Industry Interview #032: Michael Binkowski & Cécile Momy (Red Art Games)
Thank you for speaking with us today. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Hi, I'm Michael Binkowski, founder and CEO of Red Art Games. Red Art Games is a new French video game publisher specialized in bringing digital games to physical versions. I’ve been CEO of a video game retailer in Paris for 15 years.
What was the first console and game you remember playing? I started with the Master System when I was about 7, with the games Rastan, Hang On and Alex Kidd. I've always been more into Sega than Nintendo, then I switched to Mega Drive, PlayStation and so on…
What is your fondest childhood video game memory? Final Fantasy VII on PS1, the most amazing video game I've ever played. It brings together the three lost important things for me in a game: a thrilling story, great graphic designs at that time and epic music.
What inspired Red Art Games to form to help preserve digital only titles in physical formats? I was for 15 years a video game retailer. I saw that despite the growing dematerialization trend, there was still a huge demand for physical versions. I believe we are entering a rematerialization era.
What are your thoughts on all the different publishers in the market offering a similar service? They usually do a good job, that’s all I have to say :-) What separates you from your competition? We are going to quickly diversify ourselves, we will not remain partitioned in this business model of digital game in physics edition, but for now we can not tell more.
Up until this point, Red Art Games has released multiple titles across the PS4 and PS Vita. It was recently announced that your next platform of choice will be the Nintendo Switch. What is it about the Switch that made you want to bring physical games to it? We are already working on several Switch games that we intend to announce soon, but yes the Switch is the successor of PS VITA fro us! We believe the Switch is the new kind of console for the future, in between a handheld and standard.
The first question on everyone's mind is what will be your debut Switch title? Can you give us some hints? Not yet unfortunately :-) We strategically plan all our announcements so no spoils here. Sorry!
Naturally, the next pieces of information that everyone wants to know is how preordering will work? Will it be an open system? Limited quantities? Etc.? We are sorry, but this is also to early to communicate on this.
When can we expect preorders to open for your first Switch title and what is the expected ship date? Very soon, once PS Vita ends.
Going back to Cécile, what is your role as Head of Communication and how long have you been with the company? Our driving force is to remain close to our customers and community. We’ve been fully transparent and open from the beginning, whatever the situation was good or bad. We want to build trust and do everything we can to achieve it. I’ve been working for Red Art games since August 2018 when the company only had one game available on preorder. I started with some marketing actions such as developing corporate identity, customer newsletters, etc., but also creating communication tools such as social media accounts, writing and sending press releases, planning, etc.
Besides your own, what game(s) are you currently playing and look forwarding to? Right now I'm playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 and Red Dead Redemption. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us today? Only that we thank you and wish you a wonderful day :-)
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