VooFoo Studios

Publishing your own product is brilliant and scary: lessons VooFoo Studios are learning every day

Almost exactly nine years ago, VooFoo Studios was born, and in the years since, we’ve created what we believe are some really great games. We’ve created some very successful games, received numerous awards and nominations and sold multiple millions of units, globally. Titles like Hustle Kings helped launch the studio, while our pedigree was cemented with the likes of Big Sky Infinity, Pure Chess, Pure Pool, and others from the Pure series, produced in partnership with our partners on the franchise, Ripstone.

Recently, we announced Mantis Burn Racing, a game we’ve wanted to make since the studio’s inception; and something founder Mark Williams has been itching to do since working on Max Rally for the Commodore Amiga in 1998. It truly is a labour of love. After serious thought and deliberation, we decided to publish Mantis Burn Racing ourselves, and quickly discovered that with freedom comes responsibility, not just for the product, but for all that publishing entails. We’re busy doing the best we can to launch our first title as a publisher, but there are some key lessons we’ve learned already that we’d love to share with you.

Why do you want to publish?
There are many reasons to publish on your own, but there are just as many reasons not to. We wanted to make Mantis Burn Racing for so long, we’re so close to it, that it felt natural and right to publish it ourselves. We wanted the independence that publishing offered, the control of our own destiny as a studio and the ability to own our IP. We have, and still have, a great relationship with partners including Ripstone, but we felt the time was right to strike out on our own.

Of course, there is more risk to publishing your own products, but there are also far greater rewards. For us, this adds value to VooFoo Studios as a company. For some, though, it may be better to partner with someone. The security of money upfront versus a smaller share of profit is sometimes the best thing you can do, and helps you not only focus on completing the product, but most important of all, pays the wages of your staff every month. You definitely need to consider carefully which option is best for you.

Do you have the expertise to publish?
The answer to this next question is vital. We considered the responsibilities of publishing, and who, or how many people could carry out that role. Ultimately, we decided to bring expertise and experience into the studio in Sean Walsh, who handles marketing, community and public relations. Sean has a great history of launching products for Bandai Namco, Disney Interactive Studios, Wired Productions and Empire Interactive. His expertise was something we were missing, and is key to our efforts in publishing – offering a skill set we didn’t have in-house, but complimenting the experience we do. You have to know your audience and how to reach them.

If you don’t have experience of product management, marketing, PR or publishing even at a basic level, then find someone that does. Trying to feel your way in could mean the difference between a great game selling in great volume, or a great game nobody has heard of being the last game your studio makes. Talk to those around you, other studios you know, and your partners. With such a close knit industry, anyone you meet will know someone who can help you; so take as much advice as possible.

Steam Early Access is not a funding model - it is direct feedback from fans of your game.

Steam Early Access is a brilliant tool with which to enter a conversation with your audience. It allows us to listen to their concerns, understand their praise and respond with direct access to the community, and best of all, use that feedback to make the game as good as it can possibly be. We’re lucky enough to be well funded through careful planning, and excellent partnerships with organisations such as Creative England. Because of this, Steam Early Access isn’t paying for development of Mantis Burn Racing; we’ve already done that ourselves. If you’re considering this channel as a funding route, you’re either going to be part of the 1% that generates millions of dollars, or the 99% that don’t.

As a studio, you cannot take that risk, so before thinking about Early Access  on any platform, make sure you’re funded, because statistics tell us that this is not the Holy Grail you’re looking for. In development, there is no bottomless pit of cash, so don’t plan your business with one.

Stay small and scale when you need to.
We’re a small, close knit team at VooFoo Studios, and we like it that way. We all work well together, and we go to the pub together. The important word here is ‘together’. To effectively launch your own product, you need a team that is pulling in the same direction. When Sean joined us, we felt we had the right expertise coming in, but we also felt we had the right person. In a small team, that’s incredibly important. It’s also vital that you don’t get too big, too quickly.

For instance, had we gone with a free-to-play model, we would have needed a team as big as the development team, just to organise the free-to-play mechanics and organise the monetisation. It’s a black art, that some studios nail, but we knew before production began that we had a clear vision, and that dictated a small, dynamic team invested in making the best game possible.

We’re still learning every day, from our community, from our team, and from those around us. That is by far the most important lesson we’ve learned. Listening, and learning from our peers, from the experience of others, and from those we hire in to help us achieve our goal of publishing our own Intellectual Property. It is a long path, and one well trodden with successes, and failures. Learn as much from the failures as you do from success, and talk to as many people as possible. Even with a few months to go until we release Mantis Burn Racing for PC and Consoles, we’re still learning, and if we can help others in their own quest to publish, we’ll be paying back all we’ve gained from this vibrant, wonderful, truly global development community.