In 2021, game developer Luca Galante released Vampire Survivors as a diversion from his soul-hollowing day job of working on a mobile gambling game, inadvertently birthing a nascent genre propelled by the force of silly Italian names and millions upon millions of dead bats. In a recent interview with our colleagues at GamesRadar, Galante said the years that followed his unforeseeable success have left him with a blunt assessment of the games industry:

“I see a lot of publishers I don’t like,” Galante said.

Today, Vampire Survivors studio Poncle now boasts over 25 staff members and—as of last November—has started its own publishing division, Poncle Presents. Galante told GamesRadar that he wants to offer an alternative to publishers that try to exploit the platforms just to make money.

Key Quotes

“For me, it’s very important that we keep supporting games post-launch, regardless of how the game would go, because once you put the game out there, you have an audience. And as big or small as it is, that audience deserves to be treated fairly.”

He expressed a natural inclination towards smaller projects with adequate gameplay mechanics, emphasizing how Poncle gravitates to publishing efforts that reflect this philosophy.