KO OP
KO_OP is a Canadian artist-run game studio cooperative based in Montreal.History
Studio director Saleem Dabbous and programmer Bronson Zgeb founded KO_OP in 2012 to make "visually arresting avant-garde games". The studio is run as a workers cooperative with equal salary and decision-making between co-owners. Dabbous and Zgeb used personal savings to launch the company and relied on work-for-hire to finance its own games. They struggled with inexperience in their over-scoped early projects, as they moved through a dozen prototypes and eventually cancelled two projects in full production.
Gnog was nominated for Excellence in Visual Art at the 2016 Independent Games Festival and released in 2017. KO_OP also built "The Shard of Life", an expansion for Lara Croft Go, in 2016.
KO_OP is currently developing a narrative-driven adventure game titled Goodbye Volcano High, which is scheduled for a 2021 release on the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Steam.
