Gamecock’s UK execs on Euro expansion

Following on from yesterday’s feature talking to Gamecock CEO Mike Wilson, we’ve been talking with the execs appointed to run the firm’s new European offices.

Wilson’s former Take 2 cohorts Graeme Struthers and Sarah Seaby were appointed to run the office late last year. At Take 2, they had worked with Gamecock founders Mike Wilson and Harry Miller when their Gathering of Developers outfit was part of the business. But that’s as far as they are all allowing history to repeat itself.

According to Seaby, responsible for marketing, the contrast between working for the publishing-orientated Take 2 and the developer-focused Gamecock is stark.

She says: “The approach is so different – other publishers are very dictatorial about what you need to do in terms of marketing and when it has to be done. It’s not like that at all for Gamecock. Now we’re asking the developer – what do you want to do? What is your game about? How can we promote that?”

And the extra change is now incorporating developers into the marketing process – and not just in the sense that they get final sign off. Adds Seaby: “We won’t be promoting ourselves, Gamecock – it’s all about the developer – that’s solely what we’re about.”

Struthers adds that the Gamecock strategy is also changing developer-publisher relations.

“I worked in the development side of publishing for years and I’ve ended up hating it,” he says, adding: “Not because I hate games but because in that environment developers are always faced with a situation where the producer is just some guy who has played Assassin’s Creed and he says ‘Oh, please put some climbing mechanics in your WW2 FPS.’

“Publishers often just sit down with a developer but by the end of a conversation have told them to make a different game to the one they originally wanted to make. Whereas with us, we come in and if we like a game we’ll publish it. Simple.”