2K’s David Ismailer: We want to partner with more studios like Firaxis

Speaking to MCV at 2K’s booth ahead of E3, 2K president David Ismailer said that 2K are eagerly looking to expand their portfolio, with the company actively looking for new acquisitions and new partners across the video games space.

"2K is focusing right now on a couple areas," Ismailer said. "One is portfolio expansion, whether it’s organic internally to develop more products or to partner with other fantastic development studios or people I call experience dreamers: people who are really good focus on quality who can innovate in the gaming space and deliver new experiences to consumers."

Secondly, Ismailer added that 2K currently have more ideas for projects that it wants to make than development teams to develop the ideas. "This is a problem across the entire industry, but hey, us too." Ismailer said, grinning.

Ismailer referenced 2K’s relationship with strategy giant Firaxis, which Ismailer said is a prime example of the type of studio that the publisher would like to partner with or acquire, because they’re an industry leading development studio and there’s "nothing that Ismailer or 2K can do to add value in terms of understanding how to deliver on a strategy game."

"But we can help support them in every way around that." Ismailer said. "Our job is to support studios like this financially, and support our developers by empowering them to make the creative decisions they want to make, encourage them to take risks. Then we swoop in, publicise their games and bring them to market. That’s our job. They have to make the game. They have to take the risk on developing their games, or iterating on them for the sequel.

"In an ideal situation, our job is to support them and bring that product to market."