Super Rare Games launches indie publishing label Super Rare Originals

Super Rare Games has launched a publishing label, set up to provide independent developers an avenue to launch their games.

The label, titled Super Rare Originals, has already signed a handful of titles, including Grapple Dog, Completely Stretchy, Lone Ruin, The Gecko Gods and Post Void.

The company also recently hired Curve Digital founder Jason Perkins, as well as an internal producer and a QA team to work with the label. With new staff on board and experience across multiple disciplines, Super Rare hopes to offer a full-fledged and completely bespoke publishing option for indies.

When asked about why now felt like a good time to unveil a publishing arm, Super Rare's head of words Ryan Brown tells us that the firm identified a space in the market to launch a label that is "truly indie-first focused."

"Super Rare's mission statement has always been about supporting indies, and we see original games publishing as the next logical step for us," the company's head of words Ryan Brown tells us.

"Super Rare's mission statement has always been about supporting indies, and we see original games publishing as the next logical step for us"

"We're in a really good, stable place with our core Super Rare Games physical business at the moment, and if I'm honest we just really want to be able to be even closer to games on the development side."

Brown also highlights that Super Rare wants to help "rebuild the power dynamics in indie publishing to be in the developer's favour", and improve the ecosystem around games publishing.

While Super Rare Originals is not the first label to hone in on supporting indies specifically, the company does emphasise its love for bigging up smaller titles that otherwise may not get seen.

"If we're pitching for a game, it's because we personally really love the game and want to work from it, not just from a business view," Brown says.

"We signed Grapple Dog [and] The Gecko Gods not just because we think they have an audience and will do well commercially, but because we really love them, want to play it, and thought it'd be amazing if we could work on a game that we seriously love. We only work on games we ourselves can't wait to play."

Super Rare plans to support the development of the titles it brings on board, regardless of where it is in its production cycle at the time of the signing. This includes funding for initial development as well as future ports, QA and marketing.

"We're in the fortunate and unique position of being sustainable with our Super Rare Games physical releases and currently, we're able to use those funds to develop and publish new titles," Brown said.

"There's obviously much greater costs and resources involved with Originals than our physical release setup, so of course the hope is that Originals titles will themselves be profitable and sustain us reinvesting into brand new projects."

While sustainability is of course a factor in future-proofing the label and the company, Brown assures that financial reward is not the primary motivator for Super Rare.

"Our stable physical business pays our wage, and we're not motivated by becoming rich," he says. "All we've ever wanted was to work in games and we're fulfilled by working on stuff we're proud of. We're proud of every game we've signed and believe we have what it takes to make them roaring successes, but even if a game didn't, we'll still be there supporting the developer long-term.

"Our goal is to really highlight our indie developer friends and help make their brilliant games a success for them."