ThatGameCompany
CompanyUnited States · Founded 2006
ThatGameCompany is an American independent video game development studio co-founded by University of Southern California students Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen in 2006
Connections
Each row is a game or company named alongside ThatGameCompany, each column a document, oldest first. A mark means that document names it. Select a row to see those documents.
About the company
- Founded
- 2006
- Country
- United States
Company data from IGDB.com
Documents about ThatGameCompany
Procedural Feminism Through Game Design: Towards an Analytical Framework for Situating Games as Feminist Artefacts
The SPIRAL framework serves as a novel analytical tool designed to evaluate digital games as feminist artifacts, moving beyond simple representational analysis to examine how game mechanics and systems encode ideological values.
- The SPIRAL framework is introduced as an analytical tool to evaluate how digital games function as feminist artefacts by tracing how values are embedded within design systems.
- The framework extends the traditional MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) model by incorporating feminist ethics, affect theory, and decolonial epistemologies to assess the ethical depth of game systems.
- The analysis emphasizes that visibility and representation alone do not guarantee equity, warning that such approaches can often slide into tokenism or reinforce normative assumptions.
The New Money Behind Indie Games
Successful indie developers are increasingly turning hit-game profits into publishing and funding arms for other studios' projects.
- Successful independent studios like Innersloth, Landfall, and Kinetic Games are using profits from breakout hits to fund other developers, effectively bypassing traditional publishing bottlenecks.
- The venture capital boom for gaming has collapsed, with annual investment falling from a $12.5B peak in 2020–2022 to below $2.5B by 2024 as capital shifts toward AI.
- New developer-led publishing labels are prioritizing flexible, developer-friendly terms and smaller project budgets, typically ranging from $500,000 to $1M per title.
Slow Gaming: Applying Slow Movement to Post-anthropocentric Play
This paper introduces "slow gaming," an approach to play that draws on the broader slow movement, which champions mindful, sustainable alternatives to fast, consumption-driven life.
- Slow gaming applies the broader slow movement's ethos of mindful, sustainable pacing to play, resisting the speed, efficiency, and constant progression expected of contemporary media.
- The paper's central analysis compares Journey (2012) and Stray (2022) as two games depicting post-human worlds, using them to test how slow play operates in practice.
- Journey is presented as an example of coherent coziness, where visual harmony, fluid movement, and minimal conflict sustain a near-meditative atmosphere.
Cultivating a Culture of Experimentation
Conventional "innovation culture" programs such as 20% time, hackathons, and motivational posters are largely decoration.
- Original game studios like FromSoftware, Klei, and Supergiant cultivate innovation through six mutually reinforcing conditions, rather than superficial programs like hackathons or 'creative time'.
- Studio independence is a structural precondition for innovation, allowing studios to kill prototypes, change major systems, or extend production cycles without publisher pressure, as seen with FromSoftware's early Souls games and Klei's self-funded period until 2021.
- Consistently original studios tend to maintain small, clearly led teams (e.g., Klei had 11 people in 2009, House House made Untitled Goose Game with 4), defending against growth to minimize coordination overhead and allow teams to 'hold the game in their heads'.
Part II: Gaming's Emotional Blind Spot: Jenova Chen's Strategy Behind Making Journey and Sky
The gaming industry is currently undergoing a period of consolidation characterized by a trend toward the Hollywoodification of content, where market dominance is increasingly concentrated in low-risk, established intellectual properties.
- Jenova Chen aims to evolve 'Sky: Children of the Light' from a three-quadrant experience into a four-quadrant product that appeals to all demographics, similar to Pixar or Disney films, by moving beyond traditional adventure-focused gameplay.
- By replacing predatory virtual currencies and loot boxes with a direct gifting-based monetization model, thatgamecompany achieved a 3x increase in purchase volume compared to standard conversion rates.
- The viral growth of 'Sky' was driven organically by a core community of Japanese female players who created fan art, demonstrating that high-quality social sharing features—such as UI-free video recording—can fuel user acquisition without traditional marketing spend.
Part I: Gaming's Emotional Blind Spot: Jenova Chen's Strategy Behind Making Journey and Sky
The gaming industry remains constrained by an emotional blind spot, primarily catering to a core male demographic through violent, action-oriented mechanics while neglecting the potential for romance, drama, and social simulation.
- The gaming industry suffers from an emotional blind spot by over-relying on violent, action-oriented mechanics that cater to a core male demographic while neglecting potential players like women and older adults.
- Game development should be treated as an emotional business that prioritizes satisfying specific psychological cravings and human connection over traditional genre conventions and high scores.
- Drawing from film theory, developers can bridge the gap between storytelling and gameplay by focusing on authentic, personal emotions rather than competitive mechanics.
Epic's Surprise $520m FTC Penalty: Let's Talk Dark Patterns
The document analyzes the U.S.
- The FTC imposed a record $520 million penalty on Epic Games, consisting of $275 million for COPPA violations and $245 million for consumer refunds related to deceptive UX design.
- Epic Games violated federal law by failing to obtain parental consent for players under 13 and defaulting minors into open voice and text chat settings.
- The FTC identified 'dark patterns'—including counterintuitive button layouts and one-click purchase flows—as the primary drivers for unauthorized consumer charges.
Sky Children of Light developer thatgamecompany gets $160 million dollars!
ThatGameCompany, the developer behind titles such as Journey and Sky: Children of the Light, has secured $160 million in a new funding round led by venture capital firms TPG and Sequoia.
- ThatGamecompany has secured $160 million in a new funding round led by venture capital firms TPG and Sequoia.
- The studio will use the capital to expand its development team, infrastructure, and organizational capacity to support future projects.
- Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull has joined the studio as a principal advisor to provide guidance on creative culture and long-term growth.
