Cashmere Games

After working on one of the most popular video games of all time at perhaps the most innovative gaming company of all time, what’s your next move”? That’s what Jeremy Pope and Marc Fernandez, co-founders of Cashmere Games, asked themselves after they left their jobs at Rockstar Games, publishers of the wildly hyped Grand Theft Auto series. “Why go work for another videogame company when we had already worked for the best?” says Fernandez from his downtown New York office.

Their first game, Pax Athletica, is a wireless cell-phone game, but they put as much attention into detail and historical referencing as they would have put into a console game, an old trick they learned from the boys at Rockstar. “The whole game is embedded with tiny, obscure messages,” says Fernandez. The name Cashmere stems from when a few key people at Rockstar rewarded themselves with luxurious sweaters with the company brand stitched in the corner. “It was a symbol of a divide.” says Pope. Fernandz adds, “No matter how hard we tried, no matter how hard we worked, we would never get these cashmere sweaters.” And so they made their own.