How Devolver Digital is taking games seriously — and not so seriously | Graeme Struthers interview

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Graeme Struthers handles day-to-day production as chief operating officer atDevolver Digital. It’s the “boring” stuff that keeps the company humming along as a major publicly traded publisher of games.

The company’s titles include Cult of the Lamb, Return to Monkey Island, Trek to Yomi, Hotline Miami, Inscryption, The Messenger, Death’s Door, Enter the Gungeon and Katana Zero. If you’re looking for a pattern there, there isn’t any, beyond an emphasis on original titles with interesting gameplay.

Devolver Digital has set itself apart with its zany marketing for its online press conferences that mocked the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) trade show, and its recent Devolver Delayed video, where it’s a bit hard to tell what’s serious and what isn’t serious.

Despite the delays for some games, Devolver Digital has a good slate for 2023, Struthers said. He noted Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood just shipped, and Gunbrella is shipping soon. Also coming are Wizard With a Gun, Talos Principle 2 and KarmaZoo.

I caught up with Struthers at the Gamescom event in Cologne, Germany. I tried to get him to show me some of that Devolver sense of humor, and he occasionally bit. But he noted that when the company announced it was delaying some games until next year, that was no joke.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: A lot of the games for the showcase seem to be delayed. Are these actual delays or