VG247

Thatgamecompany founder Jenova Chen has clarified earlier comments about not receiving royalties from Sony on Journey, the fastest-selling PlayStation Network game to date.

In an interview with Joystiq, Chen said the independent developer wasn’t counting on making money from Journey straight away, even though he believes it has broken even.

“When the game makes money, the money first goes back to pay back the money they’ve invested. So, that’s going to take a while – Journey cost multiple millions of dollars to make. Once that money is recouped, then we will get royalties,” he said.

“But for almost a year, we are not going to be relying on the money from Journey to keep the company going.”

As Journey wrapped up, completing a three-game deal with Sony, thatgamecompany had to find another source of funding so it could work on a new project and wait for its royalties. It pitched a new title to venture capitalist firms, eventually securing $5.6 million from Benchmark Company in northern summer 2012 – just after Journey’s launch, but too late to retain many staff who left when the indie went bankrupt.

“We were at a spot where, if we couldn’t figure out the next game, or find the next deal, then at the end of Journey we’d run out of money,” Chen said.

Being funded by a venture capitalist group rather thna a publisher isn’t much of a change, Chen added.

“When we switched to a venture capital, we raised the money because we pitched the project; we sold them on the vision. They believe it, they want to support us to make that happen. So, creatively I’ve never gotten any input from the venture capital. It’s actually very similar, we are always ourselves, and no one is really messing around with us. With Sony, it was the same thing,” he said.

Thatgamecompany hasn’t announced its next project yet, but it’s expected to use touch controls.

Seems strange that a publisher would essentially rely on an indie game being a megahit (by the contract structure). Also all those ludicrous multi-million break-even points for less-than-AAA games. The industry needs a wakeup call about how much money they're allowed to spend and be sustainable. Hoping every game project is Call of Duty is not that.

I'm getting kind of tired of hearing about this company and it's financial issues.

We get it, you almost went bankrupt, but you're still here now. Hallelujah now let's move on.

i hate hearing this. i guess you'll have to budget your idea to potential profit, or publishers need to offer better deals.

lol isn't this saying that sony has to get back the investment before thatgamecompany can get any money, that is how it should be if they funded all the development

if they don't change they're mindset they're going to fail.

loool, their budget is ridiculous, Luckily for them this game is amazing! I'm not in the industry so I may be wrong, but a game of Journeys scales: zero voice acting, zero performance capture, extremely simplistic (yet beautiful) art design, there are about as many textures in this entire game as there is in the first 2 minutes of a real AAA title, no combat systems to have to meticulously manage and perfect.... And its only 2hours worth of content. Understandably the online component probably cost a fair bit but still.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the majority of money went on them being artists and creating a a game, then scrapping it and starting again because they didn't feel it to be right.

Still its a shame that Sony would support them in a 3 game deal, but not provide a financal blanket for then whilst waiting for Journey to make it big.

That's what you have to go through when you leave Sony.
They were all like:
"After journey we will leave Sony"
If they would have stayed, They would still get money from them :)

So this is normal

"Speaking at DICE Summit 2013, as reported by Destructoid, thatgamecompany boss Jenova Chen said that at the end of the two years of development Sony had agreed to fund, Journey wasn’t finished.

Interestingly, it wasn’t a technical issue that troubled the developer; it just wasn’t happy with the game’s emotional impact, noting better results when one tester’s playthrough crashed before the ending.

Sony agreed to fund a third year of development, but thatgamecompany took even longer than that, and ended up bankrupt, unable to pay its employees even as they continued to work on the game.

At the end of a play session showing off the completed game, three of 25 play testers cried, Chen said, making it all worthwhile.

Journey wowed critics and quickly became the best selling PlayStation Network release of all time."

Well, i can't blame Sony for wanting their investment back first.

Indie developers sure do whine a lot don't they?