Private Division signs deal with Bloober Team, rolls out new dev fund
Private Division is celebrating its fifth anniversary as a publishing label with two noteworthy announcements: first, the label has signed a deal with The Medium and Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team. The studio is working on an unannounced survival horror game" which will now be published by Take-Two's "developer-focused" label.
Second, Private Division is putting that "developer-focused" adjective into action with the new Private Division Development Fund. This investment fund will be targeted at "smaller independent developer teams," and will provide those developers with project financing and mentorship opportunities.
The fund is primarily aimed at developers looking to self-publish their games. If you're such a developer interested in picking up that financing, Private Division's leaders have some interesting additional context you might want to know about.
Speaking to Game Developer, Take-Two chief strategy officer and Private Division boss Michael Worosz broke down some of the thinking behind the fund in a video call earlier this week. In his time with Take-Two, Worosz has seen the company take part in successful investment opportunities that brought literal and metaphorical returns.
He referenced Take-Two's initial investments in Twitch and Scopely, which not only proved to be financially successful, but guided the publisher's knowledge on big changes in the industry. Worosz noted that because of the Scopely investment, Take-Two would go on to acquire free-to-play developer Zynga.
"We took the idea of those sets of strategies...and we wanted to create a vehicle to help finance games," he said.
Private Division now has 70 employees, and is publishing games ranging from the smaller-sized After Us to the
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