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From Selling Games To Making Them: GameStop Gets Into Publishing Business

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After building a retail empire selling video games, Grapevine-based GameStop is going to start publishing them. The company last month announced the creation of an independent division, called GameTrust, that will fund and publish video games. Mark Stanley is vice president of internal development and diversification at GameStop.

Interview Highlights: Mark Stanley ...

... on why GameStop wants to publish games: "Game publishing is an interesting piece because it's all about content and traditionally we have the large budget AAA games out there that we see every holiday and throughout the year, but we saw a niche and a need for supporting the smaller independent developers in bringing that content to stores."

... on competing with other publishers: "We see a big gap, in fact. All of the publishing community and the first parties, which is Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and even PC gamers are supporting us very much intently because we're filling this void of smaller content in the industry."

... on GameTrust's approach to creating games: "Right now we're in partnership with numerous independent developers out there that have a DNA of making great games. So, what we'll do is we're not going to be the experts at making games, we're going to partner and collaborate with these companies that are already established and already have a track record."

... on digital distribution platforms: "It's actually one of our biggest growing parts of our business. Last year we sold over $1 billion in digital content and that's just over 10 percent of our overall revenues, and with GameTrust we're able to grow that even quicker because as part of these collaborations with game developers. The content that we make -- not only are we going to distribute in its physical form exclusively at GameStop stores, but digitally you can find it anywhere in the world."

Mark Stanley is vice president of internal development and diversification at GameStop.

Justin Martin is KERA’s local host of All Things Considered, anchoring afternoon newscasts for KERA 90.1. Justin grew up in Mannheim, Germany, and avidly listened to the Voice of America and National Public Radio whenever stateside. He graduated from the American Broadcasting School, and further polished his skills with radio veteran Kris Anderson of the Mighty 690 fame, a 50,000 watt border-blaster operating out of Tijuana, Mexico. Justin has worked as holiday anchor for the USA Radio Network, serving the U.S. Armed Forces Network. He’s also hosted, produced, and engineered several shows, including the Southern Gospel Jubilee on 660 KSKY.