Remowned

Despite the games industry’s relative youth compared to other entertainment industries, it seems to have grown commodified and financially conservative pretty quickly. This is just the Way Things Are, I guess, but I came across and interesting press release that went out the other day, describing an unusual publishing venture.

OneBigGame is a non-profit publisher (hm?) that, once it has established net revenue, plans to donate all its proceeds to charities benefiting children around the world (what?), establishing itself as a charitable organization by proxy. This week the company announced its board of directors, which consists of a number of big names to those who cover the industry.

The whole thing is founded and chaired by Martin de Ronde, the founder of what is now Guerrilla Games (the Killzone people). Its board includes Kuju (Battallion Wars, Crush) CEO Ian Baverstock and Game Developers Conference director Jamil Moledina, and its advisors include Shiny (MDK, Earthworm Jim) founder Dave Perry and gaming pioneer Mark Cerny (Marble Madness, etc.).

It’s certainly hard enough getting any new publisher up and running these days, let alone one that doesn’t intend to make its executives rich. (more…)