At a press conference hosted yesterday afternoon in Vienna, Austria by the founders of Games That Matter, Ex-directors of Rockstar Vienna, Hannes Seifert and Niki Laber, along with partner Jürgen Goeldner, presented their business model and goals for the newly formed independent games production company.

With the intention of purchasing, developing and licensing game concepts internally, Games That Matter plans to offer publishers and potential investors the ability to, according to Managing Director Niki Laber, “participate in the actual IP without being forced to bear operative costs of a studio beyond the project.” Games That Matter’s small team, consisting primarily of ex-Rockstar Vienna staff, will be performing all aspects of the initial production for their titles, from scheduling and design to branding and vision, with content creation and development responsibilities being outsourced to strategic partners around the World.

The “visionary” business model behind Games That Matter closely mirrors that of the movie industry, with every project being spun off into its own individual corporation, allowing for a wide-range of investment opportunities with little risk for both Games That Matter and potential investors by keeping team sizes and potential overhead as low as possible. Games That Matter then sells or licenses the finished titles directly to publisher or distributors.

“In my 20 years in this crazy industry I worked on original IP as well as licensed properties,” said Hannes Seifert, managing director and executive producer of Games That Matter. “With our new approach to game production we bring together ideas, investors and developers and help companies of all sizes to work with us on breathtaking titles without forcing them to grow to death.” Explaining further, Seifert adds “We will be able to offer publishers a finished game at a specific point in time without the risk of financing. And we offer investors a high return and long life cycle of their investment. We do not see investors as necessary evil, but as vital partners in production. And as such partners they deserve a fair share of a game’s success.”

No announcements regarding projects or publishing partners have been made, though it was revealed that the team is currently working on one “AAA console and PC” project and discussions with major investors and publishers are on-going.

Read more: Games That Matter

Sunage, a PC RTS under development for the past 10 years in Vienna, Austria, has released a new set of screenshots as well as announced another delay in development until May 2007. The title, being developed by indie startup Vertex4 to be published by Lighthouse Interactive, has seen massive delays, which as many know could either mean good or bad. The story for Sunage takes place in a distant future Earth which is dying as mankind retreats into sealed cities, leading to chaos as factions begin to battle one another over a gateway to a paradise planet. All of the classic RTS gameplay features are present, including single player and multiplayer modes as well as squad commands and alternate modes for the different units of all factions.

See more: Sunage | 10 New Sunage screenshots

7 months after the closure of Rockstar Vienna by Take-two, former founders Hannes Seifert and Niki Laber have announced the formation of their new company, Games That Matter. Working together with Jürgen Goeldner, founder of Funsoft, later acquired by THQ and mobile developer Mobile Scope, later acquired by IN-FUSIO, their team will present a “visionary game production business model” to the industry. What that visionary model will be or why exactly it’s visionary in the first place hasn’t been announced yet, but founder Hannes Seifert has held talks in Vienna discussing the shift towards “movie industry style” production methods in the past. One would assume that would involve a small core team focusing on production and design aspects, while outsourcing whenever and wherever possible for content, development and testing. The official press conference for Games That Matter takes place on the 25th of January where more information will be presented to the gaming press, possibly including information on their first title.

Read more: Games That Matter | Rockstar Vienna entry @ Wikipedia

Austrian publisher JoWooD has announced the sequel to their ‘eh’ selling tactical shooter, 2 years after shutting down original Soldner developer Wings Simulations. Though it was said that Soldner 2 would never make it to market, JoWooD seems to have shifted their position, sourcing the continued development to Germany’s gEasy Team Development, a remarkably odd choice considering there are quite a few talented development studios in search of work. But this is JoWooD, so, no surprises as usual. Soldner 2 is slotted for release in late 2007.

Read more: JoWooD announces Soldner 2 | gEasy Team

JoWooD has announced a new distribution agreement with Eidos Interactive, which we all know is one of the world’s leading developers/publishers. The agreement is for Eidos to cover the distribution of JoWooD’s titles in Southern Europe, territories which include Spain, France and Benelux., starting with the upcoming action-FPS “The Mark”.

Read more: JoWood | Eidos Interactive

With all the hubub going around regarding Germany strengthening their already quite strict anti-violent video game laws, German developer Crytek has thrown their weight behind the issue by stating they would consider a move if such a law was put into place. With the recent teen rampages in Germany, politicians throughout the country are putting their support behind laws that would require jail time for those found guilty of creating and distributing games which depict realistic violence, a law which would basically destroy the already fragile German games development industry. With that, there are rumblings throughout the neighboring country of Austria that stricter measure must be put in place against violent video games. I’d put this forth to the Austrian government, before passing any Draconian laws, work together with your local games industry (or what’s left of it) while simultaneously approaching German developers who may be considering a move, offering them attractive packages for relocating to Vienna (the hub of Austria’s struggling games industry).

Read more: Germany moves to ban violent video games