Raw Fury 10th Anniversary — An Interview with CEO Pim Holfve

Of course! My name is Pim Holfve, and I am the CEO of Raw Fury.

No, I actually joined seven months ago, so I came in right on time to celebrate the 10th anniversary. The company was founded by Jonas Antonsson, Gordon Van Dyke, and David Martinez back in 2015.

So, I am celebrating 20 years working in the game industry this year. I made my first game in 1985 on the Commodore 64. In college, I started studying art because I thought I was going to be a great artist… until I realised I was not that good. Once I landed on that thought, my vision was to one day start a creative house like Andy Warhol's The Factory or The Bauhaus. It was not until I was the CEO of Avalanche Studios (the developer behind the Just Cause franchise and Rage 2, for example) that I realised how game studios are [basically just that].

I worked in marketing and advertising, and I also worked on games, like one I made for a bank in the 90s. It's been a medium where I've been able to express myself. It was fantastic being able to use [the same skills] in marketing as well! I became the CEO of Avalanche Studios in 2015 and transformed [the studio] from a kind of AAA work-for-hire studio into what became a self-publisher of games. We also had another division working on more experimental, open-world titles.

Well, if we're looking at games, we have about 50 in our portfolio and in terms of people, there are about 60 working for us spread across the globe. The company set out to be remote-friendly from the very start. What else can I say… we're shipping eight games this year, four of which have already been released. And no, I'm not going to disclose how many games we have in production!

Right now, we're trying to measure our capabilities and find the sweet spot for us to be a really good partner for developers, because it's always easy to get carried away. In terms of numbers, I'd say we're the best, #1 games publisher.Some may argue, and I admit I may be a bit biased on that one. What else… I think that covers it.

The House of Fury is meant to be more like a hangout for people, not only employees but also developers. This is currently our only building, though we do have Fury Studios, which used to be a part of Raw Fury, but it's now a separate entity in Croatia (more specifically, it is a sister company to Raw Fury along with Kakehashi in Japan, and Neon Doctrine in Taiwan, all existing under Combined Effect). While we have some rented office spaces for our team members abroad, I'd say Raw Fury is not really a physical place but more like a state of mind.

Ok, this is going to be a long answer. I've known the founder of the company, Jonas, for a very long time, and I've played a lot of games over the years; I'm actually replaying all of them currently to understand more about them. When I started in November, I was like, "there needs to be a common thread between the games". The actual core thread I found was the passion from the team to work with the developers, and the feeling of a game needing to see the light of day; it has to end up in the hands of gamers.

I then began looking for more and gathered a team to discuss how we could talk about games, how to cross-pollinate them, in a way. Since we, naturally, want every game, we started looking at them from a "feel" perspective, which turned into one of our core aspects; the game needs to make the player feel something. After having too many, we boiled everything down to four fields.

So we have Feel Good, like a cosy game or an experience that starts as something else but leaves a good feeling afterwards. Then, we have the Feel Smart games, which are puzzlers, like Blue Prince, though it's not only Feel Smart, it's also a Feel Invincible game. When you're stuck on something and frustrated, but then you figure it out, you get the same feeling as playing a first-person shooter or a driving game, that's the third field, Feel Invincible. Then we have Feel Fear. By default, it's a horror game, but it can also be something that causes you to feel scared even after playing the game.

This is how we are currently categorising our games, and it's not only for the sake of me cataloguing everything, but also to give us a language to talk to developers. We can ask, "How do you want the player to feel when they experience your game?" It can also be during play, but it can also be after when they're done playing. It also helps our marketing staff to be able to say, "ok, this is a Feel Fear and Feel Smart game". For example, one of my favourite games, Silent Hill 2, would be categorised [like that]. So, if we have that information, we can help the developer connect their game with the right players. We are not game makers, we are game enablers.

To summarise our core threads: there needs to be a passionate team that [wants] to say something and make players feel things; we need to have the people internally who are really passionate about the game, and we will sign it. It's not like we're experts on I don't know, puzzle games or something, we're a passion-driven company, and so is our portfolio.

I do not have a favourite; that's like asking me which one of my kids I like the most! Right now, our current portfolio feels more like my step-kids, but I'm close to them and getting closer every day. The politically correct answer is that the portfolio is my favourite.

Well, the cool thing about this company is that everyone comes together before a release. It might not be unique, as this is my first pure publishing experience, having only done self-publishing before, but it's really a testament to what a team we have here. It's not like we have one handful of people working on one game and they're shipping [their own title], everyone cares and is ready to chip in.

I have a background in sports, ice hockey, of course, but also in bands, which is why I love teamwork. I understand and I thrive in an environment where everyone knows how they contribute and they're willing to go that extra mile to help out. Other than that… well, I think we're really good at releasing games.

Primarily bass, though I do dabble with guitar. I'm currently trying to learn how to play the banjo!

I think the important thing for us is to show their passion, which I don't think is unique to us. When you're pitching your game to a publisher, if you can really show the excitement from the team that is not just "we're making this to make money" but "we want this to happen because", while also putting it into the perspective of the player.

This helps me understand what you're trying to achieve. I think many developers have a tendency to reference other games, which is great when putting it on a competitive landscape or when planning marketing, but we really need to understand why they built [the game] in the first place and how we can help them realise that. We don't want just to ship a game; we go into a project as a 50-50 partnership.

The main goal is to be recognised as the world's best partner to indie developers. This doesn't mean we'd just be the best partner for developers, but we'd also have to be stellar partners with all the platforms that exist and any other person or company that is pulled into the creation and the release of a game.I think we're well on our way. We usually rank pretty high on MetaCritics' annual rankings, which shows we're good at signing games, and we're good at forming relationships. We can always improve, however.

Well, let's see…nothing besides Raw Fury being the greatest publisher in the world… no, I think we covered everything!

Uuuh… nope! I couldn't art myself out of a barn. I'm not a game maker anymore, I'm a game enabler.