A crew of business veterans behind Minecraft, Valheim and Deep Rock Galactic have launched the indie writer Three Associates.
It’s a small crew, however they’ve been right here earlier than and it’s like they’re going full circle again to the times when their massive firm was a small firm.
The Stockholm, Sweden-based indie writer focuses on partnering with small Nordic groups, notably in Sweden. The identify is a bit out of date already because it has really been cofounded by 4 individuals: Albert Säfström, Daniel Kaplan, Sebastian Badylak and Johan Hermeren, Three Associates assist builders refine their imaginative and prescient and core mechanics, making certain their recreation is each creatively sturdy and commercially viable.
Going small
Albert Säfström is cofounder of Three Associates.
With a small crew, the corporate can spend extra time on every undertaking. Fairly than pray and spray, the crew is making an attempt to make every undertaking into successful.
“We’re hoping that our hit rate will be higher than someone with a portfolio strategy,” Säfström mentioned. “We are a lot more picky.”
“There’s no secret trick to making a great game—it’s not about one big idea, but about addressing thousands of small questions along the way,” mentioned Säfström, cofounder and producer at Three Associates, in a press release. “The right choices at the right time add up, shaping the final experience. We work closely with developers to create an environment where ideas can mature without drifting off course, helping teams focus their efforts and make the most of their time and resources.”
Three Associates isn’t about signing as many video games as doable—it’s about making each rely. By working intently with a choose few groups, they guarantee each undertaking will get hands-on help, long-term funding, and the strategic steerage wanted to succeed. Partnering early, they assist builders refine concepts, sharpen mechanics, and create one thing actually particular.
As for the difficulties that Matthew Ball identified in his slide deck, Säfström mentioned, “I think the industry as a whole overextended during Covid. And we’re still seeing the consequences of that. People assumed all of the growth curves would continue to extend upward and to the right, as they did during Covid. We’re seeing the aftermath of that right now.”
“It feels like we have gone back to the time before Covid,” Kaplan mentioned.
Säfström mentioned, “It’s not a surprise that the games that have been succeeding are excellent experiences. For us, with the situation we are in, it allows us to spend more time on each project. It’s about trying not to care about the weekly trends in the market. A good game shouldn’t care about the underling trends. A good game should survive in any market.”
“It’s easier for us because we are financing smaller developers and we can sustain small teams for a long time,” Kaplan mentioned.
“Publishing is always more attractive since we believe we can contribute a lot in terms of the game production side of things,” Kaplan mentioned. “One of the reasons why we quit our other jobs was because we ended up becoming a bigger company. We were just watching when everyone else was doing cool stuff. We wanted to get more involved in the into the making of the cool stuff. And it’s harder to be so direct and so involved when you’re at the big company. It feels like we have gone back five or six years and tried to build tiny Coffee Stain again.”
Publishing mannequin
Sebastian Badylak is cofounder of Three Associates.
Three Associates’ publishing mannequin is constructed on three key ideas:
Get in Early, Construct it Proper – One of the best video games begin with a powerful basis. Three Associates associate with builders early to refine their imaginative and prescient and set them up for fulfillment.
Choose the Proper Battles – Indie groups don’t have the assets of triple-A studios. Three Associates assist them concentrate on what actually makes their recreation stand out—like selecting the important survival objects for a abandoned island.
Steering, Not Management – Nice video games want artistic imaginative and prescient. Three Associates work intently with builders, playtesting alongside them and offering insights—with out taking the reins.
“We don’t believe in rushing a game to market or throwing money at problems,” mentioned Kaplan, cofounder and Producer at Three Associates, in a press release. “Some of the best indie games–like Valheim and Deep Rock Galactic–took the time to refine their core gameplay before scaling up. That’s why we partner with developers early, helping them figure out what makes their game special so they can double down on what works.”
Three Associates has a crew of 4.
With a long time of expertise supporting indie studios, Three Associates understands the challenges of bringing an impartial recreation to market. Their hands-on method, mixed with a deep understanding of the indie panorama, ensures that builders not solely obtain funding but in addition the strategic help wanted to navigate the complicated path from idea to launch.
Three Associates will start revealing its first signed titles in spring 2025. For extra data, you’ll be able to comply with Three Associates on LinkedIn or go to the official web site right here.
The corporate has signed with six small groups to date, 5 in Sweden and one within the U.S. The hope is to launch and reveal the primary title this yr.
Origins
Daniel Kaplan is cofounder of Three Associates.
Three Associates is a boutique indie writer based by business veterans behind Minecraft, Valheim, and Deep Rock Galactic. Based mostly in Sweden, they concentrate on serving to primarily Swedish and Nordic builders flip sturdy concepts into standout video games by offering hands-on steerage, monetary backing, and a gameplay-first method to publishing.
By partnering with groups early in growth, Three Associates ensures they’ve the time, assets, and help wanted to convey their imaginative and prescient to life.
“We’re small in the publisher based in Sweden. And we’re actually, we’re actually four people who are running this Three Friends venture,” Säfström mentioned. “I used to run Coffee Stain Publishing, and we started Coffee Stain Publishing in 2016 until the end of 2022 when we when we started Three Friends.”
Kaplan works as producer and enterprise developer. He was previously the CEO of Souvenir Video games and was additionally at Espresso Stain firstly. He left in 2021 and began Souvenir Video games, a small indie recreation firm in Stockholm.
Badylak was additionally at Espresso Stain from the start and left simply earlier than the crew began Three Associates. The corporate has a personal investor however it isn’t but disclosing who that’s.
“We believe that with our background, there is room to focus on these smaller projects where we could be very picky about the projects that we take on and then work a lot closer with the projects than many other publishers,” Säfström mentioned.
He mentioned the crew doesn’t essentially consider it’s sitting on an enormous perception. Fairly, they know that making an excellent recreation takes numerous effort and time.
“We want to give our teams the ability to explore or cook their game, to make something really special,” Säfström mentioned. “It’s also not about one person coming with this one silver bullet idea that takes a project from good to great. It’s about the accumulation of making pretty good decisions consistently over time. You know the really boring answer is you should get eight hours of sleep, drink lots of water, eat your vegetables and go for a walk. That kind of mentality to making games — and to us, that means that we’re heavily involved — and we help our teams explore the vision of the games that they’re trying to make.”
Badylak added, “It’s super important to us that it’s still them making their own games, but we act as checks and balances and and someone to bounce ideas off to see that we can find the best version of of the game that they want to make.”
The corporate will concentrate on the Swedish and nice Nordic markets when it comes to groups. But when it finds an awesome recreation, it’ll work with that crew no matter the place it’s. The founders have traditionally had numerous success in Steam Early Entry, they usually know the Steam platform nicely.
“So we’re focusing on on games that would thrive in that Steam Early Access market,” Badylak mentioned. “So we’re not focused on consoles or mobile or blockchain or etc, any of that space.”
Säfström mentioned the corporate could launch its video games on the consoles too, however the PC is the first goal. It’s much less prone to be engaged on cell video games.
Chasing developments? Nope.
The crew isn’t categorically against blockchain, however they’re centered on gameplay first they usually haven’t seen any pitches to date the place blockchain is a crucial part.
“Most of the times it feels like it’s someone chasing a trend. That’s not something we’ve done. We have not seen any features where blockchain has been integrated in a way where it enhances the game,” Kaplan mentioned.
Säfström added, “We have seen nothing there that excites us in blockchain.”
AI recreation growth?
As for AI-powered video games, Kaplan mentioned the crew is hesitant. A celebrity developer could get higher with AI instruments. However a mediocre developer may not profit a lot. If instruments turn into good at enhancing productiveness, it makes the small crew higher and much more choosy. However it’s nonetheless early days in AI instruments making a distinction in productiveness, Säfström mentioned.
“There’s a lot of people in the industry who are scared about the jobs being taken away,” Kaplan mentioned. “We’re in a position where people can try out these different models and find mistakes. We work with really small teams and we pride ourselves on being quite scrappy. If we can find a really good tool that can help us, where it’s for the betterment of the game, we believe that at the end of the day, it’s about what the players experience when they play the game that’s going to make the difference. It’s not something that we’re doing for the sake of doing it.”
“We’re quite pragmatic in that sense. Whatever improves the player experience — that’s something we will definitely evaluate,” Säfström mentioned. “We come from a PC background.”
“We’re also trying to look ahead. We see these really powerful engines, for instance, being able to render photorealistic scenes. Imagine being able to do this with a with a really small team,” Säfström mentioned. “But the me today is like thinking two or three years ahead, thinking that like this will just raise the bar, and so like being a nice looking game will not be that big of a differentiating factor in a year or two. And so we believe that the core gameplay being strong is even more important.”
On the query of AI, Säfström mentioned smaller groups will be capable of use it very inexpensively to discover numerous ideas with agility.
“That’s such a like an advantage that we have because. If you know the meme, if you have a symphony orchestra and one person can play this piece by Mozart in three minutes. How long does it take foe a symphony orchestra? Well, it takes the same amount of time. If you have a really big team, it becomes so prohibitively expensive to do this exploration. So you kind of default back to what’s proven and our size allows us to explore a lot more and hopefully find some interesting new ground.”
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