Hooded Horse is now the primary publisher of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era.
Ubisoft still clings to the IP and sticks around in the project, but looks like their straits are getting dire enough to need co-publishers.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3105440/view/532102384016426733

where the fuck did hooded horse come from anyways? they seemed to explode onto the scene out of nowhere in the last year or two

>>2083050
About 6 years. The guy was interviewed somewhere and it just seemed like he just wanted to help out indie games he thought were cool.
Kind of nuts that in 6 years it went from a nobody publisher to a pretty common household name to the point that ubishit is willing to pass heroes off to them.

>>2083050
they made fuckton of money on Manor Lords unexpected success.

>>2083050
>they seemed to explode onto the scene out of nowhere
They just made smart publishing choices by targeting promising looking strategy games and throwing money at them to increase their scale and marketing them. They also seem to have hired a bunch of youtubers that make videos about strategy games to work specifically on tracking down good games to publish. Honestly just really smart decisions working with the community to work out what they want. They started off pretty sketchy as well. I remember loads of people here thought they were a scam company.

>>2083108
>mandaloregaming is part of the company csuite
Man REALLY fucking hated creative assembly for the Warhammer 3 launch huh

>>2083108
Also CEO was a warband modder

>>2083182
How so? I'm super out of the loop when it comes to Manda and CA.

What's the point of this shit thread apart from shilling?

who cares its a dead game, art is pure koreanwowmmoslop with oversized and overdesigned everything and it looks god fucking awful
its created by the devs of iratus which took dd1 and fucked it even harder than dd2 to the point where theres no strategy involved other than to kill faster
its doa

>>2083050
I think it's a married couple who likes videogames that made it. The company is still in the phase where it's new and the owners still care about the product so they are publishing some good games. Could change in the future but for now it seems like they are doing well.

>>2083050
It's just a rich guy (lawyer and a business management consultant) picking up game publishing as his rich guy hobby.

HH seem to have a nose for good games, so this is certainly better than sticking with just ubi

>>2083108
>They started off pretty sketchy as well. I remember loads of people here thought they were a scam company.
If I'm honest I'm still not 100% sure of the whole thing.
Like remember when Embracer Group just appeared out of nowhere and became one the big AAA publishers in a year or two?
They were using borrowed money that was contingent on a multi-billion dollar deal with Saudis, which fell through at the last moment. Then they started shutting down studios and selling assets that they owned for less than 2 years.
Getting the same vibes from HH. Plus nothing that full of ecelebs is going to be trustworthy.

>>2083307
Based richfag,.Games are shit? Fund and promote games he likes.

>>2083108
Yeah, I remember when people were suspicious of them at the beginning. Involvement with manor lords before that finally fucking came out probably didn't help. I still think that getting youtubers involved is a conflict of interest way beyond normal sponsored streams and shit though. They are just marketers for a company now (and also it takes away time from doing normal content that some of them already had horrible release schedule).
It seems to be working and be their strength if anything I guess, jewtubers find games their audience would like and promote them while it gets the support to polish them.
It's not all bangers but for now it seems a positive development for "indie"-style-but-not-really-because-they-have-a-publisher games for now.

>>2083327
I mean you might have a point if HH was publishing major studios and not minor little indie outfits. And what are the most successful titles they published initially? Against the storm, old world, nebulous. They haven't picked up bigger named projects until recently with endless legend 2.

>>2083327
They feel more like a Devolver Digital than an Embracer. I don't get that sort of vibe at all. It's just a niche publisher that's doing well because that's exactly what people want.

>>2083307
He also made mod for mb viking conquest before that

>>2083331
From what I've learned since reading up in the announcement it looks like most of the celebs aren't that involved in marketing. It explains why I didn't know about some Total War youtubers working there (DarrenPlays on manor lords top) since they're doing more internal jobs.
They seem way better for making a homm game than ubishit has, maybe they can fix this.

>>2082948 (OP)
>no do not accept button that closes an uninstalls the game
dropped

Speaking of Hoax Horse "games," the emotional scam known as Espiocracy (espeepeepoopoocracy) has released another "dev diary," the dev pushed it to the last minute on his publish date to just show some more cluttered screenshots with AI generated images, placeholder numbers, and word salad that doesn't explain anything going on in the screenshots.

Its been in development for however many years and still no inkling of a delivery date. The boomer at hoax horse being swindled by polacks once again.

All i can say about Hooded Horse is that they've picked up almost every damn game i'm ever interested in, and that what they pick up turn out mediocre or stuck in development hell.

>>2085474
Its because he just bankrolls these devs without demanding any deliverables, so all these scamming polacks exploit him and take themselves on holiday.

It's going to be 2025+10 and "people" will still be seething over manorlords success.

>>2085497
Wladyslaw please go and stay go

>>2082948 (OP)
Well at least this one MAY launch soon. Like 80% of the stuff Hooded Horse are publishing never sees the light of day and are in indefinite "When it's ready!" COPE mode.

When I see Hooded Horse I can only see failed Early Access games.

>>2085477
Nebulous fleet command was the one that pissed me off the most. Mazer hypes up the conquest mode for nearly 2 fucking years and just pulls the plug on it so he can instead make homeworld with empire at war travel and NONE of the interesting logistics mechanics conquest had

>>2085572
Pretty sure the only 1.0 hoax horse game is workers and resources which got to 1.0 before hoax horse picked it up. Hoax horse picked up Gilded Destiny which means its now in development hell for all eternity.

Hoodwink Horse is a shit publisher, even if theyre just giving devs money hand over fist they need to actually hold devs accountable for something deliverable.

>>2083188
Which mod?

>>2085609
>Noble Man
>Has Unnoble intentions
Like pottery

>>2085605
Old world and against the storm.

>>2085696
Trash and trashier. Werent they also released before being picked up by Hooded Holobunga?

>>2083050
The founder was a mount and blade modder btw

>>2085719
Against the Storm is a great retard. I don't know who published it first but you clearly just talk out your ass because you hate the company.

>>2085748
Isnt AGTS the furry game?

>>2085609
https://www.moddb.com/mods/vc-balance-mod

>>2085762
It's a city builder/resource management game.

>>2085471
>>2085477
>>2085605
Praise freakin’ kek mein bruder! Someone put this heckin epic post on r/politicalcompassmemes

>>2085471
>>2085477
>>2085605
Top kek mein bruder, the kekked troons are sneeding and woking as we say on 4chan

>>2083050
It's a shit-tier company with top-tier marketing department, that is capable of investing pocket change and rake-in millions back.
>Pick up promising indie
>Make a deal with the guy/small team behind it
>Do astoturfed marketing via youtubers and places like /vst/ or reddit larger forums
>Do minimal budget traditional marketing
>1 million later, you have a game that makes you back as publisher 15-30 mil
Their model is very simple, and very effective, because even if they fuck up with 9 games, the 10th is going to earn back all the money they invested in those 10 titles. And as mentioned, they made a killing with Manor Lords, since the Pole behind it already did the same shit on his own, making it a double bubble of marketing and hype, so they've pocketed
As long as they keep this model as it is, rather than trying to become a traditional publisher, they will be making easy money on what's effectively a (fully legal) graft.

>>2083327
>Like remember when Embracer Group just appeared out of nowhere
They were around since early 00s. You just didn't notice them, because they always handled things via subsidiaries. And the only reason you heard about them is because they did a bunch of BAD investments in early covid, so they were in a free-fall for almost two years as a result.
Hooded Horse is meanwhile a small fry that's doing a bunch of surgical investments, since their entire company value, not to mention budget, is peanuts when it comes to vidya publisher standards

>>2092622
A heartily kek to my fellow lads who see this is keksaster for what it is: a keksaster!
Let us chuckle at these silly nincompoops in the thread who had their hopes up.
Kekkity kek.

>>2092622
this commie is real fucking mad that mutually beneficial business relationships exist

>hey i made a game i think it's pretty good, how do i find people interested in buying it?
>>well you don't or >>2092622 will get extremely butthurt

>>2086568
Yeah but its all furries. Only paedophiles are into that sick shit

>>2094315
>>2094317
... but then again, you had to double-tap on samefagging, so go fucking figure

>>2083108
I hate to say they were lucky, but they were extremely lucky. They broke out onto the scene with Terra Invicta, you can see a lot of their published games are in similar scenarios. Genuinely they seem like the luckiest company on the planet because they put loads of money onto a solo style autism project by turboautism devs, but multiple times now, before even the games were done they've had a massive return on investment because these games flare up in popularity, even if, like in Terra Invicta's case, the game seems like it'll patch out all the other playstyles before finishing I think they've already seen a return.

It's like a Benevolent Dictator lucking their way to riches while slightly accidentally saving us from Paradox's monopoly.

I'd rather Hooded Horse take over than paracucks. It's just good business.The rise of Gilded Destiny...

>it's just luck, there's no way someone actually has good sense for business

>>2095135
The problem is that games like Terra Invicta, W&R, were already in an advanced state of development or EA by the time they were acquired by HH. Lately, most games picked up by HH are very, very early in development or have no playable alpha etc., these games then turn into vaporware or they go into development hell like Nebulous. In the case of something like TI, the game actively gets worse with each patch.

>>2095490
>good sense of business
>games never released

>>2096307
For what they pay to acquire early development indie titles they make back in spades when one actually releases. Terra invicta getting worse with each patch only matters if you're banking on continuous purchases which wasn't going to happen between how niche it is and the glacial state of development. And of all the titles they acquired they probably made the least on W&R because most people bought into EA before they signed, but it was important for legitimacy.

>>2096307
i was about to btfo you with a quarterly but they're fully private so lol

>>2096408
Yeah my dad sent me the nintendo quarterly.

>hooded horse owner indicted on noncery
>>hooded horse owner indicted on noncery
>hooded horse owner indicted on noncery
>>hooded horse owner indicted on noncery

>>2100188
source?