A big fancy interview.
Earlier this month the Stevivor team was let loose at PAX Australia and despite a little too few previews and a little too much COVID, it was a surprisingly good time.
Wandering the floor during day two, I was able to sit down with Devolver Digital co-founder Graeme Struthers for a quick chat about the company’s journey as a publisher, how it picks its partners and his thoughts on the Australian development scene.
Devolver has made a name for itself by spotlighting indie developers and publishing genre-bending titles like Massive Monster’s recent Australian Game Developer Awards GOTY Cult of the Lamb.
The publisher’s journey began thirteen years ago in Austin, Texas as a small team of six assisting Croteam’s revival of Serious Sam The First Encounter. Struthers said a lot has changed since then.
“Initially it was a startup in the truest sense of that,” he said. “At the start, it was just Nigel [Lowrie] and myself kind of doing everything.
“We were working for other companies by day and doing Devolver by night; we had no money at that point,” he continued.
It took three years, six more Serious Sam games and the breakout of Dennaton Games’ cult classic Hotline Miami before Struthers could devote himself to Devolver full-time.
In the time since then, Devolver has grown steadily year-over-year becoming eight times the size it was originally.
“That would be the most obvious change for me; now I think there’s about forty-eight people working at Devolver,” Struthers said.
“We’ve now got professionals involved who know how to do production. We just got bit better at everything, a bit a bit more structured.”
Devolver’s madcap marketing
Using the skills of its growing team, Devolver has become known for its unique take on marketing, using episodic narratives full of off the wall humour to promote the games they publish.
Creating a small-scale cinematic universe with their yearly E3 appearances – appropriately titled Big Fancy Press Conferences – the team has crafted a unique brand identity by poking fun at industry staples like early access and microtransactions.
What’s even more impressive is that it was something of an accident, according to Struthers.
“We didn’t see those things becoming as big as they became; it was quite a surprise,” he said. “That’s given us maybe a bit more of a brand presence than we perhaps ever thought we would have had.”
Struthers mentioned that there’s a bit of anxiety about the impact this marketing has had on the recognition that Devolver receives as a publisher.
“People start talking about Devolver rather than the games, which we were a little bit hesitant about as we feel the game’s the most important thing — and the game is not ours, it’s the developers, so we’re very mindful of that,” he said.
“We would be horrified if there were people walking around calling Cult of the Lamb a Devolver game,” he continued. “It’s Massive Monster’s game, and we are very proud to be the publisher, but that’s it.”
Strengthening partnerships
Struthers said Devolver would be applying its developer-first ethos to its recent acquisitions of, Nerial (Reigns), Firefly Studios (Stronghold) and Dodge Roll (Enter the Gungeon).
In a time where larger companies like Sony have absorbed blockbuster studios like Bungie and Microsoft is looking to close its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Devolver’s moves have been exceptionally strategic.
The focus here is ensuring that it can continue working with its preferred partners for years to come according to Struthers.
“I mean the world is the world, right? You’ve got companies that are acquiring studios left, right, and centre so for us… it’s little bit of a defensive move,” he said.
“We’re seeing quite a few studios we were working with getting courted by bigger companies, so we had to think about that. How do we protect our company in the long term?”
Struthers doesn’t view the acquisitions as a takeover, but instead as an extension of Devolver’s existing partnerships with these studios.
A soft spot for Aussies
In addition to Massive Monster, Devolver has worked with a number of Australian developers over the years, including Team WIBY (Phantom Abyss) and All Possible Futures (The Plucky Squire).
Struthers says the evolution of our local development industry has stunned him each time he visits.
“This is our fourth [PAX AUS]; obviously COVID got in the way, but the scene has definitely moved on a huge amount in six years which is really encouraging,” he said.
He praised the government funding initiatives of recent years as a way to promote future growth and retain local creatives.
“It’s attractive. You want to keep your talent here in Australia, so people aren’t leaving to find jobs in the industry. Having successful organic dev scene here means that people don’t have to leave,” he said.
“Right now there are three Australian-based teams we’re working with. Which is a high percentage given the few games we actually do at one time. I mean, that probably represents about 10% of what we’ve got in production, so yay for Australia.”
What’s next from Devolver and friends?
We wrapped up our chat after some more talk on the madness of PAX and the anxiety of massive crowds. Struthers was kind enough to tour me around Devolver’s booth and I was able to go hands-on with two upcoming titles that the team is publishing.
In keeping with the theme that most games published by Devolver seem to adhere to, each one did exactly what it said on the proverbial box.
Gunbrella is Doinksoft’s noir-punk, side scrolling action-platformer that puts you in control of a gruff woodsman wielding the titular tool which is – you guessed it – a gun with an umbrella.
The titular weapon affords the player intriguing platforming and combat abilities like dashes and deflections that are intuitive and surprisingly tight.
Free Lives’ Anger Foot is a lighting fast FPS that sees you doling out blood-soaked revenge as the colorful anti-hero Anger Foot.
The title’s namesake looks like he was regurgitated from the Rick and Morty writers’ room and the game sees you rapidly clearing levels in a blaze of bullets. Extra points for using that angry foot.
Both games are set to release on Steam in 2023 with no confirmed date. Gunbrella will also be playable on the Nintendo Switch.
While an Anger Foot update was deftly woven into the latest addition to Devolver’s expanding cinematic universe, we’ve yet to see Gunbrella shown off outside of a standalone trailer.
Devolver isn’t just known for its offbeat presentations though. They also dabble in some pretty insane tie-in merch.
All I’m saying is that if Elon Musk can get away with selling a flamethrower, nothing would hype me up more for Gunbrella than a functional (non-lethal) umbrella gun. Here’s hoping.
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