EA Partners, a division of Electronics Arts, has announced an exclusive publishing agreement with two upcoming indie games -- Hothead's DeathSpank and Klei Entertainment's Shank -- which will allow a much wider (and ostensibly easier) path to distribution for both games. EA claims Shank will be available on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and PC this summer, while DeathSpank will be available on Xbox Live and PSN with no date yet announced.
"Our mission at EA Partners is to work with the best talent across the game industry, and we are thrilled to extend our expertise to the leading creative developers in downloadable indie games," said EA Partners' outreach director Jamil Moledina. "DeathSpank is engrossingly fun and hysterically funny ... and Shank is an amazing experience."
The EA Partners program has had some heavy hitters onboard, like Rock Band, Left 4 Dead 2, and Brütal Legend, but this marks the first time that smaller, downloadable indie games have been brought into the fold. We've toured through DeathSpank before (with Ron Gilbert himself!), and Shank was just named a finalist at the Independent Games Festival, taking place during GDC next week in San Francisco.
It's interesting to see EA move into the indie arena, much like 2K Games has done with 2K Play (think: The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and Axel and Pixel), but we'll have to see how it plays out. Hopefully they'll offer both in a Spank 'n Shank special bundle. We spoke with EA's Moledina and both developers, so stay tuned for more info shortly.
