expertise, however, and when it comes to the logistics around something like that, Worosz doesn’t think it will be much of a problem at all. “Well, that’s easy. I mean, they’re


basically asking questions that get to ‘Hey, does this deal that’s been put in front of us make sense for the opportunity?’ That is our game. We have that knowledge, because we’re part of the 11,000 person company that is Take-Two. It has done partnerships with Epic, Sony, Microsoft, Humble Bundle, with other places that make offers. We have that repository of knowledge to be able to size up the deal.” That doesn’t mean funded


developers have the same sort of


developers who have tremendous success self-publishing, and we could ignore that, and pretend that that’s not the reality, and not participate in that sort of space ... or we could acknowledge reality and do this. It’s exciting, and hopefully will have great returns for us and developers.” The Private Division Development Fund comes in


installments, although the company isn’t checking on the projects it is funding as regularly as those it has a traditional publishing relationship with. “There are milestones” says Rochkind, “but I would say


they’re objective. If you are making the game that you told us you would make, you continue to get the money. It’s very hands off, but it is not one lump sum.” Private Division also isn’t afraid to make changes to


grants based on the size and scope of the project. “The business terms are one size fits all and are the


same for every deal,” explains Rochkind, “but the cheque size and the milestone sizes depend on the game and what’s been pitched.” Games that are given money by the Private Division


Development Fund won’t have to carry the company logo, and will likely feel more indie than the independent games mentioned back at the start of the feature. That doesn’t mean that Private Division and Take-Two don’t believe in their potential for growth, however. Michael Worosz: “I think the games are smaller in


budget. We don’t want our relatively small, but larger team, when it comes to independent games, to swamp an opportunity. We want to deploy capital for things that we think will be big hits, and or that will potentially be a new IP that, maybe with a sequel, leads to a publishing deal.” Games that receive funds also still have the chance to take advantage of Take-Two’s years of combined industry


50 | MCV/DEVELOP January 2023


relationship as with a publisher, however. “When we’re publishing a game,” says Rochkind,


“there’s a whole team assigned to that game. There’s a marketing lead. There’s probably multiple production people on that game. They’re exposed to the broader team at Private Division. For the games in the fund, generally speaking, they’re mostly only exposed to leadership. That’s something we did very deliberately, because of bandwidth concerns. If they need to, the leadership can go to the broader team and get their takes. But that’s a key distinction.” So what happens if a studio gets an offer that’s simply


too good to refuse in the middle of working with the Private Division Development Fund? Well it hasn’t happened yet - and the publisher is hoping things stay that way because of the people it’s choosing to work with. “We’re hoping that these people are committed to self-


publishing. I would say if they want a publisher, we’re here to have that conversation with them first,” says Rochkind. “We are a publisher, right? So we never want to wake up one day and find out that somebody that we’re backing financially is in bed with one of our competitors, unless we have indicated that we’re not interested in publishing. I’ll leave it at that. It’s not impossible that they would work with a publisher once they’ve signed with us. That’s certainly not the intent, but they’re not legally prohibited from doing that.” With their publishing successes obvious to all who


look at the company, and at least seven games in active development at the moment, Private Division seems poised to only go on to bigger and better things. Let’s hope it keeps on being our cool uncle along the way, taking chances on showing us games that we might never otherwise see.


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