Comics, T-shirts, books and even their own convention -- about the only thing that the comic geniuses at Penny Arcade aren't selling to their army of gamer nerds is videogames.
Until today, that is. Penny Arcade and Hothead Games announced Wednesday that the two companies have teamed up to launch Greenhouse, an online hub for digitally distributed PC games. While the first game for sale on the site will be Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Greenhouse will soon become a hub for indie game developers looking to share their creations with the web comic's loyal audience.
"People trust us and even agree with us on a lot of occasions," says Penny Arcade's co-founder and artist Mike Krahulik. "So the opportunity is for us to go out and find some independent games that might not have seen the light of day otherwise, to help promote those. I think that people will like to see what we have found."
Penny Arcade brings a ready-made audience to the new site: The online comic gets around 55 million pageviews a month, and it brings about 40,000 people to Seattle every year for Penny Arcade Expo. (Read an exclusive interview with Penny Arcade creators Gabe and Tycho in which they lay out their grand plans for Greenhouse.)
While Greenhouse has not yet struck any deals with indie gamemakers to add their titles to the service, the company says it plans to offer a "careful" selection of titles, hand-picked by Penny Arcade's creators.
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