Despite becoming a go-to developer for companies looking for real muscle behind a new IP, Platinum Games is apparently looking to start publishing their own games in the near future.
“We’re becoming more and more interested in the idea of self-publishing and doing our own title,” Platinum Games’ head of development Atsushi Inaba said in an interview with Game Informer.
Inaba noted that until recently, their team worked on properties for a multitude of publishers. When asked what self-publishing would be like for the company, Inaba noted changes over the past year:
“We’ve pretty much opened the company up to ‘Anybody can pitch a game,’ and so over the last year we’ve gotten about 70 design documents from different people,” Inaba said. “So this year has been about us basically diluting which stuff we wanted to focus on and not focus on, and drilling down to the point where we now have two designs that we’re genuinely focused on.”
Inaba also pointed out that while the desire to make a game has the entire team motivated, there are challenges, especially when the floor is opened up to pitches:
“That being said, if you’re going to put 20 people on the development, it has to be something that’s on brand and on topic, and obviously when people think of the PlatinumGames brand, they expect crazy hardcore action, right,” Inaba said. “We have to be reticent of that. We want to surprise them by the fact that we’re doing this independent title and hopefully get support from the fanbase.”
As per their upcoming third Bayonetta game, Inaba also confirmed they will continue working on AAA games with publishers because there’s too much financial risk with only doing self-published games without a big source of income. Some publisher-funded projects, like Scalebound (pictured), were also a risk and ended up getting cancelled.
“Doing something on our own, self-publishing it, releasing it, all of that is a challenge for us, but right now everybody is incredibly motivated and working on that,” he said.
What kind of self-published games would you like to see come out of Platinum Games? Sound off in the comments below!
