In the crowded landscape of digital showcases, where every publisher has a flashy stage, the Triple-I Initiative stands apart. Founded by the developers who famously kept Dead Cells thriving, Evil Empire has turned its indie-focused April event into a powerhouse for discovery and wishlist growth. With a simple formula—90 minutes, no hosts, all games—and a $15,000 per-minute fee to cover costs, the showcase has proven its efficacy. Data from 2025 shows games landing over 100,000 wishlists within days, with 16 out of 40 featured titles hitting Steam’s top trending list. This success is not accidental. It stems from a meticulous curation process, a deliberate strategy to cultivate a specific audience, and a unique philosophy that prioritizes developer success over raw viewership numbers.
The Curation Process: Building the Perfect Game Tracklist
The magic of the Triple-I Initiative is not broadcast live by a charismatic host but crafted weeks before in a secretive selection process. Evil Empire built a submission platform where developers can send their builds. A dedicated team of six staffers then plays, rates, and debates every entry for inclusion, a process marketing director Bérenger Dupré compares to the intense deliberations of a film festival jury. The final lineup is carefully arranged like a wedding DJ’s perfect playlist. The goal is to start with a massive opener that draws a large, established community—like the explosive reveal of Slay the Spire 2—and then introduce newer, riskier games to that captivated audience.
This strategic sequencing serves a dual purpose. First, it creates a “biggest targeted audience possible” for the type of indie games shown, according to studio co-founder Benjamin Laulan. Second, it aims to “seduce Valve” for that critical front-page featuring on Steam, which Laulan admits is essential for the showcase’s impact. Beyond the lineup, Evil Empire offers a rare service: direct feedback on trailers. The team advises developers on which specific features to highlight, knowing which elements will resonate during a live event. This hands-on approach, though sometimes met with initial resistance, focuses on creating an emotional reaction that makes the games memorable.
Measuring Success by Studio Satisfaction, Not Views
The core metric for Evil Empire’s showcase is starkly different from typical digital events. For Dupré and Laulan, raw view counts are a secondary concern. The primary measure of success is studio satisfaction, quantified by the ratio of views to wishlists. This focus comes from their own experience as developers marketing games. They ask: “Did we convert enough? Did we put the right game in front of the right people?” Dupré even prioritizes the comments-to-views ratio, believing a show that generates discussion is more valuable than one that merely attracts passive viewers.
This philosophy is baked into the show’s DNA and explains its resistance to expansion. Despite its success and the evident demand, Evil Empire firmly rejects the idea of making the showcase bigger or more elaborate. Laulan argues that the lack of a host, the refusal to “throw money at it,” and the singular focus on “cool games” are what make it work. The company does not need to justify a subscription price or its own existence, freeing it to serve the audience and developers directly. This commitment is maintained even while juggling their own development milestones for projects like Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, a balancing act Dupré admits is always chaotic.
From Showcase Organizer to Live-Ops Shepherd
The Triple-I Initiative has evolved beyond a mere marketing event, becoming a gateway for Evil Empire’s newest business venture: shepherding the live operations of other studios’ successful games. Their connection with Blobfish, the developer of Brotato, exemplifies this. Blobfish found itself in a familiar position—wanting to move on to new projects while its community clamored for more content—mirroring Motion Twin’s situation with Dead Cells years earlier. Evil Empire, having excelled in that role before, pitched ideas for Brotato and eventually secured a live-ops deal based on a revenue share for new content, without taking ownership of the IP.
This experience was so positive that Evil Empire is now formally establishing a dedicated unit to manage live operations for other companies’ games. The key criterion is passion; Dupré stresses they must be fans of the game they take on. The pitch to a developer hinges on demonstrating that they love the game as much as its players and are there to “make the party go on.” Laulan’s ambition is for Evil Empire to be recognized industry-wide as a “safe pair of hands” for precious IPs, a studio that injects love and care rather than applying a generic design template.
The Future: Sustaining Stewardship and Planting Original Seeds
While their reputation is built on stewarding beloved franchises like Dead Cells, Castlevania, and Prince of Persia, Evil Empire harbors ambitions for original IP. Laulan clarifies there is no ego-driven imperative to create their own worlds; they genuinely love working with established properties, which also offer easier funding access and a ready-made community. Dupré adds that the structured pillars of an existing IP aid pre-production, making a project like Clair Obscur—a completely original, ambitious title—a current challenge beyond their scope.
The studio is, however, quietly exploring original concepts. “We’re testing a few things,” Laulan says, emphasizing they are not in a rush. An original Evil Empire game likely won’t emerge in their next production cycle, but it remains a definite long-term goal. In the meantime, they will continue their dual path: seeking out more live-ops opportunities for aging indie hits and pursuing collaborations on established IPs that resonate with their genre expertise, all while keeping the Triple-I Initiative’s engine running on its uniquely effective, developer-first fuel.
