Film and TV production firm Phiphen launches games publisher

Phiphen, a US-based film and TV production company, is breaking into the video games sector with a new publishing business, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal.

Phiphen Games will be run by Molly Conners, who is also the CEO and founder of Phiphen, who told us the movie firm has previously invested in selected games projects in the past and was keen to do something more in the space.

"We realized that there are a lot of similarities in the way the games and film industries work, and we found that we could bring a lot of our experience in film and project management to game developers," she said.

"By applying a very similar model to games as we do with our film projects, we can help them to launch their games successfully while still retaining a fair and equitable stake in their intelectual property."

Phiphen has primarily worked on independent film and TV, but some of the projects it has been involved with have some big names attached; last year's drama Daddio starred Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson, and the company has contributed to Wish You Were Here, the directional debut for actress Julia Stiles.

Conners is confident that the experience Phiphen has gained through working on various films and TV series will help it contend with the challenges of bringing new video games to market.

"Film is very fast paced, so adhering to timelines and budgets is crucial in order to release on time while properly balancing both creative (the film’s writer/creator) and business (the project investors)," she explained.

"Our experience in running these projects, releasing on time, respecting the art and satisfying investors has built a reputation for us that we can transfer directly to games. We’ve built a great extended team of games industry veterans to help with this. Additionally, we have the unique ability to look at projects with transmedia potential right out of the gate and include that in our plan if it’s a good fit."

Phiphen Games' debut title will be Ruffy and the Riverside, a quirky 3D puzzle platformer by German developer Zockrates Labs. This title enables players to swap textures of any object in the game – for example, turning a waterfall into vines that can be climbed – and will be released for PC and consoles in early 2025.

Conners added that this is not necessarily indicative of the type of games Phiphen will publish – as with its film projects, the company will evaluate each project on a case-by-case basis.

She also emphasised that, while Phiphen Games has yet to decide how many titles it hopes to launch per year, the new publisher will be "selective and... not just be a publishing factory that spits out as many games as possible and hopes for a winner."