Humble Bundle general manager and executive vice president Alan Patmore has revealed that Humble Games is considering the possibility of acquiring studios and developing its own games in the future.

Humble Games is a popular digital storefront that offers games across various platforms, including mobile. The company is famously known for its Humble Bundle, which allows users to purchase bundled items and choose how much they want to pay, with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity of their choice. To date, Humble Bundle has raised over $240 million for charitable causes.

In an interview with Game Developer, Patmore explained that while the company is currently focused on its existing partners and acquiring new intellectual properties (IPs) on a case-by-case basis, it is open to venturing into first-party game development in the future.

“It has to be that we’re investing in a product that has franchise potential,” said Patmore. “Ideally we’d be expanding and building off some of our core franchises. Wizard of Legend 2 is the tip of the spear of that initiative.

“So, we’re looking at continued IP acquisition and then we also want to move a little bit more upmarket—which means investing in higher quality products if it makes sense from a game perspective.”

Patmore also mentioned the possibility of studio acquisitions, stating that it makes economic sense for the company. Currently, Humble Games engages in second-party development, where they own the IP and collaborate with external developers to create the games. However, owning a studio would be the natural evolution of this model.

Although Humble Games has primarily focused on PC games in the past, it also offers a variety of mobile titles. Considering that mobile gaming is highly accessible and offers lower production costs and quicker turnover compared to console or PC development, it seems likely that Humble Games may explore mobile acquisitions and develop in-house mobile titles.

Industry giants like Netflix are targeting mobile as their initial foray into the gaming space, recognizing its potential for new revenue streams. This aligns with Humble Games’ long-term vision of eventually engaging in first-party game development.

“The overall long-term vision is to eventually have first-party development. We look at our history and our arc, and it started with the principles of being a dev-first publisher. Then we built out our services so we could become a full life-cycle publisher. We’ve gone through that, and now we’re focused on IP acquisition,” said Patmore.

“So, we’ve started acquiring IP and working on second-party projects, and the next part of that evolution is first-party. So yeah, it’s all part of our roadmap.”

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