Gaming · Thursday, 27 August 2026
A Hollywood talent agency is now funding indie games. The publisher's job is being sold in parts.
CAA and the studio behind Journey both opened game-funding arms this week. Neither is a publisher, and neither needs to be.
96%
of studios run their own web shop or plan to
actual use moved only from 57% to 59%
$75,000
the cap one new publisher puts on a game
Inner Pocket, self-funded by four founders
4m
copies of 007 First Light in three months
IO Interactive published it without a publisher
$250m
raised by one games fund this month
Makers Fund's fourth fund, taking it to $1.5bn managed
The lead story — what happened
-
Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent firm, launched a games fund called Frame1Games on Monday, offering money, mentors and a hand-picked shop window.
[1] -
Thatgamecompany, which nearly went bankrupt making Journey, opened its own publishing arm on Tuesday, paid for by Sky: Children of the Light.
[2] -
Co-founder Jenova Chen gave the plain reason: a hit leaves a small team with more cash than it can spend on itself.
[2] -
Growing big enough to spend it would make them a different studio, so the money goes outside, into the only work they can judge.
[2] -
Chen's second reason matters more. He says getting a game noticed now runs through players themselves, not through PlayStation, Steam or the games press.
[2] -
A full-service publisher sells funding, launch strategy, marketing and community work in one deal; the fourth thing, judgement of what is worth backing, is never itemised.
[2] -
Each is now sold alone. Inner Pocket sells a curator's eye and caps its money at $75,000 a game. Entity raised $5.8m for a route to players that skips the download.
[3] [10] -
W4 Games raised $18m to sell services around the free Godot engine, and 4Divinity, a publisher few have heard of, bought 800 square metres of Gamescom floor.
[11] [12] -
Studios are unhooking. Observer Interactive left Team17 to publish Rover's Tale itself. Maverick Games signed Focus Entertainment after Amazon dropped its racing game.
[4] [5] -
IO Interactive published 007 First Light itself and passed 4 million sales in three months, keeping a bigger share of every copy.
[6] -
The same article carries the other half: Amazon Games will publish the next Bond game, so the studio that proved the point is handing the job back.
[6] -
Ninety-six percent of studios now run their own web shop or plan to, though actual use crept only from 57% to 59%.
[7] -
Ubisoft opened a Player Council at Gamescom to test prototypes with volunteers, and India's trade body assembled mentors, publishers and investors for 15 studios.
[27] [13] -
The old publishers are moving the other way. Microsoft is cutting 3,200 Xbox jobs, and union members rallied in seven North American cities on 19 August.
[14] -
A Bethesda artist told PC Gamer the studio had no layoffs before Microsoft and now has them yearly. EA staff doubt Mass Effect survives the buyout.
[15] [16] [17] -
None of this is a shrinking industry. Newzoo expects global spending on games to reach $213.9bn this year, up 6.1%.
[31]
Who is involved
-
Creative Artists Agency
the Hollywood talent firm, now writing cheques for indie games
-
Thatgamecompany
turned Sky's profits into a full-service publisher of its own
-
Observer Interactive
left Team17 and now funds its game's last stretch itself
-
Microsoft
cutting 3,200 Xbox jobs; its former studios now own their games
-
Inner Pocket Publishing
four founders, $75,000 a game, no plan to grow
How it unfolded
-
Thu 20 Aug Makers Fund closes a $250m fourth fund; Inner Pocket opens with $75,000 cheques
[8] [3] -
Fri 21 Aug Observer Interactive leaves Team17; Double Fine confirms it owns its games and publishing rights again
[4] [18] -
Sat 22 Aug Compulsion Games completes its buyout from Microsoft, which no longer takes a cut
[19] -
Mon 24 Aug Creative Artists Agency launches Frame1Games, its first games fund
[1] -
Tue 25 Aug Thatgamecompany opens a publisher; Maverick Games signs Focus Entertainment
[2] [5] -
Next Frame1Games has named no studios, and Thatgamepublisher has signed a couple it will not name
[1] [2]
Where this points
Watch whether any new funder backs a game nobody who already succeeded would recognise, because that is the test of whether judgement really moved.
What is pushing on the whole day
The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.
two left publishers this week; 96% run or plan their own shop
3,200 Xbox jobs going; EA staff doubt their series survive
a talent agency, a $250m fund and a studio all writing cheques
a self-published studio funds its own last stretch and keeps the loss
The rest of the day
9 more stories on this beat.
Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.
-
02
Two shooters lose their servers
1047 Games stops paying for dedicated servers on Empulse and Splitgate: Arena Reloaded from 3 September. Both move to player-hosted matches.
[20] Why it matters — The games survive because the running cost was handed to players rather than switched off.
-
03
The no-layoffs studio laid people off
Schell Games cut around 14 staff, named by colleagues online. Its founder said in 2024 the studio risks cash on a game, never jobs.
[21] Why it matters — A promise costs nothing until the year it has to be paid.
-
04
PS5 owners log off in protest
Players were urged to leave PS5s off from 23 to 30 August over Sony ending disc production in 2028. Sony emailed a licence reminder mid-protest.
[22] Why it matters — It is a protest the seller barely feels, because the money was paid years ago.
-
05
Konami wants a Silent Hill every year
A Silent Hill producer said Konami is aiming for annual releases, with several unannounced games in development, and that one setting would exhaust the possibilities.
[23] Why it matters — Dread is a slow-growing crop, and an annual harvest is how a series gets used up.
-
06
A $5 fishing game sold a million
Dazed Games' How to Fish sold 1 million copies in two days on Steam, topping the sellers list at a $4.95 launch price that rises to $7.99.
[26] Why it matters — A game priced under $5 can top the chart in a weekend without a publisher behind it.
-
07
Panic returns tariff money to buyers
Playdate maker Panic received tariff refunds from the US government and is passing them to the customers it charged a 19% surcharge.
[24] Why it matters — A rare case of a cost travelling back down the chain it came up.
-
08
Tencent's 15-million-player game goes global
Roco Kingdom, from Tencent's Morefun Studios, drew 15 million players in a day in China this March and starts a closed beta in October before a global launch.
[25] Why it matters — The biggest new audiences are being built outside the markets the trade press watches.
-
09
Sony and Microsoft stop naming each other
Xbox removed rival platform logos from a Minecraft Dungeons 2 trailer, and Sony released an Only On PS5 video promising six console-exclusive games.
[28] [29] Why it matters — The brief experiment in treating consoles as one open market is being wound back.
-
10
A mobile buyer plans to double again
MTG, the Swedish owner of Raid: Shadow Legends, said it wants to double in size within three to five years through more acquisitions.
[30] Why it matters — At the mobile end the industry is still merging, not breaking apart.
The job that only existed because it could not be split
A go-between lasts only while its services can be bought only together. Sell them separately and the job stops being a company.
The twist
A go-between's power was never the services themselves. It was that nobody could buy them one at a time.
How it works
- One firm holds four things a studio needs
- Money, a route to players, marketing, and the judgement of what to back
- Each of those becomes buyable on its own
- So a studio buys only the parts it lacks
- The go-between dissolves into a list of services
- What survives is the part nobody can contract: taste
Where you've seen this
Record labels
studios, money, radio and shops came as one deal; musicians now hire each separately
High-street travel agents
flights, hotels, payment and advice sat at one desk until each went online
Newspapers
news, small ads and the delivery van were one business, and the ads left first
The catch
The parts nobody was ever billed for go first: the failures a publisher absorbed, and the business work a three-person studio must now do itself.
And the whole of it
Everyone here is choosing sensibly from their own seat, and the risk slides to the smallest one. The player buying a $5 game from a four-person studio is inside the same arrangement, holding the end of a chain nobody sees whole.
What is really going on
The publisher is being sold one service at a time, and the job of deciding which game gets made is passing to whoever most recently had a hit.
Why it works on us — Each announcement arrives as good news for developers, and it is, which is why almost nobody asks what the new funders will refuse to back.
Who gains
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Studios that already have an audience
— They can buy the two or three services they lack and keep the rest of each sale, as IO Interactive did.
[6] -
Thatgamecompany and CAA
— Each turns something it already owns, an audience and a client list, into a claim on other people's future games.
[2] [1] -
Route-to-player and engine suppliers
— Entity raised $5.8m for a route to players and W4 Games $18m for engine services, each a single piece of the old bundle.
[10] [11]
Who pays
-
Developers at the big publishers
— Microsoft is cutting 3,200 Xbox roles, and Bethesda staff say yearly layoffs are new there.
[14] [15] -
Studios that publish themselves
— Observer Interactive now funds the last stretch of its own game, so a weak launch lands on the studio.
[4] -
Games that fit nobody's taste
— Every new funder names a taste it is buying for, which narrows what a small studio can pitch.
[2] [3]
What nobody knows yet
Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.
-
01
What any of the new funders will actually back.
Frame1Games has named no studios, and Thatgamepublisher will not name the games it has signed.
[1] [2] -
02
What share of a game's revenue these deals take.
Thatgamecompany says terms vary by project, CAA has published none, and Observer Interactive said it cannot discuss royalties.
[2] [1] [4] -
03
Whether the small funders survive a bad year.
Inner Pocket is self-funded by four founders, and Makers Fund has only just raised again. Neither has been through a downturn.
[3] [8]
The people who nearly went broke making a game are the ones now funding other people's. That is not charity, it is memory, and it is how a craft passes itself on.
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