have lots of sequels for its major franchises. The reason of course, is that an initially good IP can kind of punch through, but it’s the sequel that has the larger economic windfall attached to it. “We need to continue to plant the seeds of
new IP and the way we can do that is to work with independent developers. That can be established creators that are moving on to their next instantiation, or smaller developers that have had early success and are looking to take the next step up. That’s really been the strategy for Private Division since our inception, five years ago. I think we’ve executed pretty well on that.” As it has expanded, Private Division has even
made a couple of acquisitions as the games industry continues to consolidate. In November 2021, it acquired Roll7 and its intellectual properties, as the pair of companies headed towards the release of OlliOlli World. “Roll7 was an interesting acquisition,”
comments Worosz, “because a lot of times in M&A, you might buy an opportunity at arm’s length without having the chance to work with them in a partnership capacity. In the case of Roll7, we were already commercial partners on OlliOlli World. Our relationship was close. Roll7 is one of those developers out there that is increasingly rare in this world, where they ship on time and on budget.” “We got a solid 60+ person team that was
accustomed to working remotely from day one, which is no small thing during the middle of a pandemic. Their games will now be part of our catalogue long term and most importantly, their next ambition is to build an even better game. That’s what we’re working on now and we knew that going in. It’s an extension of our strategy to bring great developers in house.” While many of the game
properties that Private Division has taken on have gone on to have sequels (OlliOlli being the prime example), Worosz doesn’t necessarily think that’s due to external pressures, but is rather down to the reasons independent developers set up their own studios in the first place. “I think the people who found
new studios are motivated to create those studios by a creative idea
January 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 47
that hasn’t been done before. I think if they’re successful in breaking through and shipping a product that’s successful, they often want to double down and create the next version of that game. I think that’s what leads to sequels, isn’t it? That’s okay, because you’re starting with a new IP or franchise to begin with.”
“We like to say independent, not indie, and we do that deliberately to connote that our releases are of higher quality than the large numbers of indistinguishable games that might be on Steam”
With that in mind, addressing the new-to-
sequel balance going forward is just a matter of finding new games to nurture and continuing to team up with the best in the business. “We’ll continue to do new publishing
partnerships. We announced a Bloober Team partnership recently. They’re a team we’re extremely excited to work with. Bloober has continued to put out better releases with each
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