Surprise Attack today launched Surprise Attack Games, a publishing label focused on partnering with Australian independent game developers and taking their games to global markets.
Surprise Attack Games will target all games platforms, including PC, Mac, Linux, mobile, tablet, console, and browser. Outside of marketing and distribution, Surprise Attack Games will assist its developers to secure the development funding and creative resources they need complete their projects.
Surprise Attack Games has three titles currently signed: Particulars from Sydney-based See Through Studios, Wolfdozer from Melbourne-based Anomalous Interactive, and Burden from Melbourne-based Pixel Pickle Games.
“When I first had the concept for Surprise Attack – it was pretty much two years ago, exactly – we were at Blue Tongue,” says Chris Wright, founder and managing director at Surprise Attack. “We pretty much knew the studio was closing; in another month it’ll be two years since it shut down. Trying to figure out, can we save the studio? What can we do?”
We need new kinds of publishers for this new industry that we have.
“All those sort of things, I guess, and I was starting to think about, ‘Well, what can I do if we can’t save the studio? How can I keep working with developers?’ And, at that point, the core concept of what we’re launching came to me: we need new kinds of publishers for this new industry that we have.
“It’s not that the old publishers need to go away but the industry is not what it was and the role of a publisher is not what it was, necessarily. And independent games development and self-publishing is awesome but it doesn’t mean that independent devs don’t need the sorts of things that a publisher can bring.”
Particulars is an action-puzzler set in the world of subatomic particles.
Wright points to the indie record labels that formed a crucial segment of the music industry when he was younger as inspiration for Surprise Attack Games.
“I sort of fall back to my youth growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s and indie music was really kicking off, and thinking about all the labels that were driving that,” he tells us. “You know, it was all these small little labels that were run out of tiny offices or the back of record shops that were really helping those bands come to light.”
It was all these small little labels that were run out of tiny offices or the back of record shops that were really helping those bands come to light.
“So you think about labels like Sub Pop in Seattle or Chemical Underground in Glasgow and the difference between them and the big labels is that they weren’t some sort of separate entity that you just came to and said, ‘Hey, here’s my product; can you put it out on the shelves?’ They were part of their creative communities. I guess that’s really the idea for where Surprise Attack came from.”
Surprise Attack Games will operate alongside the agency work Surprise Attack currently does, which is also working with local developers but on more of a fee basis, as a consultant, to help them self-publish.
“What’s interesting is that in every case of the three games that we’ve signed up, they were all working with us on a consultancy basis first,” explains Wright. “And in some cases that’s how it’ll probably start out. It’s a fairly major decision for an independent developer to say, ‘Yes, I want a publisher on board.’ So in a lot of cases I would expect that we’d start working with a developer or that we’d know the developer quite well before we signed them.”
It's GTA meets The Three Little Pigs in Wolfdozer.
Wright describes the philosophy of Surprise Attack Games as quite different to that of a major publisher.
“You can go with a big publisher, and we don’t have anything against big publishers; I think that model works,” he says. “They’ve certainly got a lot more clout than us. A lot more money and global offices and all that they can offer. But the difference is indie developers tend to get a little bit lost behind a big brand.”
Indie developers tend to get a little bit lost behind a big brand.
“You look at somebody like Chillingo who do a great job at what they do, but they’re releasing two to three games a week. How important is that individual developer, and when the Chillingo logo comes up before the developer’s logo, how many people know who the game is from?
“Whereas from our point of view, first and foremost we’re a partner, not just a publisher, so it’s not our job to stand in front of a developer and say, ‘Hey, look at this great Surprise Attack game.’ It’s our job to lift the developer up and say, ‘Hey, look at this great game from this developer’ and make the developer the star.
“I mean, with indie record labels, Sub Pop launched Nirvana, but those bands don’t necessarily stay on those little labels. So success for us isn’t about, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got the next Angry Birds and we’re making stacks of money and we’re locking them in.’ Success for us would be helping that developer make the next Angry Birds and seeing them go on to be huge.”
Burden: Tower defence on a living, moving battlefield. Protect your colossus!
Over the past few years the power and potential of these small, nimble indie developers has grown dramatically, and Wright has the perfect analogy.
“I think the big industry has realised it needs to embrace this scene,” he says. “Purely commercially because there’s a lot of money in it; there’s a lot of gamers that want this kind of game. But also because the triple A model has been stretched…”
“The reality is that the games have got to a point now that the budgets required means that there’s a limited amount of breadth in the triple A space. I often compare games to beer to explain what’s happening in the industry. So you think about Call of Duty, it’s kind of like VB or Carlton. Really, really popular, but ultimately, in order to be big, it has to be really good, really consistent and not piss people off.
You think about Call of Duty, it’s kind of like VB or Carlton. Really, really popular, but ultimately, in order to be big, it has to be really good, really consistent and not piss people off.
“If Call of Duty came out with a really radical innovation in its system it would risk losing a lot to its competitors, just like when Coke changed from Coke to New Coke. So it’s not that these games are necessarily bland, it’s just that they can’t go to extremes because it turns people off and you can’t make the numbers work.
“What’s fantastic about digital distribution is that you have games that only have to sell 50,000 copies or 100,000 copies, and because the margins are much better there’s less people having to take money along the way, and because the developer gets much more of that, and they’re a small developer, they can have a really good business, and they can afford to take more risks. So that’s just like, if you think about craft beer. There’s an explosion in craft beer now because brewing’s become so much cheaper and there’s an amazing amount of choice. But for a lot of those beers, someone’s gonna drink it and go, ‘Oh, I really don’t like this’ and someone else is gonna drink it and say, ‘I love this.’
Surprise Attack Games will be showing all three titles in its initial lineup at its booth at PAX Australia from Friday July 19 to Sunday July 21. Chris Wright, Managing Director at Surprise Attack and Paul Sztajer, co-founder at See Through Studios will also join a panel discussion about innovation in games at PAX at 2.30pm on Friday July 19.
Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can find him on IGN here or on Twitter @MrLukeReilly, or chat with him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.
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