In an odd turn of events, everyone’s favourite store GameStop has opened a new arm of their business called ‘GameTrust’ which is acting as a publisher. No, really, this is NOT a late April fool’s joke people, I would get the editor to put this disclaimer in large flashing letters as well.

So far the only developers to have signed up for this new service are Ready at Dawn (The Order: 1886), Tequila Works (Deadlight, Rime) and Frozenbyte (Trine series) and for a single one-off we have Insomniac (Ratchet and Clank and Resistance series), developing Song of the Deep which should be out soon, with possibly 20 other developers following suit.

We have Mark Stanley, the VP of Internal Development and Diversification at GameStop to thank for this interesting bit of fun, and he has stated that it will not be the likes of EA or Activision as they promise not to push their goals onto developers and it won’t be a ‘One size fits all’ approach.

An exert from Mr Stanley is below:

“Having been in the publishing part of first-party for many years, there are many pieces in traditional publishing that have prevented many independent developers going down the publishing route. A lot of these included lack of creative control and the inability to make some of the games they always dreamt of making. We are trying to solve a lot of pieces there with GameTrust, and the model covers a lot of things. We can help if a developer needs funding to finish a game, or even kick-off a game.

We may partner in a full development funding mode, or we may have a development partner who has a game that is almost finished and are just looking for someone that can treat their IP in a great way and bring it to market.”

He continues: “Also, every IP that we are working with from these developers are smaller-scale games, it’s an area of games development that is pretty much ignored by traditional publishers… we are talking of games with development budgets of up to $15m. Publishers today really focus on the larger franchises and triple-A, where budgets are $30m and above. We are working in this sweet spot that is largely ignored, but we are treating these IPs as if they are triple-As.

We are not just going to put a disc on a peg on a shelf, we are going to treat these games as triple-A by expanding the media. As an example, with Song of the Deep we are publishing a book with Barnes and Noble, and we are also looking at potential TV and movie deals. We are also looking at putting all of GameStop assets behind the game – we will be promoting it as if it is a triple-A, if you walk into any GameStop store today, you will see Song of the Deep reservations and pre-order signage is all over the prime front part of the store.”

Now, GameStop also owns ThinkGeek.com as well, which is a brand that sells gaming and sci-fi related items, some of them useful, others just down right hilarious. So they are branching out, which in business can be a blessing, and a curse.

Now, about the “no interference” with developers…we have heard this before, and I can only hope that they will honour that deal, or lest we end up with another large publisher who mandates changes to fit market projections instead of fun.