I was reading in Gameinformer about Gamecock (a new indie publisher) here's the article. Make sure to read at least some of this (it took me a lot more effort to compile it all and stick it together than it would for you to read it ^_^ )


Here’s the Gamecock website


In August 2001, Mike Wilson and Harry Miller left the U.S. gaming industry with the intention of never coining back. In just over three years they had built, grown, sold, and departed their publishing company, Gathering of Developers. It had been founded to change the landscape of indie game publishing with a low overhead, an innovative method for selecting tiles, and a “developers first” mentality. The sale of the company to Take Two Interactive in 2000 felt like a betrayal of core principles in the founders’ eyes. But, due to several mounting pressures, it could not be helped. Working within the inevitable bureaucratic processes that came with a publicly traded company slowly chipped away at the independent-minded duo that last year. And the sudden and unexpected death of their friend and business partner Doug Myres shattered whatever was holding the publisher together. Wilson and Miller asked that their Dallas office be dissolved, but not before shipping their last big hit, Max Payne. Almost six years later, the partners have reunited to form Gamecock. They’re not out to change the gaming world this time, but they just might have found the key to do things their way — and make some great games in the process.
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PRE-GATHERING OF DEVELOPERS
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Mike Wilson and Harry Miller first met while working at the Dial-up Wide Area Network Gaming Operation better known as DWANGO, in 1995. The early gaming network based out of Houston was known for its online multiplayer support of Doom The two became quick friends but Mike’s new job as VP of marketing at Id Software complicated things. “Well, it was nice knowing you but now that you’re moving to Dallas I probably won’t see you much anymore, so good luck in the future Miller remembers ‘Wow was I wrong”.
It wasn’t long before Miller moved to Dallas as well to become CEO of a new developer named Ritual (then known as Hipnotic Interactive). Around that time, Wilson left id after the company decided that it didn’t want to self publish any more, and he-helped found Ion Storm, another Dallas-based developer The Texan CEOs kept in close contact and shared battle stories that come with shaping up a new development house. During this time, the first thoughts of the Gathering of Developers strategy started to simmer. The original plan for Ion Storm, according to Wilson, was to develop and publish their own games However the hype built up around the studio was too much to pass up for one major publisher.
‘Somewhere in between leaving id and starting at Ion Storm I took a four-day vacation and it had turned into a seven-title deal with Eidos,’ says Wilson. With the independent vision he had for the company now out of reach, Wilson started to consider his options It wasn’t long before he started having conversations with Miller about what eventually would become Gathering of Developers. The two wanted to start a publishing company that catered to small developers and avoided all of the red tape of a large corporation. But even the best ideas need a healthy infusion of cash to get off of the ground. Fortunately, they had an open ear with Take- Two founder Ryan Brant
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GOD OPENS FOR BUSINESS
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“Brant wrote us a check for $5 million to start our company, and that was bigger than whole IPO at the time,”says Wilson. “They weren’t even listed on NASDAQ. He knew that all they needed was some content, and he really bet the farm on us That kind of money always has strings attached however and Miller and Wilson had to make some concessions that would eventually come back to haunt them.
Take-Two got a partial stake in the company, North American distribution rights, and all of the console rights, which meant that GOD would only be releasing games on PC. Additionally, Miller and Wilson offered partial ownership to the five developers who got on board with GOD on the ground floor: Epic, 3D Realms, Terminal Reality, Pop Top, and Ritual.
Members of these studios would serve on GOD’s development board which would help to find potential leads on up-and-coming developers and the games they were working on. Once GOD decided on a game to publish, they made it a point to trust the developer’s instincts and stayed hands-off during production. Developers got to keep the rights to their intellectual property (still a rarity in the industry) and were given healthy royalty rates that increased at certain sales mile stones Miller and Wilson also made sure that GOD remained small (around 12 people before selling to Take-Two) to keep overhead low and allow them to pounce on new games with little red tape.
GOD debuted in 1998 and published its first hit Railroad Tycoon Il, within a matter of several months. Pop Top’s train strategy game took off, selling over a million copies and seemingly proving that the concept was golden. But titles were sparse after that and games released throughout the next year failed to have much of an impact. GOD was signing games like Tropico, Stronghold, and Max Payne, but they were running out of money very quickly. In May of 2000, Take-Two bought Gathering of Developers for $30 million.
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The godgames Era
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“It was a pure heartbreak,” recalls Miller. ‘We did not want to sell But it was a reality of the times when it happened it was
devastating to us GOD remained in Texas through the transition and changed its name to GodGames officially. The first string of titles released like KISS Psycho Circus and Heavy Metal F.AK.K. 2 didn’t do much to strengthen Take-Two’s faith in letting Miller and Wilson do things their way.
“When we sold that was right around the time they were becoming a big company and they just kind of couldn’t help themselves from putting all of these bureaucratic processes in place and taking the reason Harry and I were there ouI Wilson says While GodGames release of Tropico and Senous Sam in the spring of 2001 renewed some faith in the publishing label the duo was slowly losing the passion that pushed them to start the company in the first place Then the unthinkable happened
Doug Myres, an original Gathering of Developers founde died suddenly and unexpectedly in May of 2001 from asthma Myres was only 36 ‘You lust don t think of asthma as that kind of thing, but we leamed unfortunately that it hap pens to a lot of people when they develop it late Wilson says. “Doug was our best friend and partner and when he passed away it was just the last straw. We were like, ‘Okay, we’re not going to waste any time doing something we don’t really care about:”
GodGames shipped their biggest game, Max Payne, in late July along with an announcement of the closure of their Texas offices and the departure of the founding team. Take- Two transitioned the label to New York and brought most of the remaining lineup to market over the next year.
Wilson took part of the GodGames team to Austin to start an entirely DVD-based magazine called SubstanceTV that covered documentaries, music, and video games. Miller went to Hong Kong to work with En-Tranz Entertainmenl an MMO-focused game publishing company, and brought some GodGames people along with him as well. He ended up liv ing in Hong Kong for the next two years. But Miller retumed
to the States for a number of reasons entirely unrelated to the gaming business. “Early 2003 SARS hit Hong Kong,” Miller says. “My son was due in late July/early August and SARS was in full effect. The whole city was dressed in plastic bags and face masks So [ wife and I] decided it was prob ably not a good idea to stay there. It was time to come back”
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gathering REDUX
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When Miller returned to the U.S. he took some time off to raise his family, and found that his old friend was now back with Take-Two. After seven issues Substancell/ never really gained a foothold, so Wilson moved on to produce a docu mentary titled Burning Man: Beyond Block Rock. Around the same time (January 2003), then-CEO of Take-Two Kelly Sumner was appointed president of GodGames (yet again rebranded simply as “Gathering”) and sought out Wilson to help revitalize the PC label.
Upon returning to Take-Two, Wilson soon found out why he was taken back into the fold. It turns out that titles like Max Payne, Mafia, and Stronghold that Wilson and Miller had signed before their departure had made a decent chunk of change. “Kelly told me when I went back, ‘Yeah, you guys did $100 million [ first year] and then it did $250 million [ next year], and now we’re shooting for $400 million,’” Wilson says. “I was like ‘holy s4
The surprises didn’t end there. When Wilson met with accounting, he found out that almost all of the GOD titles at least turned some profit, “even KISS and Blair Witch, the ones we thought were huge disasters:’
From 2003 to 2005 Gathering brought out several games in the Vietcong series, Tropico 2: Pirate Cove, Railroad Tycoon 3, and the infamous Guy Game. But Wilson still had trouble working within a corporate structure. “Unfortunately. I wasn’t able to deliver much from the Take-Two side with that new
Gathering label. They thought they wanted me to come back and do it but when it came down to actually signing those deals with the developers. they had gotten accustomed to controlling everything By early 2005, the Gathering label was phased out and Wilson focused on finishing the Burning Man documentary which debuted that November at the AFI film Festival.
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the Rise of Game Cock
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Later that year Miller and Wilson started to get the gaming bug again. The two began tossing around concepts and the idea of forming a new independent publishing outfit slowly gained momentum. “After we left the industry and were able to come back and look at the positives and negatives of what happened we realized there were a lot more positives than negatives,” said Miller. “That and a new cycle coming with the advent of next-gen consoles it lust felt like this was the right time”
i’m not doing this because I need a job,” Wilson said. “I’m doing this because I think its a really good idea. I miss the industry. I miss the developers. It’s a great business. I didn’t feel that way when 1 left I felt like I never wanted to do it again because of what I had just been through. But given some retrospect and doing stuff in other entertainment businesses, this one’s pretty damn good’
Miller and Wilson had learned from the previous structuring problems that led to the sale of GOD. This time they would hit the pavement for 18 months searching for funding with absolutely zero ties to the gaming industry. “We wanted enough money to have a good lineup and really do a proper marketing job and be a real publisher and not a little publisher” said Wilson. “Finding money that wasn’t from a game publisher was really hard. Venture capitalists sniff around in this industry, but they don’t bet on entertainment So we kept
knocking on doors until we found the right people Once they secured enough funding the duo has been
quietly signing games since last August under the new banner of Gamecock. With the newfound freedom to control all business tactics, Miller and Wilson now feel like they can finally deliver on the promise GOD made to developers nine years ago. And several of them have been patiently waiting for this moment
Gamecock’s starting lineup includes Fury Mushroom Men, Hero, Hail to the Chimp, and Insecticide. The genres range from MMO to beat ‘em up to adventure to action to dungeon crawler. The combined experience of these developers includes team members from such well-known franchises as Halo, Gears of War and classic LucasArts adventure games like Day of the Tentacle. Miller and Wilson still use a tried and true mix of gut instinct and a network of trusted friends in the gaming industry to decide on their lineup.
“ know if we do greenlight anybody’s game we’re going to give them a great deal,” Wilson said. ‘That hasn’t changed. If s still a very developer-friendly, high-royalties-with-high-sales type deal. We still are going to brand the developers first. Not just to be nice. We happen to think that’s the smart way to go for gamers to be able to figure out who their favorite developers are. Just like you have your favorite band or author or whatever. I don’t think most people have a favorite book publishing company or record company. Nobody goes, ‘Man, Universal Pictures rock! I cannot wait for the next Universal movie:”
The “developer first” mentality is actually one of the main reasons behind the new company’s unusual title. “We don’t even care if anybody knows it’s our game, to be honest. That’s the basic idea of calling the company something goofy like Gamecock,” Wilson said. “One, we [want to] remember that ifs not our brand that matters and, two, we want to have fun and lighten up the industry a little bit, because it’s just

such a bloody serious business when it’s supposed to be about games and fun.
But what do Gamecock’s developers think of the publisher’s philosophy? ‘We’ve spoken to all the majors. First of all, unless they can see a game like yours in the marketplace, they can’t figure out how to do a sales projection, so it’s hard to get a greenlight,” says Auran CEO Tony Hilliam, developer of Fury. “Next; if you convince them you know what you’re doing and they give you the greenlight, then they ask you for the IP ownership and 75 percent of all the revenues. it just doesn’t make sense for us as we’ve taken all the risk to date. Finding Mike and Harry was a godsend. They let us keep the IP and they let us keep the majority of the revenues (because we are doing all the funding and taking most of the risk). On top of that, these guys really know their games, and they can spot when something is new and exciting. So in the end it was a no-brainer to sign up with them
Both men are confident that Gamecock can fill a niche that larger publishers can’t maneuver in simply due to the daunting sales targets they have to hit to feed the corporate machine. ‘We take more chances because we’re a smaller group,” said Miller. “Our overhead’s very low. We can make very healthy profits off a game that big companies can’t because the margins don’t fit into their schedule. At the same time, we have titles that are going for a very broad audience. We’ll be competing in that regard as well
Only time will tell if Gamecock’s strategy will succeed in the end. As their first titles hit the market this winter Miller and Wilson will finally get that chance to prove their long-simmering ideas in the real world. And gamers will be the final judge. “It’s not a crussade this time to change the industry, it’s more like taking advantage of the fact that it can’t change,” said Wilson. “But certainly if we do well we do have a chance to make a real impact”
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the games
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Fury
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PLATFORM PC
STYLE MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE
ROLE-PLAYING GAME
PUBLISHER GAMECOCK
DEVELOPER AURAN
RELEASE WINTER 2007
WHERE DO YOU KNOW AURAN FROM?
The Trainz Railroad Simulator
series and Dark Reign.

WHY GAMECOCK signed IT:
Miller feels like there is plenty of room for MMOs that cater specifically to the competitive player. “When I’m in [MMO] I usually just want to do PvP.”

CONCEPT:
Mix one part FPS and one part MMORPG and you’ll have Fury. “We felt that creating ‘another MMO’ was not going to be the best way to get a million or more customers,” says Auran CEO Tony Hilliam. “We decided to find a new niche that we could really dominate, and that was when we revived an old design we had had about an arena-based combat game:’ Fury has the fantasy look of an MMO and features auto-targeting for spells and attacks, but the PvP has more in common with deathmatch battles than anything you’ll see in World of Warcraft. Players rise through the four schools of Life, Death, Growth, and Decay to unlock almost 400 different abilities in this completely class-free progression system. However, instead of “learning” new powers, characters will “remember” lost abilities from previous lives. Trials will take the place of traditional MMO quests, where players will unlock memories by killing a certain number of enemies with a certain spell or something of that nature — almost like Xbox Live Achievements. When characters die there will be no penalty or trip to the grave yard, they’ll simply respawn according to the rules of the match.





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Hail to the Chimp
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Hail to the Chimp
PLATFORM NEXT-GEN CONSOLES STYLE 1 -PLAYER ACTION GAME (MULTIPLAYER TBA)
PUBLISHER GAMECOCK
DEVELOPER WIDELOAD GAMES
RELEASE SPRING 2008
CONCEPT:
Hail to the Chimp is a mix of beat ‘em up, party game, and — believe it or not — Halo. The story is based around the animal kingdom’s move towards democracy after the lion king is scandalously deposed. What follows is a series of non-stop brawls with every candidate vying for the powerful clam vote — the most populous voting segment — via the animal version of CNN. The game features both online and offline play with several maps and game types like Kind of the Hill and Territories. Ten playable characters are planned including a monkey, hippo, and octopus. Any two of these characters can team up temporarily to use a super move unique to every distinct animal combination. Wideload CEO Alex Seropian says that older garners shouldn’t be thrown off by the kiddie veneer. “For the first time we have a multiplayer game that has enough depth for the hardcore gamer while being accessible to anyone,” Seropian says. “There’s humor on all levels — it may be an E-rated game, but like a good family movie there will be jokes only the adults will get:’


WHERE DO YOU KNOW……. WHY GAMECOCK SIGNED IT:
WIDELOAD FROM? ……….. “The idea is that we are in the game
Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel……… business and we’re here to have fun — in
Without a Pulse. CEO Alex……….. the games that we’re a part of and the style
Seropian founded and lead………..that we do business — so this game is right
Bungie, worked on Halo…………… up our alley,” says Miller.





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Mushroom Men
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Mushroom Men
PLATFORM NEXT-GEN CONSOLE AND HANDHELD
STYLE 1-PLAYER ACTION (MULTIPLAYER TRA)
PUbliSHER GAMECOCK
DEVELOPER RED FLY STUDIOS
RElEASE SPRING 2008
Where do you KNOW RED FLY FROM? Team members have worked on titles like gears of War, Star Wars Galaxies, Thief: Deadly Shadows, and DeEs Ex: Invisible War
Why gamecock SIGNED IT:
Miller enjoys the tone of the world, and likens it to “the idea of Earthworm Jim and Abe’s Oddysee’


Concept
The game begins when a strange comet passes Earth, depositing some kind of green dust on the planet. Humans notice no effect, but right under their noses mushrooms, cacti, kudzu, and other small organisms start running around and causing trouble. Players take on the role of a three-inch-tall Mushroom Man as he makes his way through everyday environments like tool sheds, fire places, and an old VW bus, that seem fantastical through shroom-colored glasses.
Choose among a speedy Scout, a slow but strong Heavy, and a “spore-powered” Sage to take on insects, lizards, and rival shroom factions by combining random items. “Grab a clothespin, a paperclip, and a rubber band and see what happens,” says Red Fly Creative Director/CEO Dan Borth. “Replace the paperclip with a lit fire cracker and see how things change:’






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insectiside
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Insecticide CONCEPT: -
Set in a noir-tinged metropolitan futurescape where anthropomorphic insects rule, Insecticide is a detective story
that follows Chrys Liszt and her partner Roachy Caruthers as they investigate a murder at a powerful and mysterious soda company. The team must use a mix of third-person shooting skills and investigative techniques to
work their way through a plot that eventually becomes much deeper than a simple murder. Crackpot president
and co-chief creative officer Michael Levine explains this unique mix of action and classic adventure. “Too many
games today run ‘at 11’ the entire game — compelling entertainment needs pacing, great characters, and stories and worlds, along with great gameplay. Just like any great action detective movie, we plan to have intense action
moments, but slower-paced investigative modes as well:’ At least two players will be able to team up to take down
enemies in special co-op missions.

PLATFORM HANDHELD AND PC
STYLE 1 OR 2PLAYER ACTION (MULTIPLAYER TBA)
PUBLISHER GAMECOCK
DEVELOPER CRACKPOT ENTERTAINMENT
RELEASE WINTER 2007


WHERE do YOU KNOW crackpot from?…..….WHY GAMECOCK Signed it ……………………… ………Miller is excited about the world of
Some of the team comes from the…. ……..Insecticide and iliterested in the way
LucasArts adventure era. We’re…. ……..the game is laid out (it will he split
talking Bay of the Tentacle, ….. …….. into two downloadable episodes for the
Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full…. . PC version). “ there’s something
Throttle, grim Fandango, …... about the small, quick, story-based
And Curse of Monkey Island. ….. jump in” he says.






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Hero
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Hero
PLATFORM N CONSOI F AND PC
STYLE 1 OK 2PFAYLR ACtION (MUD IPE IRA)
PUBLISHER GAM
DEVELOPER FIREFLY studios
RELLASE WINter 2008
CONCEPT: .
Hero is a self-described arcade-style dungeon crawler featuring drop-in co-op. Players will level up, follow skill trees, and nab plenty of loot, but the game “doesn’t have any backpack fiddling or talking to innkeepers” Plot details are scarce at this point. Apparently, the titular hero is paid to do a simple subterranean task that turns into a massive dungeon romp. Firefly is shooting to make this environment come alive, “ give citizens jobs and needs that they attend to, have warring factions, and a good backstory that makes the player feel they are in a real place rather than just an abstract concept,” says Hero’s lead designer Simon Bradbury. Combat incorporates standard melee, ranged, and magic attacks, but what makes this different from the standard hack and slash is the new “close combat” feature. “This is a kind of street fighting style that the player can make a strategic switch to at any time, should the going get tough and they find themselves surrounded by monsters,” Bradbury says. “This not only opens up more skills to choose and master, but the timing of combat mode switching gives the combat a really fresh feel”

WHERE DO YOU KNOW FIREFLY FROM?
The Stronghold PC strategy series.
WHY GAMEC0CK signed IT:
Miller says he enjoys dungeon crawlers, hut always gets bored with them halfway through. When Firefly pitched the game he was shocked. “All the things I don’t like were things they were changing or improving upon,” says Miller. “I just kept hearing myself go ‘Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.”

That "Hail to the Chimp" is pretty unusual, but interesting :)

I’m going edit the post some more there’s info (and pix) about more games and I have gamecock’s website.

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Ok I’ve completed the post.

Hmmm... "Insecticide" looks tempting :)

Yeah it does look cool, too bad though that it’s only scheduled for episodic PC release so far.

They all look cool, but doesn't the girl in the picture for insecticide look familiar to you? i think she looks kind of like jade.

Fascinating hostory. I knew about all those games and G.O.D. and I wondered what happened to it. Now I know, I'm glad they are back. I like their style and philosophy. I'm really curious about that Insecticide-game, by the way. I missed out on the Lucasarts adventures, so I want to see what some of the talent that worked on those classic adventures can do now.

Oh, they can do plenty. Not only they work on Insecticide, they're working - as Telltale Games - on Sam & Max episodes (which will be sold also in stores as Sam & Max: Season 1).

I heard S&M as a whole might also be released on the Wii. That would make my day.

Hmz, I kinda scrolled trough the whole thing, but the images looked cool. And now, reading the other comments here, I should read the whole thing...

How did the timefreeze technique work again?

I got insecticide for christmas, and i think it is really good despite the bad ratings it has. i think it is very clever and each detective part really made me think where the clues are and what they could be. and the gameplay is good too but at times it can get annoying becuase the enemies just won't die and they're gunning you down. but i still think its a great game and it deffinatly reminds me of beyond good and evil especially since chrys makes jokes and can be sarcastic like jade.

I got Mushroom Men just last week.

I looooooove iiiiiit. Love it love it love it. I have been craving a new platformer, and it delivers. While it's nothing revolutionary, it combines a good, solid game with incredible overwhelming style. The character design. The world look. The awesome music. The game is fun, but I LOVE the world.

I think my favorite thing thus far is how every thing in the game--from the bottles and boxes that make up the mushroom people's houses to the walls made of pencils and stuff--are covered in wacky lables and funny names. Like "Angry Unicorn" energy drinks and matchbooks from "Ned's Banjos & Feline Taxidermy."

As for Insecticide, I always thought the girl looked more like Lili from Psychonauts more than anything... XD

I heard Hail to the Chimp got lousy reviews, though. :(

Did you get the Wii or DS version?

Wii. I heard it was the better one, so. ;)