Starbreeze Studios, the people who brought you Payday 2, have today launched ‘Starbreeze IndieLabs’, a sub-label within its publishing division that will aim to sign projects that are ‘smaller in scope and investment’. The first of these projects will be AntiSphere, an arena battle game by Croatian studio Lion Game Lion and Soap Interactive.
Will IndieLabs one day publish one of the best indie games on PC? We can hope.
According to a news post on Starbreeze’s website, IndieLabs “aims to sign projects smaller in scope and investment to give developers an easy and quick way to reach the market with publishing support.”
Per the terms of their agreement with Lion Game Lion, Starbreeze will invest $300,000 US in AntiSphere’s development. Starbreeze will be entitled to recoup this investment in full, whereafter they will retain 30% of revenues after distribution fees. Lion Game Lion and Soap Interactive will retain 100% of the intellectual property.
IndieLabs is an extension of Starbreeze’s publishing business, which launched last year. In adding an indie-focused sub-label, Starbreeze follows many and various developers and publishers who have also invested in indie publishing. Team 17, for instance, have found resurgent success away from the Worms label by finding inventive indie projects to champion, with Overcooked being the latest example.
As the indie scene has continued to explode and Steam is flooded with games, discoverability is becoming a bigger issue. Established devs and publishers supporting indies not just with development funding, but with PR, marketing and distribution know-how, is becoming the latest trend.
AntiSphere is a top-down competitive arena battle game. You’ll use a variety of ships, weapons and tactics to outmanoeuvre and out-think your opponents. It will be showcased in the Starbreeze both at Reboot in Zagreb from November 8 to 13, and will be coming to Steam. Release dates and other platforms are still to be determined. You can learn more at its website.