio had a three-game contract with Sony, which gave Sony the rights to flOw, flOwer, and Journey. So don’t expect to see those games on any other platforms.
Jenova Chen, company co-founder had the following to say about the big news.
“Today I am please to announce thatgamecompany has raised funding to develop and release our games independently. This enables us to bring our games to more platforms and provide our players the highest quality experience at every point of contact.”
While we still have no idea what their next project will be, given all the success they’ve had in the past few years, I’m sure their next title will be a huge hit for whatever platforms it arrives on.
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#2 written by Stephane Fortier 11 months ago
You have to think that at some point as much as a company was of help their is so much they can do and to evolve as people or a company its not about being disrespectful its about pushing for something more. Exclusivity can be a great thing for small companies, but when it comes to game making its make it or break it in a sense. Look at all the companies getting hit with layoffs alot of it is also contract work.
If I give you a scenario in life where you’ve been working for a company for lets say 5+ years and they have helped you grow into something better but a great opportunity comes along from somewhere else either from another company or starting something of your own, would you pass that up?
Loyalty or being respectful can be great attributes but for any working person or company you have to think of the bigger picture.
hope this makes sense to fellow readers :)
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I hear both your views, and it’s just one of those things that happens. Insomniac simply wanted to reach more users which is why they decided it was time to move on from Sony. They might have been exclusive, but we all knew this day could come eventually. Bungie went from being a multi-platform developer to an exclusive studio of Microsoft’s and became world famous, but I don’t blame them at all for deciding to leave. They wanted a world outside of Halo, and who could blame them after spending two full generations working on the exact same thing. Now with thatgamecompany (TGC) it’s a little different. They took part in the pub fund Sony has, whereby they essentially took Sony’s money to help finance their projects in terms of exclusivity. TGC could have used the pub fund forever, but they never would have owned anything. That’s the catch with all the titles TGC worked on, they lost all IP rights. So Journey, flOw, and Flower all belong to Sony. As a studio it’s understandable why they’d look for external financing to grow their company, I would too. Sony offered an in, they took it, but now they’ve matured and it’s time to move on.
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Exclusive companies going multiplatform is a touchy subject. First off you have the fan boys of that said exclusive console that’ll say they’re sellouts. Then you’ll have the fanboys of the other console that’ll say they’re not sell out, that now more people will get to see a good company’s game.
Personally I tend to lose respect for companies that go multi-platform after being exclusive for a long time. My point of view is that, in a way, they became famous because of the support their exclusive publisher gave them and created hype by being exclusive as well. Therefore to me, that seems like a disrespectful move to become famous through such help from their producers and then go elsewhere.