The first posts here were philosophy and science. This one's personal: the game one of us has been carrying inside for twenty years.
Twenty years producing and distributing films, still doing it, always will. Films on the festival circuit, films that became real box office hits. Not an industry watched from the outside. The water we swim in.
But here's the part almost nobody knows: games got us into film in the first place. Twenty years ago, text-based Hollywood simulations, plain text on a screen and nothing more, and it was wonderful. Finding the right combination: genre, themes, actors, the director to hold it all together. Rewriting when it wasn't working, making the tough calls. The Movies. Hollywood Mogul. Running a studio with nothing but text and imagination. Those games led straight into the real film industry, and the whole time, there was always the itch to come back and make one.
So: The Industry. A personal passion project, run almost entirely solo with a couple of colleagues and friends whenever possible. A Hollywood simulation the way it's always seemed it should be: part vision, seriously data-driven. Real box office returns, the real forces that make or break a film, negotiations that can genuinely go either way, because in this industry there are no guarantees, ever. Tested with actual people from the industry, the ones who live these decisions for real.
A festival or studio license might happen eventually. Even without one, there's something special in discovering your own actors and directors, building them into stars with your own hands, watching a film climb the box office. That's the thing that keeps you up at 2 AM thinking "one more production."
One thing in the game deserves explaining, because it means a lot: a Brutal difficulty setting, which is simply the real-world setting. Roughly ten percent of films actually earn their money back at the box office. That's not a challenge-seeker's design choice, that's just the truth of the industry. Honestly, playing it isn't recommended, it's too punishing. But it stays in the game, as a dedication to everyone in film working tirelessly against those odds: producers, distributors, exhibitors, studios, everyone in between. Feel how merciless Brutal is, and you'll understand what these people do every day.
The Industry will most likely be the first release. It's the bridge between two lives: the films made, and the games that made that possible in the first place. Lights down. Let's begin.