When Kuju decided to rebrand its studios, each had to choose a focus. Guildford- based Doublesix, named after the dice-roll giving you another go, chose digital downloads for console and PC. Having, prior to rebranding, previously produced boxed title Geometry Wars Galaxies for Wii, the first game under its new moniker will be Burn, Zombie, Burn, an arena-based score-attack shooter. With a South Park project kept tightly under wraps, creative director Jim Mummery tells us what comes next.

EDGE: Are games like Burn, Zombie, Burn the means or the end?
Mummery: It’s our first game. For the next one, we’ll probably do something that expands upon what we do, technically or however. For this one, we wanted something that suited where it was going – a digital download. It had to suit its audience, and sit in a place where we definitely had experience. While we do want to expand, we don’t want to get big. The objective for Doublesix is to become the go-to place for digital downloads, part of which is for people to come to you with their IP and know they’ll get something good out of it. It sounds like a very boring managerial response, but that’s it.

What kinds of offers have you turned down?
We tend to turn down projects that studios like Zoë Mode, for example, would pick up. The mentality and culture of our studio bends a  certain way, and certain games wouldn’t sit comfortably with the people we have.

How precious is that kind of boutique development nowadays?
It’s partly why Kuju rebranded the studios – everyone had to find a focus. The focuses are varied, obviously, not even title-based or platform-based or genre-based. But it gave us  a place to start, and digital downloads are ideal  for a smaller studio. And I guess the advent of XBLA and PSN means that you can be that bedroom coder type of place. When you’re a big company, you end up in a situation where you need to get a project signed, and you’ll pitch a number of things and jump to whichever gets the interest. That’s the random element. We’ll probably make very different games but the philosophy and culture of the studio is continuity.

I’d like to think that small studios can now exist much more easily than at the advent of the current gen. The team size we have now is what we used to have on PS1 or Saturn – and that’s a good size for making things interesting. But we’ve had cycles in the past where in  order to survive you need to be putting out a  big title. Digital download’s not always going to be small games; suddenly, you’re going to get things that are almost competing with AAA  titles. And when those start edging into the market, are people still going to buy Geometry Wars and Burn, Zombie, Burn? I’d like to think so, but we’ll see.

Will movie licences change the landscape?
The film stuff’s interesting. We used to be sent scripts for things like Fortress 2 and Tank Girl, and these weren’t huge movies. These days, games are made for the summer blockbusters.  But you can also make a smaller game that looks next-gen and doesn’t harm the impact of the movie. The same goes for smaller TV shows or toy lines. Whether you need to is another matter, but it does free up a place in the market.

How fair is the revenue structure for digital downloads now?
We’re very pragmatic in terms of how we deal with it. We generally offer to work on a varying stream – so depending on who we’re working for we might take something that’s heavily royalty-based, where we share the cost of the product.  Or we work for hire, which is something we can do because of the reduced costs. Each title has its own schemes for paying developers and publishers, and digital downloads certainly offer the most flexibility.

But there’s always that risk of the younger studio taking on too much work…
I’ve seen it in every company I’ve worked for – you see these patterns of expansion and compression. Some companies are meant to expand; the problem’s the speed of it. You need stability. As a digital download studio, though, we have to take on more and look for more as our project times are shorter. And even those aren’t guaranteed. Look at the whole Vivendi and Blizzard thing – unforeseen things do happen. This is not a secure industry.

How much autonomy do you enjoy?
The corporate entity provides convenient aspects for its studios, and having the Kuju name is helpful. We’re not really a virgin start-up that has to struggle. Kuju naturally has an interest in what its studios do, but that’s mostly about the quality: whether you’re marketing things right, whether the platform SKU is right, whether you’re dealing with the publisher well. It doesn’t affect the type of game we want to make.