'Grand Theft Auto' publisher Take-Two opens an indie label

[P4-630]

Don't expect any games to be released very soon, though.

"Take-Two is the latest major games publisher to open up an indie label. From the sounds of it, Private Division will operate like a smaller scale version of Take-Two itself,
giving developers leeway to work on things at their own pace and not worry about pumping out a sea of annual sequels.

So far, it's signed projects from a handful of former-AAA developers including an RPG from David Goldfarb (Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3) and an unannounced RPG from fan-favorite Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth). That's in addition to Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets' Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. Oh, and it's also publishing Kerbal Space Program and Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto's unnamed new sci-fi shooter."

"Aside from the upcoming Kerbal expansion, none of the other games are expected to be released anytime soon. The fine print on a press release says that none of the other games are planned for Take-Two's fiscal years ending March 31st, 2018 and 2019. Which is understandable considering most games take between two and three years to develop, on average.

Major publishers setting up indie labels has been a win-win so far. Electronic Arts has its EA Originals program which currently has Fe and A Way Out in gestation. Then there's Microsoft's ID@Xbox program, Square Enix Collective and Sony's recently-launched Unties imprint. These help give the big names cred and a place for pursuing risky ideas that might not fly in the AAA space. It also means that the quirky games get a marketing budget so they don't languish unheard of on Steam or your favorite digital store."

https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/14/take-two-private-division-indie-games/

 

[Vayra86]

The great divide in gaming now gets officially confirmed and recognized as a separate market.

About time

 

[StrayKAT]

A well funded Obsidian RPG sounds great.

What the world really needs though is more AAA RPGs... not from Bioware (Bethesda and CDP is cool).

 

[RejZoR]

Obsidian Games. Indie. In one sentence. How!? Cuphead was indie because it was coded by some guy named Chad in his garage. You can't call a studio that has made AAA titles before an "indie" studio. It doesn't work like that.

They can call it "indie style" game, which would be the most appropriate title. Indie games are often designed around more simplistic game design as far as mechanics and complexity goes, but they can be 200% fun because they are not obsessing with massive open worlds and famous voice actors or insane graphics. And that's what makes them "indie". They aren't like that just because someone calls them like that.

 

[newtekie1]

The term "Indie" to me always meant they were "independent" of the major publishers. If you are just a game studio that was formed, and is owned by, a major publisher, you can't be Indie.

 

[StrayKAT]

Obsidian Games. Indie. In one sentence. How!? Cuphead was indie because it was coded by some guy named Chad in his garage. You can't call a studio that has made AAA titles before an "indie" studio. It doesn't work like that.

They can call it "indie style" game, which would be the most appropriate title. Indie games are often designed around more simplistic game design as far as mechanics and complexity goes, but they can be 200% fun because they are not obsessing with massive open worlds and famous voice actors or insane graphics. And that's what makes them "indie". They aren't like that just because someone calls them like that.

Well, Obsidian was always a hired gun for big studios.. but their last few games they did, in fact, go "indie" and crowdsourced. They relied on Unity as well, which is pretty low key compared to past games.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The term "Indie" to me always meant they were "independent" of the major publishers. If you are just a game studio that was formed, and is owned by, a major publisher, you can't be Indie.

Not so much "owned," more that the developer is calling the shots and publisher is in the back seat. Non-indie, publisher is calling all of the shots: especially when it releases. When a publisher puts its foot down, the developer must obey or risk losing the job entirely. Part of the agreement between publishers and developers when a publisher takes over from a developer is that developer relinquishes all ownership rights over to the publisher. Sequels, expansions, and even patches are completely at the publisher's discretion.

A developer can be independent of a publisher and simutaneously work on indie and non-indie projects for the same publisher. Obsidian is really the only one that comes to mind that has had forays into both. That said, owned developers rarely, if ever, take on indie projects.

 

[Flogger23m]

Obsidian Games. Indie. In one sentence. How!? Cuphead was indie because it was coded by some guy named Chad in his garage. You can't call a studio that has made AAA titles before an "indie" studio. It doesn't work like that.

They can call it "indie style" game, which would be the most appropriate title. Indie games are often designed around more simplistic game design as far as mechanics and complexity goes, but they can be 200% fun because they are not obsessing with massive open worlds and famous voice actors or insane graphics. And that's what makes them "indie". They aren't like that just because someone calls them like that.

"Indie" has nothing to do with the quality of a game but rather their independence from a publisher. Too many people think "indie" means crappy phone games for inflated prices on Steam, but it doesn't. The Witcher series, ArmA, and Obsidian Game titles are an example. Independent studios that either self published or jumped from publisher to publisher is a business model that started to fade well over a decade ago now. Very few publishers just want to publish a game in the traditional sense.

Obsidian Games, Gearbox, CD Projekt are examples of the few remaining studios that have maintained independence. I was hoping Respawn Entertainment would stay independent, but as soon as I heard they were working on a Star Wars title last year or so I knew EA had the full intention of buying them. Which, turns out they did very recently.