It’s interesting because on the one hand you’re not on the back of the box, but on the other hand you sort of have to do some developer advocacy it sounds like? Are you trying to put these guys forward as artists? And how do you do that without being like “Hey we’re Gamecock and this is a game that we’re helping with, and here are these guys”? I mean, what do you do there?

MW: Well in the beginning it’s been all about Gamecock and what we’re trying to do, and people find that interesting, [such as an] interview like this, but as we start shipping games I think that fades into the background, because everybody in the industry knows what we’re about already, and then it’s just “hey this is a game by Wideload, this is a game by Redfly,” whatever, and that’s the goal: to put us in the background. And like, all this, we’re the only publisher here with our developers here.

Yeah, I know. It’s making my job very difficult.

MW: Yeah, I’d like to think that the games journalist would like to talk to the guys who actually make the games, so that’s the goal, is just to... and I want all these guys to be famous, and if they create a turd, I want everyone to know who created that turd. [laughs]

It seems like if you guys are doing that whole advocacy thing, you’ve gotta talk about yourselves, too. Even in the future. Like if someone comes out of left field, some indie company that just started up, you’ve got to be like “We, Gamecock, who you know, think these guys, who you don’t know, are great”. How do you go about that?

MW: Well if we greenlight their game, it means... if we’re funding their game, we must think they’re pretty good.

No, I know, but I mean in terms of the perception of the outside world. Like people understanding that this game is coming out, this game is going to be good, these are the guys making it.

MW: Yeah, we just promote the game and the artist. Again, I just don’t see any consumer, gamer connection with... nobody gives a shit who the label is, or the distributor. When you buy a record... you just don’t care. I think it’s just that our industry has happened so fast, that this is like version 1.0 of the publishing business and it’s just... f*cked up.

But at the same time you’ve got your… like, Sony Pictures Classics. So you know that Sony is whatever, but if you see that Sony Pictures Classics logo you might think “oh, this is going to be interesting”, because you know they don’t pick up crap. I know they don’t pick up bullshit, generally, they pick up interesting independent or foreign films.

MW: Yeah, and Miramax had that same vibe going, you know? So I guess inevitably we have a brand eventually...

It seems like a tough balance because you have to have a brand on a certain level, to tell people to care about a game that they might not understand. It seems like a difficult line there…

MW: Well we do really heavy PR, like over-the-top PR, but we really try to steer it all to the teams, but I think if you read about the teams enough, then by the time the game comes out, you know. I think people are more interested, too, if they get a vibe for who’s actually making the game.

I mean the fact is that the initial PR drive has been like “Gamecock is crazy, we’re crazy, look at this stuff!” I mean, you were just pulled over for wearing a mask, driving down the street.

MW: Just again, for us to get back into the industry, we find it really boring a lot of the time, like all this stuff that’s going on, and I just don’t understand why. Like, there’s no reason for it to be boring.