Blake Rochkind. “There’s increased competition with other publishers. We’ve seen equity financing become a bigger and bigger part of this industry, especially in the past two years. We’ve seen other financing vehicles and project financing become viable and attractive. Frankly, more and more developers, especially on the smaller scale, are choosing to go the alternate paths and self- publish. That’s one of the reasons why we’re super excited about the Private Division Development Fund. It’s really important to us to not be in any sort of position where we’re turning down great opportunities and great games. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of smaller games that we thought had tremendous potential, but were just frankly, too small for our model. “We have a 70 person team here, and we often
iteration. We’re working with them on something that has never been seen before in the survival horror genre.” Worosz is keen to point out that when independent
developers work with Private Division they get to retain their ownership. “We work with the right developer, and it’s their IP.
The philosophy there is that when you own a property, you’re a much better long-term steward of that property, and you put your full weight behind it. You give everything you’ve got to it, as opposed to renting. We want to empower developers as owners.”.
“We’ve seen equity financing become a bigger and bigger part of this industry”
Five years into Private Division, the lessons learned
by its staff have been almost as varied as the games the company has published. “It’s all about the team,” says Worosz. “That’s both our
internal publishing team of producers and marketers, and our business development, finance, accounting and HR folks. It’s also all about developer teams that we partner with. Making games is super hard, so when you have a team that you work with, and you feel really good about it in a commercial context, jump on that opportunity to see if you can take the partnership to the next level.” As it moves into its next phase, Private Division has
also realised that it needs to diversify the way it supports developers in the industry even more. Enter the Private Division Development Fund. “Competition in the independent space has exploded, says Private Division’s head of business development,
48 | MCV/DEVELOP January 2023
compare it to a bear hug. If you’re a promising five person developer that has a small game with tremendous potential, the machine that we previously had before this new option may have been overwhelming to you. That’s why we’re really excited about the Private Division Development Fund, where we are financing smaller titles with that promise, but we are not publishing them.” It’s also been about building up the strength and
dexterity of the brand, a bit like levelling up a character in an RPG. “Having a differentiated value proposition has been
really valuable and key to our strategy,” says Worosz. “It’s been the differentiator in winning deals. We can work with the best developers because they see what our team has produced, what we’ve shipped, what we’ve marketed, the awards we’ve won in marketing, the quantity of games that we’ve shipped. There’s a real value-add with Private Division, and we’re able to prove that. “We know that our model is working. I think we’ve
been in competitive situations consistently, to work with some of the world’s best developers and we won deals to work with people because they look at that record.” The simplest way to describe the Private Division
Development Fund, according to Worosz, is with what essentially amounts to a quick slogan: “Informed venture capital. A lot of times VC is making
100 bets in the hopes that one might pay out. We’re not venture capitalists. When a shareholder buys Take-Two stock, they’re not looking to buy an option or a piece of ownership in a VC fund. They’re looking to own a piece of a publisher that’s making and shipping games. What we’re doing here is we’re investing in opportunities, but with an informed view, because we ourselves have made games, we’ve shipped games and we’ve marketed games. I think that that’s a differentiator in comparison to other types of investments. “It’s also important to note,” adds Rochkind, “that
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