Graphics are a great way to share information. Breaking down large text blocks or sheets of data makes the information easily digestible. Because the information is easier to understand, businesses and individuals are able to reach a wider audience.

A la Bourse de New York, le 10 juin 2025. RICHARD DREW / AP En 1973, Burton Malkiel, un professeur à l’université Stanford (Californie), avait fait polémique en affirmant qu’un singe avec un bandeau sur les yeux lançant des fléchettes sur les pages d’un journal financier sélectionnerait un portefeuille d’actions « aussi bon » que celui soigneusement choisi par des experts. Le test a été tenté. Il s’avéra que M. Malkiel avait tort : les singes étaient meilleurs. Cinquante ans après, la question désormais est de savoir si les robots peuvent battre les loups de Wall Street. Lire aussi | Article réservé à nos abonnés Dans les banques, la marche à pas comptés vers l’IA générative Stanford a la réponse. Un article paru lundi 9 juin sur le site de l’université relate que des chercheurs ont entraîné sur des données de marchés allant de 1980 à 1990 un modèle prédictif d’investissement. Puis, ils lui ont demandé de recomposer les portefeuilles de 3 300 fonds communs de placement en actions américaines entre 1990 et 2020. Verdict : l’intelligence artificielle (IA) a écrasé 93 % des gérants, obtenant des performances en moyenne six fois supérieures. Pas étonnant que l’industrie de la gestion d’actifs mette les bouchées doubles sur la technologie. Selon Bloomberg, BlackRock a révélé, jeudi 12 juin, avoir bâti une « IA analyste » sur les actions, baptisée « Asimov », du nom de l’auteur de science-fiction fasciné par la relation entre l’humain et les robots. « Pendant que tout le monde dort la nuit, ces agents d’intelligence artificielle balayent les notes de recherche, les dépôts de documents des entreprises, les courriels », a expliqué Rob Goldstein, le responsable des opérations du premier gestionnaire d’actifs mondial. Il vous reste 41.24% de cet article à lire. La suite est réservée aux abonnés.

Doors (2022) Christian Marclay Institute of Contemporary Art Boston Through September 1, 2025Brooklyn Museum Through April 12, 2026On the screen, a movie clip plays of a character entering through a door to leave out another. It cuts to another clip of someone else doing the same thing over and over, all sourced from a panoply of Western cinema. The audience, sitting for an unknown amount of time, watches this shape-shifting protagonist from different cultural periods come and go, as the film endlessly loops. So goes Christian Marclay’s latest single-channel film, Doors (2022), currently exhibited for the first time in the United States at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. (It also premieres June 13 at the Brooklyn Museum and will run through April 12, 2026). Assembled over ten years, the film is a dizzying feat, a carefully crafted montage of film clips revolving around the simple premise of someone entering through a door and then leaving out a door. In the exhibition, Marclay writes, “Doors are fascinating objects, rich with symbolism.” Here, he shows hundreds of them, examining through film how the simple act of moving through a threshold multiplied endlessly creates a profoundly new reading of what said threshold signifies. On paper, this may sound like an extremely jarring experience. But Marclay—a visual artist, composer, and DJ whose previous works such as The Clock (2010) involved similar mega-montages of disparate film clips—has a sensitive touch. The sequences feel incredibly smooth, the montage carefully constructed to mimic continuity as closely as possible. This is even more impressive when one imagines the constraints that a door’s movement offers; it must open and close a certain direction, with particular types of hinges or means of swinging. It makes the seamlessness of the film all the more fascinating to dissect. When a tiny wooden doorframe cuts to a large double steel door, my brain had no issue at all registering a sense of continued motion through the frame—a form of cinematic magic. Christian Marclay, Doors (still), 2022. Single-channel video projection (color and black-and-white; 55:00 minutes on continuous loop). Watching the clips, there seemed to be no discernible meta narrative—simply movement through doors. Nevertheless, Marclay is a master of controlling tone. Though the relentlessness of watching the loops does create an overall feeling of tension that the film is clearly playing on, there are often moments of levity that interrupt, giving visitors a chance to breathe. The pacing too, swings from a person rushing in and out, to a slow stroll between doors in a corridor. It leaves one musing on just how ubiquitous this simple action is, and how mutable these simple acts of pulling a door and stepping inside can be. Sometimes mundane, sometimes thrilling, sometimes in anticipation, sometimes in search—Doors invites us to reflect on our own interaction with these objects, and with the very act of stepping through a doorframe. Much of the experience rests on the soundscape and music, which is equally—if not more heavily—important in creating the transition across clips. Marclay’s previous work leaned heavily on his interest in aural media; this added dimension only enriches Doors and elevates it beyond a formal visual study of clips that match each other. The film bleeds music from one scene to another, sometimes prematurely, to make believable the movement of one character across multiple movies. This overlap of sounds is essentially an echo of the space we left behind and are entering into. We as the audience almost believe—even if just for a second—that the transition is real. The effect is powerful and calls to mind several references. No doubt Doors owes some degree of inspiration to the lineage of surrealist art, perhaps in the work of Magritte or Duchamp. For those steeped in architecture, one may think of Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts, where his transcriptions of events, spaces, and movements similarly both shatter and call to attention simple spatial sequences. One may also be reminded of the work of Situationist International, particularly the psychogeography of Guy Debord. I confess that my first thought was the (in my view) equally famous door-chase scene in Monsters, Inc. But regardless of what corollaries one may conjure, Doors has a wholly unique feel. It is simplistic and singular in constructing its webbed world. Installation view, Christian Marclay: Doors, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2025. (Mel Taing) But what exactly are we to take away from this world? In an interview with Artforum, Marclay declares, “I’m building in people’s minds an architecture in which to get lost.” The clip evokes a certain act of labyrinthian mapping—or perhaps a mode of perpetual resetting. I began to imagine this almost as a non-Euclidean enfilade of sorts where each room invites you to quickly grasp a new environment and then very quickly anticipate what may be in the next. With the understanding that you can’t backtrack, and the unpredictability of the next door taking you anywhere, the film holds you in total suspense. The production of new spaces and new architecture is activated all at once in the moment someone steps into a new doorway. All of this is without even mentioning the chosen films themselves. There is a degree to which the pop-culture element of Marclay’s work makes certain moments click—I can’t help but laugh as I watch Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love exit a door and emerge as Bette Davis in All About Eve. But to a degree, I also see the references being secondary, and certainly unneeded to understand the visceral experience Marclay crafts. It helps that, aside from a couple of jarring character movements or one-off spoken jokes, the movement is repetitive and universal. Doors runs on a continuous loop. I sat watching for just under an hour before convincing myself that I would never find any appropriate or correct time to leave. Instead, I could sit endlessly and reflect on each character movement, each new reveal of a room. Is the door the most important architectural element in creating space? Marclay makes a strong case for it with this piece. Harish Krishnamoorthy is an architectural and urban designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Bangalore, India. He is an editor at PAIRS.

Image: NintendoNintendo mentioned how there were all sorts of surprises to discover in Mario Kart World and a week after the game's launch it looks like Totaka's Song has been discovered. As highlighted on social media and elsewhere online (via Nintendo Everything), you can hear Yoshi humming this Nintendo tune in the game's character menu. Here's a story and video shared over on the Mario Kart subreddit by the user 'charizardtelephone': "I was idling on the character select screen when I noticed Mario began humming after enough time passed. I thought, “Huh, they could totally hide hidden tunes like that.” Wait. Hidden music? In a Nintendo game? With Yoshi? It was too good to be true. But after a few seconds, lo and behold, yoshi begins humming Totaka’s song like the idle yoshis do in Mario Kart 8. Very cool Easter Egg. Not sure if anyone else has noticed it yet."When we tried this out ourselves, Yoshi started humming the same song just seconds later. It might also be a bit harder to hear depending on the music playing in the background. This famous song by the Japanese Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka is often slipped into many of company's games. And if you're wondering why it's specifically Yoshi that hums this tune, it's because Totaka also happens to be Yoshi's voice actor, and once again voices the character in Mario Kart World. This Easter Egg has also popped up previously in Mario Kart 8 along with series like Animal Crossing and Zelda, and was inserted into titles such as Mario Paint back in the day. Have a listen Have you heard this tune in Mario Kart World yet? Let us know in the comments. [source nintendoeverything.com] Related Games See Also Share:0 0 Liam is a news writer and reviewer across Hookshot Media. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of many iconic video game characters. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Mario Kart World: All Costume Unlocks & Complete Outfit List It's a fashion race Best Nintendo Switch 2 Cases To Carry And Protect Your Console Look after your Switch 2 in style

Intergalactic Big Rigs Chart Their Course to a New Platform STOCKHOLM – June 4, 2025 – Today, Swedish indie publisher Raw Fury and developer Monster & Monster announced that their interstellar trucking simulator, Star Trucker, is coming to PlayStation 5 on June 10, joining its current availability on PC via Steam and GOG, and Xbox Series X|S.  In addition to the PlayStation 5 launch, a new game update will also deliver several quality of life upgrades and new features to further enhance players’ galaxy-hopping trucking experience. Star Trucker puts an intergalactic twist on the trucking simulation genre by bringing authentic and grounded trucking gameplay to an out-of-this-world setting. Star Trucker invites players to take to the ultimate open road and search for fame and fortune among the stars. Watch the PlayStation announcement trailer here. Press Kit can be found here. In Star Trucker, players tame the most open road of them all – space – in a true Americana-inspired retro sci-fi fashion. Players will be able to explore expansive worlds, overcome the challenges and opportunities with zero-g truck physics, skill up their mastery over hauling different types of goods and upgrade their truck to complete their jobs faster and more efficiently.  Key Features in Star Trucker include: Cruise the hyper highways, taking on a variety of jobs such as fuel-hungry long hauls and hazardous drop-offs to earn cash and unlock new content. Use the galactic map to plan your journey and warp jumps, while keeping an eye on your fuel reserves and power levels. Utilize the fully voiced, interactive CB radio to get the latest gossip from fellow truckers, request docking permissions or send out an SOS, and swing by auto shops to upgrade and improve your truck systems to gain access to new areas. Kick back, crank up the cab hi-fi and cruise to a range of starburst blues, galactic rock and asteroid-influenced Americana, spotlighting unique tracks by acclaimed musicians like Tom Bromley from Los Campesinos!, composer Randall Breneman and more. ABOUT MONSTER & MONSTER Monster and Monster consists of Co-Directors Dan Griffiths and David Fullick. Established in 2011, the studio has developed multiple games, including the star-hopping haulage sim Star Trucker and the award-winning DEEP LOOT, an underwater exploration game that surpassed three million downloads across iOS and Android platforms. Studio: www.monsterandmonster.com  Twitter: @BaronVonMonster ABOUT RAW FURY Raw Fury is an indie (un)publisher dedicated to connecting games with players by creating unforgettable experiences. With over 50 games published, including the Kingdom series, Blue Prince, Cassette Beasts, Norco, and Sable, Raw Fury has been consistently recognised as a top 10 publisher in Metacritic’s annual rankings. With an unwavering commitment to being the best partner for indie developers, Raw Fury continues to champion unique games and bring exceptional experiences to players worldwide. Web: rawfury.com X: x.com/rawfury Discord: discord.gg/rawfury BlueSky: rawfury.bsky.social MEDIA CONTACT fortyseven communications on behalf of Raw Fury rawfury@fortyseven.com The post Star Trucker Coming to PlayStation 5 on June 10 appeared first on Raw Fury.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn’t just look unlike any other mainstream superhero movie in recent years, it’s also got an unusual sound to match. Following tickets going on sale for the movie, Marvel released the full track for the film’s main theme, created by longtime film composer Michael Giacchino. There’ve been snippets of the theme present in trailers and the IMAX pre-roll for Thunderbolts*, so we already knew it would sound as 1960s as the world the heroes live in. But hearing the full thing really underlines the importance of a composer that vibes with the material and wants to make a score that’s exciting and memorable music. For the most part, this is something Marvel’s not really done well at, save for works composed by Alan Silvestri or Ludwig Göransson or Son Lux’s more recent work on Thunderbolts*. But having memorable music is what Giacchino’s always been good at—his scores for the most recent Star Trek movies are still sublime, and his Fantastic Four: First Steps work sounds like some of his best for Marvel specifically. (Starting with the first Doctor Strange, he’s composed for the MCU Spider-Man trilogy, Thor: Love & Thunder, and Werewolf by Night, the latter of which he also directed.) Like everything else from this movie, the score is sounding promising, and we can’t wait to hear all of it, ditto seeing the punny titles Giacchino has undoubtedly come up with for each track. Fantastic Four: First Steps comes to theaters July 25. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

The big Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 interview: Sandfall and Kepler on team size, the return of AA games, and what's next Plus: how Kepler plans to be the A24 for games, and why a follow-up to Clair Obscur won't involve a big studio expansion Image credit: Sandfall Interactive Feature by Lewis Packwood Contributor Published on May 27, 2025 The success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – which sold 2 million copies within 12 days of launch – has meant all eyes are now on its developer, Sandfall Interactive. As the games industry mulls how to move forward, faced with a saturated market, widespread layoffs and spiralling development costs, the fact that an original title made by a relatively small team could see such massive success gives hope to everyone. It's also an emphatic validation of the strategy of Clair Obscur's publisher, Kepler Interactive, which since its formation in 2021 has focused on original titles with eye-catching art styles and mould-breaking gameplay, including Sifu, Tchia, Scorn, Pacific Drive, Ultros, Bionic Bay, and the upcoming Rematch. "They respect creativity and innovation in games, they have a very high standard in choosing games to publish, and they are very fun people to work with," enthuses Shuhei Yoshida, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, and now a freelance consultant for Kepler. Yoshida has been helping to evaluate game pitches for the publisher since he left Sony in January, as well as helping to promote Bionic Bay and Clair Obscur. "They have a great balance in looking for innovation in games and investing in commercially viable projects," he says. "I think the way Kepler chooses games and supports developers is a great example of sustainable indie publishing. I expect many companies in the industry will look for inspiration from what Kepler is doing." Coop mode One thing that immediately marks out Kepler as different is its structure. "Kepler is co-owned by a group of studios, but they all operate autonomously," explains portfolio director Matthew Handrahan, who joined Kepler from PlayStation in 2022 (before that, he was editor-in-chief of this very site). "They make a lot of their own choices creatively and commercially in terms of the direction of their business. But there is a collaborative aspect that they can draw upon if they feel they need it. The thing that we definitely are very clear on is Kepler is not sitting here telling anyone what to do." The idea is that Kepler can provide support into each studio in terms of things like HR, legal teams, and IT. "And each one of them can draw on that to the degree that they want to, in the belief that if you give people that solid base, they can just focus more on being creative," says Handrahan. Image credit: Sandfall Interactive But the plan was always for Kepler to become a third party publisher, he continues. So in addition to publishing games from its own studios, since 2024 Kepler has started releasing games from outside developers, like Pacific Drive, Clair Obscur, and the newly signed PVKK from Bippinbits, the creators of Dome Keeper. "As we go forward, what we really hope is that people can spot a Kepler game," says Handrahan. So what marks out a Kepler title? CEO Alexis Garavaryan has previously emphasised the publisher champions games with "bold art direction and innovative game design" that avoid familiar influences like Star Wars and superheroes. Handrahan says this is essential in today's market. "I remember writing about Steam being overcrowded for GamesIndustry.biz 10 years ago, and saying, 'Oh, there's too many games'," he says. "Well there's five times more games being released now. So if you are coming to market with a game, it had better be doing something genuinely fresh." What Kepler definitely isn't doing is chasing trends, which Handrahan says is a dangerous strategy. He gives the example of Balatro imitators. "If you're making something hot on the heels of that, by the time you get to market, there'll probably be 150 other alternatives." One can't help thinking, too, of the expensive failure of Concord at PlayStation, which proved to be one hero shooter too many. The next expedition Sandfall's COO and producer François Meurisse says that the fact that studio head Guillaume Broche was deliberately avoiding chasing trends with Clair Obscur was what attracted him to join in the first place. "Some people predicted to us that it was a tricky [sector] when we started development, and there could be kind of a curse on AA games" François Meurisse, Sandfall Interactive He was immediately on board with Broche's passion for revitalising the kind of flashy, 3D, turn-based JRPGs that had long gone out of fashion. That passion came first: the strategy came later. "A bit after, when we tried to rationalise that yearning he has for this kind of game, we realised that it wasn't addressed as much in the market, and maybe there was a place for it," says Meurisse. The end result went beyond their wildest dreams. "The game has had success to an extent that we didn't imagine," he says. "We smashed our forecasts pretty fast." Naturally, thoughts are already turning to a follow-up. "There will be another video game, for sure," says Meurisse, adding that it's a little early to say exactly what form it will take. "I can't wait to dig more into the ideas we already have for the next game," he says. "Plus the team has grown up, has acquired new skills throughout production," he says. "Many of them were junior when we started. We learned to work together. So I can't wait to get to the next project, because we'll start from a more efficient position than when we started the company five years ago. And that [comes] with higher expectations as well, so it will be challenging. But I can say that we have – and Guillaume in particular has – great ideas for the next game." AA comeback Image credit: Sandfall Interactive The success of Clair Obscur has led many to herald the comeback of AA games, a sector that has shrunk significantly over the past couple of console generations – even if it's a harder category to define in 2025 based on a lack of publicly available budget numbers. "Some people predicted to us that it was a tricky [sector] when we started development, and there could be kind of a curse on AA games," remembers Meurisse. "But from our perspective, we didn't care too much about market considerations. […] In a sense, A Plague Tale or Mortal Shell or Hellblade, games like those were already proof for us that small teams of less than 50 people could have great games and great execution." Speaking of team size, much was made of the claim that Clair Obscur was created by a team of around 30, although many were quick to point out that the credits include dozens more people than that, working on things like QA, localization and voice production, as well as a ‘gameplay animation' team in Korea. "These kinds of games did exist in much greater numbers about 15 years ago, and I think there are some threads that the AAA industry lost as they grew and grew and grew" Matt Handrahan, Kepler Interactive So was the game mis-sold? "I don't think so," says Handrahan. "I think that the creative engine of the game was that group of 30. […] In terms of what the game is – the vision of it and the way in which it's executed – [that] does come from that nucleus of staff that is at Sandfall." "In terms of main credits over the four years of production, we were on average about 30 people," clarifies Meurisse. "We started with less than 10 people, scaled up until 30, and close to 40, and then scaled a little bit down. You mentioned Korean animators, but it's important to mention that none of them were full time. They were doing some extras beside some other jobs of animation. So the core team was on average 30 people in the home studio, plus privileged contractors like the lead writer or the composer, for example: I include them in that core team." "But of course, we had a galaxy of partners revolving around the project. Kepler in the first place – and I want to really pinpoint that they were really key in the success of the game – plus some other creative people as well, like musician players, translators, QA testers also. And that definitely extends the team, and I'm super grateful we could work with all those super […] passionate partners from all over the world." "I think people fixated on this number," adds Handrahan, "but actually the more useful thing that was being said was that this is not a AAA game, right? You can look at those credits, and it's still definitely not a AAA game." "These kinds of games did exist in much greater numbers about 15 years ago, and I think there are some threads that the AAA industry lost as they grew and grew and grew, and brought in different ways of monetising," he continues. "We have to remember there was a time when AAA companies were making games like Vanquish and Mirror's Edge and Kane & Lynch, and all of these really cool, interesting, not small games, but much smaller scale games. And you've seen the number of releases from AAA publishers dwindle and dwindle and dwindle. Now there's an opportunity for teams like Sandfall to come in and give players something that they really have not been given for quite a long time." Which leads us to ask, if Clair Obscur can't be classed as a AAA game, how much did it cost, exactly? Neither Handrahan nor Meurisse is willing to disclose the true figure. "I would say that I've seen a lot of budget estimations that are all higher than the real budget," muses Meurisse. Handrahan agrees. "Everybody's desperate to know what the budget is, and I won't tell them, but I would guarantee if you got 10 people to guess, I think all 10 wouldn't guess the actual figure," he says. "I'm sure Mirror's Edge and Vanquish cost more, put it that way." Keeping the team small Image credit: Sandfall Interactive With a success like Clair Obscur, the temptation might be to scale up the studio for a blockbuster sequel: a pattern we've seen with successful franchises many times before. But Meurisse says that's something Sandfall wants to avoid. "For now, our vision would be to stick to a close team working in the same city with less than 50 people on board, focusing on one project after another, and keeping this agility, and this creative strength, and smartness of a small group of passionate people wanting to do something big," he says. "That's how video games were made for years," he continues. "The team that made Ocarina of Time or Half-Life 2, I think those were max 60 or 70 people*, and that kind of size allows for good decisions and great creativity." He adds that the studio might recruit a few more members, but it won't start working on multiple projects simultaneously, and they will deliberately avoid growing too big and unwieldy. "We want to keep the organisation that made us successful," he says. Handrahan notes that because game making is an iterative process, maintaining only a small permanent team makes sense. "I think keeping a core team to hold the vision and to build out what the game is, and then expanding as you need to through things like outsourcing, is a very smart and sustainable way to manage game development," he says. "I think that there's been a lot of irresponsible practices in the industry," he continues, referring to the inherent risks involved in ballooning AAA budgets and team sizes. "Some games can make it work. Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to make it work, I think we can all say with great confidence. But there are plenty of games made with very large teams and for huge amounts of money that don't land, and there is a human cost to running things that way. People lose their jobs. God knows how many layoffs there's been in the industry over the last few years." He worries that the temptation to scale up is too great. "I do see a lot of developers who ship a game and then get some level of success – even very small levels of success or on very small budgets – and then almost instinctively feel like they need to double or triple the budget of the next game. And that is something I definitely question." No bloat He also questions the need to make games bigger. "One of the things that's great about Expedition 33 is it really respects the player's time. It gives them plenty to do, and it gives them plenty of satisfaction, but it isn't arbitrarily 500 hours of gameplay. It's impactful because it's scoped correctly. […] It doesn't have any sense of bloat or extraneous things that are put there just to make it larger and larger and larger." "Brevity should be more of a virtue in gaming," he adds. "Something can be better by being shorter – something that's being discussed in film at the moment. Every film seems to be two and a half hours long, and I think most people are like, 'Can they all be a bit shorter, please? Because we have other things to do with our lives'." Meurisse notes that the focus for Clair Obscur was always on quality over quantity. "From the beginning, we wanted to do an intense and short experience," he says. "The first length estimates of the game were closer to 20 hours for the main quest. I think we ended up closer to 30, even 40 hours if you take a bit of time. As a player, there are so many great games out there that I want to experience, [and] what's important to me is the level of excitement and fun I get from a game, rather than how long it is." He also questions the link between game length and price. "The value that players get from games does not align systematically with the length of the game," he says. "For example, one of my favourite games of all time is Inside, which lasts about two hours, but it's one of the most polished, and intense [experiences] – and even life changing for some people." What are games worth? Notably, Clair Obscur launched at a price point of $50/$45, at a time when the standard price for big-budget games is creeping up to $80. "I think as that AAA price goes up, I think it creates more of an opportunity to be launching games – more sensibly scoped games – [and] pricing them at that $40–50 range," says Handrahan. "And I don't think anyone that played Expedition 33 would think they didn't get their money's worth out of that." "When we announced the pricing at $50 we did actually have a little of a backlash online," adds Meurisse, "with people fearing it would be a 12-hour-long game with unfinished content, and that it was suspicious to have a $50 game that was looking like this in the trailers. But in the end we stuck with the price, we doubled down on it, [and] we provided some context about the fact that it wasn't a AAA." "In the end, it was a win-win situation, because it was a way to attract more players towards the game, to have good player satisfaction about their buying [decision], and it could actually end up doing more sales. So maybe players' perception can change a bit about that kind of price [point]." The Kepler brand Image credit: Sandfall Interactive Clair Obscur has obviously provided a huge boost for Kepler as a publisher, and Handrahan says the plan now is for Kepler to build a brand as the home for high-quality, mid-sized games with a unique vision. He gives the newly signed PVKK as an example. "The art direction is very high quality, it's very, very bold. It has a strong narrative component. It has innovative gameplay design. It speaks to wider culture, it's not an insular vision for a game. I think you get a lot of games that are kind of just about other games, and that is not something we're interested in necessarily." It's a model that he thinks others could follow. "We definitely want there to be strong associations with the games we do, so if that is something that other publishers could imitate or follow along from, then all the better," he says, adding that it makes little sense for publishers to cast a broad net of styles and genres in such a crowded market. But of course, there is a risk to championing unique, untested visions. So what does Kepler do to mitigate that risk? "We definitely do market research," says Handrahan – although he adds that ultimately the process is subjective. "I came to this company because I really trusted the taste of the people that I work for. I have always felt that if I'm really excited by a game, there will be other people out there who are excited by it. Yes, you can test that against market research, and that is definitely a function that we have in the company, and we use it. But our litmus test is a subjective level of excitement and belief in the vision and creativity that we see in the games that we sign." He points to companies in other media, like A24 or Warped Records, that have taken a similar approach with great success. "We want to be that in games." *Fact check note: Valve's core team was actually 84 for Half-Life 2, without including the many people involved in voice acting, QA, IT, legal, and so on. The team behind Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time numbered around 66, although the people involved in QA testing aren't listed individually in the credits.