thatgamecompany is an American Video Game developer, which was founded on May 15, 2006 by Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago. After their first game, Cloud, Sony contracted them to develop three more games — flOw, Flower, and Journey (2012) — for the PlayStation 3 between 2006 and 2012, but they've since secured independent funding. Their latest project, Sky: Children of the Light, came out on iOS phones in 2019, with other mobile platforms planned at a later date.
thatgamecompany's games to date include:
- Cloud (2005)
- flOw (2006)
- Flower (2009)
- Journey (2012)
- Sky: Children of the Light (2019)
Tropes found in thatgamecompany's history:
- Art Game: Their entire creative output so far has been primarily driven by the exploration of the emotional potential of video games as a medium.
- Beautiful Void:
- The McCoy: The company's MO: making video games based on emotions unusual to the medium.
- One-Word Title: All their games' titles consist of a single word, with the only exception so far being Sky: Children of the Light — but even that game was known simply as Sky before release.
- Silence Is Golden: Hardly any dialogue pops up in their early games.
- Worth It: They went two years over both their deadline and budget, and were effectively bankrupt by the time they shipped Journey, but a single email made it all worth it.