Cooldown Games has announced that it’s officially launching as an independent publisher, specifically for PC and console games geared towards games that excel at engaging players who have a busy work-game-life balance.
Seven industry veterans have come together to create Cooldown Games, and they have a plethora of experience from companies like Gearbox Publishing (which has publishing rights to Risk of Rain), Warner Bros, and id Software. Altogether, the founders have worked to launch eight games that had over 1 million units sold and generated over $8 billion in revenue. In fact, all of them came from Gearbox before launching Cooldown Games:
- Steve Gibson, Chief Executive Officer
- Matt Charles, Chief Product Officer
- Erick Cobbs, Chief Business Officer
- Jackson Hardesty, Chief Operations Officer
- Brad Schliesser, Chief Revenue Officer
- Jimmy Sieben, Chief Technology Officer
- Jeff Skal, Chief Marketing Officer
Cooldown Games, which is located in Dallas, Texas, is focused on games that let players relax, especially modern adult gamers who are balancing games with work and other life commitments (hence the name Cooldown).
According to the group’s LinkedIn profile, they believe that games have changed for the worse, demanding more of player’s time and money than ever before. The group’s goal is to offer support for titles that don’t fall into that same behavior.
Several of the founders had thoughts to share on the launch, including Steve Gibson:
“Our team is confident rational business models will be a long-term strength of Cooldown Games and that just might be a refreshing contrast from many recent industry trends. My passion of helping game makers reach as many game players as possible while making sure that it’s a rewarding experience for everyone involved is at the center of all of this. Let’s make some great games together.”
Jeff Skal also shared a bit about the publishing group:
“Over the last five years, we all individually noticed that we’ve been gravitating away from many of the predictable new releases. We noticed that was because most of us already have ‘forever’ games—for me and Brad that’s World of Warcraft, and for Jackson that’s DayZ—and most of these giant new releases were just asking for more than we could give. When we started Cooldown Games, we quickly realized that there’s a ton of gamers out there just like us—and we wanted to find the best games that can fit in between our sessions, or seasons, or even just after raid night.”
And, last but not least, Matt Charles expressed what kind of teams the publishers are looking to work with:
“Many talented developers weathered the recent industry turbulence and now more than ever seek a partner that understands their project’s vision and how it will resonate with an audience. We are looking to work with astute and passionate teams that share our philosophy and observation about player behavior, and we can create a force-multiplying partnership on the path to release.”
