New indie label Cult Games: "Real breakouts don't come from the boardroom"

gamesindustry.biz:

Today sees the arrival of a new indie publishing label in the form of Cult Games.

Founded by Helen Burnill, who spent more than a decade in various director positions at Fall Guys developer Mediatonic, the company will initially focus on assisting established studios bringing their next games to market and helping them to improve the chances of each new release living up to previous successes.

Cult Games already has three developers signed, two of which it can announce today. Cult will be responsible for publishing Galacticare – the sci-fi hospital management game by War for the Overworld dev Brightrock Games – as well as the next title from Witch Beam, the studio behind the multi-BAFTA winning puzzle game Unpacking.

Burnill tells GamesIndustry.biz her goal was to create a publishing label for studios who know exactly what they want to make, that are working on dream projects, but are divided over whether they should self-publish or seek the services of an established publisher. Setting up an in-house publishing division can be a lot of work, drawing on resources that might be better spent on the creation process, which is where Cult Games is keen to step in.

"We are effectively a publisher," she says, "but for me there's a nuance to it. If you think of a record label, yeah, you've probably heard of Excel Records, but you've sure as shit heard of Adele and The Prodigy.

"We are building this with our partners. This is something that we're doing together with our devs and with our partners, and we really meaningfully feel like they're part of this thing. So it's very much semantics but [there's a difference]."

One of the key differences is Burnill emphasises that Cult Games won't get involved in the game development