In 2021, game developer Luca Galante released Vampire Survivors as a diversion from his soul-hollowing day job of working on a mobile gambling game, inadvertently birthing a nascent genre propelled by the force of silly Italian names and millions upon millions of dead bats. In a recent interview with our colleagues at GamesRadar, Galante said the years that followed his unforeseeable success have left him with a blunt assessment of the games industry:
"I see a lot of publishers I don't like," Galante said.
Today, Vampire Survivors studio Poncle now boasts over 25 staff members and—as of last November—has started its own publishing division, Poncle Presents. Galante told GamesRadar that he wants to offer an alternative to "publishers that try to exploit the platforms just to make money."
"My point of view for what a publisher should do is, first of all, make genuine games, genuine products, something that has some real value, and then understand that not everything can be a breakout hit," Galante said. Unfortunately, he said he sees too many publishers "put out games that are incomplete or in early access that actually never get completed, games that are put out there and left to die" because they didn't immediately attract landmark success.
"For me, it's very important that we keep supporting games post-launch, regardless of how the game would go, because once you put the game out there, you have an audience," Galante said. "And as big or small as it is, that audience deserves to be treated fairly."
Unsurprisingly, Galante said his natural inclination is towards small games from small teams with small pricetags, but a high "price to gameplay ratio"—which explains how Poncle gravitated to publishing Doonutsaur's Kill the Brickman and Nao Games' Berserk or Die.
But as Poncle pursues publishing partnerships with other developers, Galante said his responsibility is to "try and let the developer realize their vision by enriching their vision, and not by trying to force a developer's vision in a direction so that the game can make more money."
Galante did admit that his idea of the publisher-developer relationship "may be a bit idealistic," but he said that he sees Poncle's publishing efforts as a way to use the success of Vampire Survivors to lift up its indie fellows.
"We got very lucky with Vampire Survivors. The game has been so successful that—we definitely made some mistakes when it comes to putting the game out there, but we learned a lot and wanted to try to sort of share what we learned with other indies," Galante said. "It was a way to try and give something back to the indie community, share the luck."
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