Wideload Games, Alex Seropian go with Aspyr Media

Wideload Games, the game development studio founded by former Bungie Studios founder Alex Seropian, will announce on Tuesday that its first game will be published by Austin, Texas-based entertainment publisher Aspyr Media. While CEO of Bungie, Seropian was the producer behind the hit games Myth, Marathon, and Halo.

As revealed earlier, the still-unnamed title will be an action game using the Halo engine. Little else is known at this time, other than that as a publisher of indie music and film, as well as games, Aspyr is likely to leverage its catalog in the marketing efforts for Wideload's upcoming game (hinting that perhaps some of the music in its catalog may be used in the upcoming game).

Aspyr was founded in 1996 and quickly established a reputation for publishing Mac games. According to company founder Michael Rogers, the company still has a 50- to 60-percent market share in the Mac gaming space. However, the company's current business model is to diversify and become a multiplatform, multigenre publisher. In calendar year 2003, in addition to 27 games for the Mac, it published four PC games, two GBA games, three indie film DVDs, and three music CDs. The new game from Wideload is slated for the PC and Xbox, with other platforms under consideration.

In a statement to be released Tuesday, Seropian praised Aspyr's "strong reputation of working with top-name companies and staying true to the creator’s vision. This was very appealing to us,” he said. “We’ve known this team for many years and have always been impressed by the creative freedom and the flexibility afforded to their development and content partners. We are going to have a great time playing mad scientists in our lab and then handing off our first born to Aspyr.”

“Wideload Games has an incredibly talented team with a proven track record of delivering hit original game experiences,” said Rogers, president of Aspyr Media. “We’ve padded our walls and removed all sharp objects from our offices, so we can be ready for the craziness that Wideload will deliver.”

Wideload, founded earlier this year by Seropian and employing many former senior Bungie programmers, artists, and designers, takes an unconventional approach to game development. In an interview with GameSpot News in April, Seropian explained that Wideload's small staff was assembled to create a working game prototype, which would then be used to secure a publishing deal, and the company would then hire independent staff to help finish the project.

According to Seropian, the "focus on prototyping and preproduction eliminates many production risks, as the team is able to see all of the technical and creative issues prior to going into full production."

The new Aspyr-published game is set for release worldwide in 2005.