Maximum Games announces new indie-focused publishing label

Maybe the “Indiepocalypse” can be prevented after all.

Maximum Games, responsible for publishing titles like Call of Cthulhu, Farming Simulator 19 and A Plague Tale: Innocence, has announced the birth of a new indie-focused publishing label called Modus Games. This isn’t actually a new label, but rather a “full launch” of an experiment that has already given life to big hits like Degrees of Separation.

Christina Seelye, Maximum Games CEO, explained this new project through an interview with media outlet gamesindustry.biz. “With the same concept [that led to Maximum Games’ existence] of identifying a need and filling it, what we realized is that there were a lot of indie studios that were having a hard time figuring out what is the right publisher for them”, said Seelye. This is an especially interesting piece of news when thinking about the indie landscape as a whole, where so many solo and small indie developers lack the resources or knowledge to successfully promote their creations, leaving them to often fail under the radar.

These indie-focused publishing labels seem to be a clear response to the huge amount of indie developers sprouting around the world, almost all of them worried about the so called “Indiepocalypse” and a general market saturation. With the help of experienced publishers like the ones working at Maximum Games, small studios can rely on their work through Modus Games to get their games out there with marketing, PR and direct communication with distributors and news websites.

Here’s a quote from Seelye that reflects this concept:

“What we found was there was a huge amount of really, really solid, interesting content that was having a hard time making its way to market effectively because self-publishing wasn’t really working. They didn’t have the skill set inside the studio to manage that, and their game wasn’t going to reach the kind of sales where a big publisher was going to pay attention to it. We found a niche and feel like there’s a huge opportunity for independent studios such as Modus.”

Modus Games has already helped launch games like Chris Avellone’s Degrees of Separation, Trine 4, Lost Words and Override: Mech City Brawl. And in Seelye’s words, there’s room for so much more with indie games. “They call it the golden age of television right now because there are so many different pieces of unique television content. But it’s really the golden age of indie games as well. There’s so much coming to market that it serves the independent studio well to work with a publisher that’s going to help raise it above the waves”, she added.

I hope that more and more large gaming companies decide to create indie-focused branches to allow small studios to bring their ideas to life and bring exposure to them in the midst of a more than crowded market in need for some innovation.