KO OP

KO_OP is a Canadian game studio cooperative based in Montreal. It was founded in 2012.

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 Mirror of Spirits", an expansion for Lara Croft Go, in 2016.