A group of former Techland staffers have reunited to establish Untold Tales, a new data-driven publisher focused on single player games with engaging narratives.
The fledgling company will be led by former Techland producer and head of operations Maciej Laczny, who’ll be overseeing the new venture as CEO. Outlining Untold Tales’ approach to publishing, Laczny explained the company will be selective about what projects it takes on to ensure its devs aren’t kicked to the curb as soon as the ink is dry.
“Being selective and only focusing on one or two games at a time ensures our devs are taken care of both during and after production and not feel like they’re just another name among 10 others we’re juggling,” he commented.
He also emphasized the need for transparent publishing agreements that protect developers, rather than burying them in convoluted demands and vague messaging.
“Devs need to understand we don’t want the rights to your IP,” he continued. “We don’t want revenue shares where you end up screwed. And we’ll never expect you to release something that isn’t ready and just wrecks your studio’s reputation.”
On a practical level, the company intends to use data and community feedback to ensure its time is “spent on doing things that actually benefit both the developer and players.” That might mean analyzing Steam wishlists or regional console sales to take a targeted approach to localization, or looking deep into Steam community numbers to estimate a game’s potential.
“In general, there’s a volume of data out there that most of us have access to, but sadly devs and some publishers just don’t know what to do with it, and those that do have it often guard it whereas Untold Tales wants to use what they have and give access to all their devs so they can see for themselves how and where the promo and dev resources should go,” explained Untold communications lead, Paul Milewski.
“It also helps to start building this mentality into the devs Untold Tales works with since they themselves might start seeing more useful nuggets in any of their own data.”
Untold will make its first foray into publishing by bringing The Hong Kong Massacre to the Nintendo Switch, and Beautiful Desolation to both the PS4 and Switch. It has also signed a third unannounced PC and console title that will be revealed further down the line.
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2020