Starbreeze funding internal original IP

Author: by Staff

Swedish developer (The Darkness, Syndicate) is heading toward experiments with original titles, says CEO Mikael Nermark in a new Gamasutra feature interview, but it's a tough balancing act. "We want to make our own IP; no doubt. That's something the studio wants to do. Everyone in the studio can ask me what it is; we have probably 93 different views on that," says Nermark, alluding to the 93 employees at hte Uppsala, Sweden-based developer, best known from triple-A shooters. "But it's also about balancing the financials as well. It takes money to build your own IP, but we definitely want to do that; no doubt. We have been fortunate to work with great IPs like Syndicate, The Darkness, and Riddick, and the talented people that worked with those games and made them really good games," he says. The company has a reputation for bringing a lot of life to the IP it works with -- but that IP has all been previously existing. The upcoming Syndicate for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 is a revival of the classic PC game; The Darkness is a comic book, and The Chronicles of Riddick was a film. "We're working on the big triple-A, but we're also looking to do a few smaller things that we can potentially try our own IP on, as well. More games in production at the same time, but smaller," says Nermark. "When I look at any project, I look at it from a commercial standpoint, I look from a creative standpoint, and a production standpoint. So it depends on what kind of game we're doing. We're not doing that right now, but we're actually self-funding one original IP right now. If we're going to take it to market ourself -- I haven't decided yet. It's always about how you maximize what you can do." The full interview, in which Nermark discusses the shape of the market and his studio's place in it, is live now on Gamasutra.