Devolver Digital consistently punches above its weight to crank out hits. luke_winkie reports on how the publisher became the HBO of video games
What makes a Devolver Digital game? I can’t answer that question. Nobody can. Few publishers have managed to score so many miraculous hits while remaining thoroughly un-betrothed to any genre, tone, or trend. Just look at its 2021 catalogue. Last January, Devolver released Loop Hero, a lo-fi sword-and-sorcery spatial puzzle in which players craft progressively more difficult dungeons for their lonely hero to conquer.
Devolver Digital was founded in 2009 by three lifers in the independent-games scene just as the market was drifting away from retail boutiques like GameStop and toward those ethereal, online-only marketplaces like Steam . From the outset, Devolver aimed to elevate promising projects with developer-friendly contracts, which was particularly challenging when small publishers were burdened by the expensive manufacturing costs of discs and cartridges — an anxiety that is almost nonexistent today.
Of course, some of the more avant-garde entries in the Devolver itinerary do end up becoming enormously successful. There is perhaps no better example than Ape Out, a game designed, illustrated, and programmed by the one-man show Gabe Cuzzillo. It’s impossible to describe what Ape Out is. Even Cuzzillo, who bled over the game for five years, struggled to put it into words when I called him on the phone.