Firestoke Announces Publishing Partnership With Dysfunctional Developer

In It's Only Money, you take on the role of an Undercity resident, cast down by the newly elected evil mayor into the sewers and subways. Your goal is to venture to the surface to steal, fight, destroy and, ultimately, take down the corporations owned by the Mayor's corrupt cohorts. Win back the city block by block as you buy houses, businesses, clothes, cars and whatever else your materialistic heart desires as you become the low-life living the high life. 

Make the city of Rockhaven your playground as you complete missions and activities, go shopping, pickpocket the rich, lockpick cars and steal their contents, or hotwire them and take a joyride. Get into fights with the local police department, or simply tour the city and enjoy the fine dining at a Mayor Mart. Whatever. Do it all with up to 3 other friends (or randoms). Steal together, fight together, complete missions together or just hang out in a club and gamble. If you're feeling competitive, why not engage in various PvP minigames, such as Prop Hunt, where you disguise yourself as couches, fence posts, garbage cans or whatever you can find in the street. Think of it as hide and seek for your inner shapeshifter.

It's Only Money is currently in Early Access and there is a big new content drop on the way soon when Chapter 2 releases on April 23rd. The vehicle focused update overhauls handling and AI, and adds purchasable garages, new cars, a personal valet and the ability to customise your rides. The update also adds a redesigned opening to introduce players to the game's open world aspects, as well as the first 'Side Hustle', dubbed 'Courier'. Then there is the debut of bikes and scooters, new properties and clothing to buy, expanded chest and quest rewards, along with other additions and improvements. 

"It might seem a little strange to publicly insult a development partner in a press release, but trust me, those guys aren't going to see this - they couldn't even figure out how to rent office space, so I doubt they've even discovered the internet yet." said Paul Farley, CEO at Firestoke "To be honest the game is pretty damn awesome, so it'll make us money regardless. In the meantime, we've found somewhere suitably low rent for them to work. Sign up to the It's Only Money Discord server and keep an eye on them for us, who knows what madness they'll get up to when we're not looking..." 

"We're really stoked that some people from "Scotland", which apparently is a country we're not entirely convinced exists, took a punt on our game," said Aaron Alexander, Co-Founder of Usual Suspects. "It means so much to toil away, giving up our blood, sweat and tears for a product, only for it to now be controlled by a corporate entity. Nothing makes us happier as a team knowing that our dream of being game developers has become a living nightmare for the foreseeable future. Thanks Firestoke."

About Usual Suspects
Usual Suspects was founded in 2020 by Aaron Alexander & Jayde Cohen. They had no ambition to run a real company, but very quickly found investment and other opportunities after they had quickly developed an open world prototype in Unreal Engine. Being mature and wise businessmen, they decided the best thing to spend their money on was hiring multiple friends full time to help flesh out the project into a real game. Against all conventional wisdom and sensible business practices, somehow It's Only Money was successfully developed and released to the world. Despite an admittedly "rough" exterior, the developers at Usual Suspects have a combined 35 years of experience in the games industry, shipping titles from the indie level all the way up to AAA at various studios.

About Firestoke
Firestoke's vision is to connect a growing global audience of players with the games they love. They are driven by creative inspiration, but informed by data, enabling them to bring players the best indie games from the brightest development talent. They love games that bring people together, that can be shared with friends and family and which spark joy!
Collectively, they have contributed to numerous global hits including some of the industry's biggest and most loved brands. Their extensive experience in video game development, technology and publishing enables them to offer collaborative partnerships that make a difference.