Well well well, what do we have here then? A bunch of developers seem to have joined up for something called The Triple-i Initiative that could be quite exciting.
This was stealthily teased today that I spotted the Vampire Survivor account on X posting about, with nothing other than an eyes emoji pointing to The Triple-i Initiative website. The website also doesn't really give much away either noting simply that it's:
A mysterious teasing page by the studios behind...
Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain, Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors, V Rising & many others
With a countdown timer to a new announcement due in just over 16 days.
Doing a bit of digging on X there really is a lot of developers and publishers involved in this including others you may recognise like Evil Empire (prev worked on Dead Cells), Fellow Traveller (publisher), Humble Games (publisher), Fireshine Games (publisher), Dotemu (Streets of Rage 4), Thunder Lotus (Spiritfarer), Thorium (UnderMine), Pathea Games (My Time at Sandrock), Matt Dabrowski (Streets of Rogue) and the list goes on and on…
And then there's the new official X account for The Triple-i Initiative that posted how this has been "In the works for months, coming to you in days.". Curious.
Hmm. What could this be? A game that they're all part of somehow? A special indie game publisher? A game bundle? A new marketing push for indie games but not specifically a publisher? Something else entirely? A few months isn't a lot of time to prepare a new game, especially with so many involved, so I doubt it's that.
Over to you in the comments, what do you think will be announced? Go on, give it your best shot.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: MistermattIf we take for granted there is some "i" for indie, I wonder why Risk of Rain is associated with that, given that the IP is now owned by Gearbox…I think they meant Hopoo Games as they said studios behind them and as Hopoo made Risk of Rain not Gearbox (Including Returns).
Quoting: Linux_RocksWhat if it's actually good though? I mean, the Pizza Tower devs added their character to Rivals of Aether via the Steam Workshop.Unfortunately, that's precisely what I mean by ill-meshing.
The entire point of Rivals of Aether is that the characters and world aren't human - it was the focal point of the lore and roster, and was why, for a long time, a running joke was that a car from Rocket League would be added next, taking the pee out of unfitting crossovers that throw in everything under the sun in the process. 
Linux_Rocks Mar 12
Quoting: PenglingBut Daytona Car in Fighters Megamix though!Quoting: Linux_RocksWhat if it's actually good though? I mean, the Pizza Tower devs added their character to Rivals of Aether via the Steam Workshop.Unfortunately, that's precisely what I mean by ill-meshing.
Quoting: Linux_RocksBut Daytona Car in Fighters Megamix though!I'll grant you that one, that's a classic!
Quoting: MistermattIf we take for granted there is some "i" for indie, I wonder why Risk of Rain is associated with that, given that the IP is now owned by Gearbox…
The Studio, Hopoo games, sold the IP Risk of Rain along with these titles to Gearbox. The studio is still totally independent, but outside of Risk of Rain (Risk of Rain 2 and Risk of Rain Returns) they also made the game deadbolt which is a much smaller project than Risk of Rain 2.
I believe Hopoo sold the IP partly to have the flexibility to be able to make more games instead of continuing supporting their one IP. I really hope to see them announce another big title within the next few years. But they are still an indie studio if they were before they sold Risk of Rain to Gearbox.
Here is an article discussing the sale of the IP in RockPaperShotgun and reports that the studio still remains independent.
Perhaps this article saying 'the studio behind Risk of Rain' is slightly confusing considering they sold the IP off to Gearbox.
Quoting: JuliusSteam shop alternative for Indie games? Would explain why there are sooo many of them involved.
There's itch.io, you can't get more indie than that.
But ok, let's assume you're right, and by III they imply there will be only the best indie games (like AAA from big studios).
Don't we already have gog and epic who curate games? Or humble to some extent?
So, like GOG and Epic minus the most popular (AAA) games? Sounds like a plan.
They probably think they can save big on commissions, without thinking much of the operational costs.
Eh... we'll see.
Last edited by pb on 12 March 2024 at 9:28 pm UTC
Interestingly the term III and Triple-I were just added to the Triple-A Wikipedia page a few months ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry)
So I'm guessing it's a super-studio that will allow the various indie studios to collaborate on a bigger budget game while maintaining their individual indie-ness.
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