Channel 4's game publishing arm announces first titles

Channel 4 makes video games? It might sound strange, but the British broadcaster has long tinkered with its own TV tie-ins and now wants to help the larger indie game development community. All 4 Games, a dedicated publishing arm set up last year, is now getting ready to launch its first three titles in the first quarter of 2016. These are Fire Fu by British studio RetroFist, Super Arc Light by the Glasgow team No Code and Apestorm: Full Bananas by Finnish developer Snowhound.

Fire Fu, by RetroFist

All 4 Games has a unique proposition because of its broadcaster background. It takes a cut of the game's revenue, but in return it promises heavy promotion across the Channel 4, E4 and All 4 homepages, as well as clickable adverts at the end of catch-up TV. It'll create trailers and feature them on its YouTube videos, while leveraging its Twitter and Facebook accounts for additional exposure. Channel 4 will also try to find a sponsor for the game -- guaranteeing some form of revenue from day one -- and review whether it could be developed into a TV show.

The offer is about more than just sales and marketing expertise, however. Headed by Colin Macdonald, the All 4 Games team also offers advice and feedback on the game itself, business models and platform choices.

Apestorm: Full Bananas, by Snowhound

Whether that's a good deal will depend on the developer and the terms of the revenue share. All 4 Games says it wants to be like Devolver Digital -- the trendy publisher behind Hotline Miami, OlliOlli and Titan Souls -- but first, it needs to deliver some successful games. The sheer volume of apps makes it difficult to stand out on iOS and Android; Channel 4 will be hoping its marketing muscle can help them rise above the competition.