Jackbox Games, the game developer known for its annual party packs of phone-controlled party games that even your non-gamer friends enjoy, is lengthening its reach today with the announcement that it’s going into indie publishing as well. Its first published game? My Arms Are Longer Now, from Melbourne-based Toot Games.
It’s another big step for the party pack purveyor, and another indication that the company is starting to break out of its comfort zone. Speaking to CEO Mike Bilder at DICE Summit last month, he tells me that the company experienced “explosive growth” during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It wasn’t just revenue: between Zoom happy hours, families playing remotely, and live streams, more and more individuals became aware of and playing Jackbox, and they largely haven’t stopped. That growth has enabled Jackbox to expand beyond just making a party pack a year and calling it good. For instance, last year, Jackbox announced it would be bringing its party packs to smart TVs, offering an avenue for individuals unused to hooking up a bunch of cables just to play Fibbage in their living rooms.
And now, publishing, beginning with My Arms Are Longer Now. Andy Kniaz, VP of business development and international at Jackbox, tells me that it’s a prime example of what Jackbox is looking for in games it publishes. They don’t have to be party games – in fact, it’s almost better if they’re not, as Jackbox has that covered. But they do need to be “thematically” consistent. My Arms Are Longer now is a super silly 2D stealth game where you, an atrociously long arm (the game’s store page specifically calls it “like a yucky snake”) have to try and steal stuff with it. From the trailers, it looks like a weird mix of Octodad, Thank Goodness You’re Here, and…Payday? Yeah, we’ll go with that.
Its developer, Toot Games, has already been showing the game around at events such as PAX Australia. It’s a team of developers with experience in microgames, but also background in comedy and performance. All of which makes a lot of sense if you know anything about what Jackbox does. “It’s a voice,” Kniaz says. “Jackbox has a voice and [we want] the people that are speaking our language basically.”
So, no gritty shooters, I ask Kniaz?
“Well, so here I’m going to pitch you my headline,” he replies. Okay, sure. Here’s his pitch: “Jackbox Vehemently Denies the Rumors They Were Acquiring Rockstar Games to Publish a Humorous and Light-hearted Grand Theft Auto VI.”
I prooooobably can’t put that at the top of the article.
Kniaz says he’s looking for games that are already playable – Jackbox doesn’t want to fund anything from the ground up. He’s looking for games where you can feel “the laughter in the room” while you play. He likes unique creative viewpoints, multiplayer games, games that mess with control schemes, and most important: games that are fun. Jackbox, in turn, will offer marketing support, some production support, QA, release management, first-party management, submissions, and other fairly typical publisher assists.
Kniaz and Bilder aren’t going to “go nuts and sign ten games at once,” but they are putting this news out into the world because they want developers to pitch them.
I asked Kniaz and Bilder what their five-year vision for the publishing label was.
“Well, we will have acquired Rockstar by then,” says Bilder.
“GTA 6 will be coming out under Party Pack 27,” Kniaz continues. “Crazy.”
Kniaz then offers a serious answer:
“I think that ultimately we’re getting into, people talk about ‘ethical publishing.’ It’s a buzzword. It’s just publishing ultimately. If you’ve sat on the side of the table with a large publisher, and I don’t want to badmouth any, because there are great large publishers, but there are some that just, it’s not a development deal. It’s leverage. And we believe steadfastly that developers should be earning from day one. We believe that there needs to be runway after the game is launched so they can get to their next thing. If you ship a game, you don’t want to go broke immediately after shipping the game. All of that’s incredibly common in our industry, and I think ultimately we just want to grab great games. We want to present it to our audience and we want to build a community of fantastic developers that grow with us.”
My Arms Are Longer Now is planned for release later this year.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
