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Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic has launched a new publishing division: Playtonic Friends.
Playtonic says that this new venture will allow the company to use its experience of developing and launching both Yooka-Laylee and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair to “enable those hidden-gem games, developers, and new businesses to reach the best audience possible.”
“The knowledge that we were coming up to our sixth birthday triggered lots of typical Teams calls amongst the staff here at Playtonic,” said Gavin Price, CEO, Playtonic. “Should we all don party hats and video chat together? Should we have a few mocktails, whip out the Karaoke and belt out our best Beyoncé? Or should we launch a new publishing label designed to bring the best games from indie studios the world over to market? Given I had a bit of scratchy throat that evening – and that the establishment of Playtonic Friends had been brewing as a serious ambition for a while – we went with that.”
Playtonic Friends has already partnered with three studios, who will be bringing games to market over the coming months: Bedfordshire-based Awe Interactive, New York studio Fabraz, and international outfit okidokico.
“While everyone at Playtonic has dreams of recreating Scrooge McDuck splashing around in his pool of cold, hard cash, in reality our motivation for setting up Playtonic Friends was to take what we’ve learned about producing & releasing video games and use it to aid developers of a like mind looking for a fruitful route to market,” adds Steph Darrah, business development manager, Playtonic. “That said, a yacht moored on the shores of Monte Carlo would be nice.”
Playtonic Friends will be revealing the first titles from its partner studios soon, as well as its own top-secret new title currently in the works.
