It seems like Aggro Crab has some walking around money and wants to put it to good use supporting indie games and developers. The Another Crab’s Treasure developer is pulling an Outersloth, using the windfall it received from creating Peak, one of the biggest indie hits of last year, to spin up its own publishing arm—err… claw—called Aggro Crab Presents.
Aggro Crab Presents is joining a growing club of indie developers that are taking their success and paying it forward. Outersloth is the publishing companion of Innersloth, the makers of Among Us. After Palworld broke numerous Steam records, PocketPair started its own publishing company. In the last few years, more have followed, including the makers of Phasmophobia, and a YouTuber even got in on the wave when videogamedunkey started BigMode.
This trend of indie studios turning publisher is an attempt to respond to the worsening video game labor crisis, demonstrating a more sustainable way publishers can do business. The contracts these new publishers issue tend to be kinder to developers than those they might get elsewhere, ensuring they get to keep more of their game’s profits to hopefully prevent the all-too-familiar story of developers getting laid off as soon a game launches. While they can’t operate on the same scale as an EA or an Activision, the games coming out of these publishing deals are often more unique, focused on the craft and fun of game-making instead of chasing broad appeal.
In the announcement, Aggro Crab Presents wrote that it intends to take a more hands-on approach with the games it signs, becoming part of the development process with one important caveat: “And NO generative AI slop.” It’s already signed its first game too, a precision platformer called Rebounder launching sometime next year.
Man, I remember when I was writing about a neat little game about late-stage capitalism (with funky tunes) made by folks with a bitchin’ name like it was just yesterday. They grow up so fast.
