Pair of bagsthe company behind Smash Hit Palworldannounced that it is entering the publishing business with a new division called Pocketpair Publishing. “This company will support game development through funding, development support and publishing for indie game developers and studios.” Pocketpair said in a press release.
First, Pocketpair Publishing signed a project from Stories about cancer: Difficult Manufacturer Surgent Studios. This game has nothing to do with the Tales of Kenzera universe; It is a horror game in its own right. CEO of Surgent Studios and House of Dragons Actor Abubakar Ssalim said it is still “in serious discussions about other projects in the Tales of Kenzara universe.”
“Both Surgent and Pocketpair are good at taking risks,” said Salim. “We noticed a pattern in the entertainment industry and Pocketpair gave us the opportunity to create a horror game about it. It will be short and strange and we think players will be interested in what we have to say.”
The game, which is currently unnamed, is expected to be released in 2025.
That's good news for Surgent Studios, which announced in October that it was putting its games team's work on hold due to a lack of funding. At this point, the studio released the announcement of a new prototype: a game that is “darker, edgier and more immersive than our first game, but keeps everything the same.” Broad'“It's a high-octane battle with cultural depth.” Surgent Studios wrote on X in October that it was looking for a partner; This is where Pocketpair apparently comes into play. In addition to announcing the Pocketpair partnership, Salim noted that he wants the pair in 2025: “Developers who promote each other, create together and drive the industry forward.”
Video games cost more to make than ever, while funding seems to have all but dried up. Last year was special It's difficult for smaller studios to stay afloatand thousands of people across the industry have been laid off. Even critical success couldn't help the studios; Stories about cancer: Difficult was praised for its version of Metroidvanias, which was led by an actor from a TV series Game of Thrones, and still failed to capitalize on that success – until another indie studio came to the rescue.
With Palworlda survival game about catching creatures, Pocketpair made more profit than it could handle in its size. In an interview with Bloomberg, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said Palworld cost less than a billion yen ($6.4 million) but brought in tens of billions of dollars in profits. Now it is apparently using this success to promote other indies as well.
“As the gaming industry continues to grow, more and more games are struggling to get funded or greenlit,” John Buckley, head of Pocketpair Publishing, said in a press release. “We think that's a real shame because there are so many incredible developers and ideas that just need a little help to become incredible games.”
On the Pocketpair Publishing websiteThe company states that it doesn't want to take control from a developer or “change your dream or pressure you into making a certain type of game.” It wants to give developers money so they can create their dream games. It's a message that sounds familiar to me; Smash hit social deduction game Among us Developer Innersloth used its success to launch a similar initiative in 2024 – Outersloth. Like Pocketpair, InnerSloth's success came from the studio's origins. Among us exploded in 2020 and continues to thrive.
“As indie developers ourselves, we knew the hardest thing to do was get direct funding,” Innersloth communications director Victoria Tran told Polygon in 2024. “We feel very privileged to be in the position “Be who we are in and have the eyes.” So we hoped we could create something that would hopefully inspire others to pay it forward wherever they can and whatever that means to them. We only got here thanks to the help of our industry colleagues and stakeholders, so it felt right to help where we could.”
The video game industry is still looking for a way to ensure the sustainability of its projects and, most importantly, it works; At least in 2025, India's funding India's will be the first to make this push.
