Video game veteran Mike Wilson, who co-founded Devolver and Gambitious is at it again. He, along with the team of game makers and entrepreneurs, have launched a new publishing label called Good Shepherd Entertainment, which essentially rebrands the five-year-old Gambitious and continues to shepherd new indie games with full support from investment to development to marketing and PR.

On the heels of raising significant capital from its network of over 100 private accredited investors, Wilson, the chief creative officer of Good Shepherd, told AListDaily that the company has grown its team to support more indie developers as well as new game investors.

“We have a deep understanding of all of the aspects of this business that allows us to see eye-to-eye with everyone involved, and make certain that we’re always working hard to do right by both the developers and the investors,” Wilson explained. “Everyone has to win for this to be a sustainable, positive experience.”

The co-founding partners of Devolver (Harry Miller, Rick Stults and Mike Wilson), along with Serious Sam developer Croteam, remain the largest stakeholders in Good Shepherd.

“We are getting much more proactive about helping indies achieve higher production values than their experience and budgets would normally allow for, and we’re refining our investor platform as well to go out and aggressively grow that side of our business for the first time,” Wilson said.

Good Shepherd will apply lessons learned from Gambitious, which was one of the few companies to seek private investors rather than the crowdfunding approach that Fig, IndieGogo and Kickstarter employ.

“I feel like the early days of crowdfunding was a bit of an irresponsible gold rush, without proper respect for people’s money,” Wilson said. “We saw this coming, and knew that a great many of these projects would never see the light of day from a lack of structure, experience and accountability, and that’s why we invested in this company in the first place. We have to provide a consistently positive experience to all those heroes out there trusting us with their money, rather than a string of disappointments and apologies. New money coming into indie games is of paramount importance to the art form, and it needs to be taken seriously.”

Wilson believes that what makes Good Shepherd truly stand out is its executives’ track records, and the fact that the company offers its investors the same terms that the owners get and invest alongside them in each and every title.

And on the developer side, the company is taking steps to fine-tune its game projects.

“We’ve learned that while it is crucial that we stay true to our principles of keeping creative control in the hands of our developers at all times, even in marketing efforts, there are areas of production that we can get more involved in to help these indies get to where they want to go,” Wilson said. “We’ve seen the difference that our involvement in helping with writing, music and voice acting can make, and we’re getting very serious about making sure that we’ve helped in every way we can when working with up-and-coming teams who need support the most.”

Beyond funding, marketing, public relations, quality assurance and localization help, Wilson said Good Shepherd is looking to significantly raise the level of polish on small indie games to give them their best chance to stand out in a competitive marketplace.

“We’re working with a wide range of game genres and budgets, but the focus is definitely in the land of ‘indies-that-seem-bigger,’ mostly in the sub-$1 million range,” Wilson said. “We don’t take on any projects that we aren’t prepared to invest a significant amount of capital and people in. That model just isn’t going to work anymore, as the landscape continues to get more crowded and competitive.”

Good Shepherd has five games currently in progress and is looking to sign more soon. Wilson said the goal is to release six-to-eight titles next year. The first announced game is Dim Bulb Games’ Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, which is described as “bleak American folklore.”

“It will be a careful ramp-up,” Wilson said. “We’ve been patient for this long, and are excited and confident about what we can deliver with this new team in place, but we also want to keep our track record intact. There is no pressure to grow too aggressively, which is the great thing about our partnership.”