Indie game publisher tinyBuild Games has appointed global licensing and brand management agency Evolution to develop and manage a worldwide licensing and merchandising program for its highly anticipated video game franchise Hello Neighbor.
The announcement was made by Luke Burtis, Managing Partner, tinyBuild Games and Travis J. Rutherford, Partner / Chief Revenue Officer, Evolution.
The game has garnered over 600 million combined views on YouTube with pre-alpha game builds alone prior to its summer 2017 launch.
Hello Neighbor is a PC stealth horror game with Artificial Intelligence as an opponent. In the game, a player moves into a brand new suburban neighborhood and fears his neighbor might be hiding something sinister in his basement.
The only logical thing to do is break into his house and figure out what horror he may be hiding, but he needs stealth and cunning to escape his neighbor’s fury. With adaptive AI that learns from the player’s choices, the neighbor develops counter-actions and traps creating an atmosphere of tension and menace and making each subsequent attempt to break in more challenging.
“When we first saw Hello Neighbor from Dynamic Pixels and tinyBuild Games, we knew this was going to be a massive commercial success,” commented Rutherford.
“With Pixar-style visuals, and tense game play, demand for the game is already evident from its YouTube hits and will appeal to a broad demographic audience of males and females. The full game will release on multiple platforms beginning summer 2017, and we already have industry leading licensees and major retailers clamoring for rights and products based on the eccentric Hello Neighbor characters,” he added.
Key product licensing categories for the brand will include toys, apparel, accessories, back-to-school and novelty.
