Alt forge final deliverable

ALTFORGE ENTERTAINMENT
FINAL
REPORT
JUN 2019 // PREPARED FOR PROFESSOR ALAN LEONG
BY JENNIFER YAN, DOMINICK MENDOZA, VINCE-
DAVIS ESPINO, HOWARD PENG, LUKAS LAZAR, KYOGO
LUKE IKEMOTO

|TABLE OF CONTENTS
Project
MEMORIA

Executive Summary 3
Who are we? 3
The problem & Solution: 3
What is our product 3
Why is it unique? 3
The BIT 4
The Team 4
AltForge Entertainment Advisory Board 5
Business model 5
Where our customer is: 6
Our Channels: 6
Customer Relationships: 6
Value Proposition: 7
Revenue Stream: 7
Financials: 7
Customer and Market 7
Market Opportunity 7
TAM 8
SAM 9
SOM 9
Target customer persona 9
Meet Brandon 9
Our initial thoughts 10
Secondary Insights and refining our segment 10
Social Proof 10
Game Pitch 11
Concept Art 12
Final Questions 13
Summary 13
Financial Markets and Descriptive Financials 14
Safe Harbor 14
Next Steps 15
Customer validation 15
Talent Seeking 16
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Crowdfunding and VC funding 16
Marketing and Community Engagement 17
Exit Strategies 18
Pivot 18
Appendices 19
Key Competitors 19
COMPETITOR 1: Limbo/Inside 19
COMPETITOR 2: Undertale 20
Financial Plan 20
Roles and salaries 20
Assets 21
Phases Cost 21
Implementation plan / Roadmap 22
Prototype - X Months 22
Pre-Alpha - 3 Months 22
Alpha - 6 Months 22
Beta - 6 Months 22
Gold Master - X/3 Months 22
Release - X Months 23
Development 23
Prototype 23
Pre-Alpha 23
Alpha 23
Beta 24
Gold Master 24
Release 24
Crowdfunding plan 24
Marketing stages (%=progress of the development) 26
Prototype X months 1-10% 26
Pre-Alpha 3 months (before creating our game) 10-20% 26
Alpha 6 months (during creating our game) 20-70% 27
Beta 3-6 months (before publishing our game) 70-90% 27
Gold Master 90-99% 28
Release/Live 100% 29
Community engagement plan 30
Phase 1 30
Phase 2 31
Phase 3 31
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I. Executive Summary
Who are we?
We are AltForge Entertainment, an independent video game company created by a group of
passionate gamers and gaming industry professionals. Video games impact so many people’s
lives, and they matter to our team a great deal. So we wanted to create some positive social
impact with that passion. With our mission to bring light to unseen/obscure issues, we’ve
created our first project. What we are going to do with our project, is to bridge the gap of
understanding on a subject often overlooked: neurodiversity.
The problem & Solution:
Mental disorders change the way people experience life, relationships and even the mundane.
But through the interactive and engaging medium of video games, we can share insights into
the lives and experiences of people who face depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders,
and make it easier for the general public to understand their perspectives.
What is our product
What we are trying to provide in our first product, tentatively titled Project Memoria, is a unique,
immersive and entertaining experience that tells a story about depression. It's a story about the
protagonist's traverse through a metaphysical hell, where he confronts powerful enemies and
even more terrible memories over the course of his story. The player must push through
obstacles and puzzles using their optimism as a weapon, defeating powerful enemies to
recollect fragments of their memories to escape the depressing world they find themselves in.
Why is it unique?
1. The theme of “trace back time, trade memory for power” is unique.
2. We’re trying to tackle the problem of neurodiversity, which is not seen much in other
games before.
3. The game will be replayable in such a way that each story will be sought after. The
ending of the story is customized based on the choices you made along the way. Giving
the player base a desire for more and an excitement to share.
4. Unlike other games about depression published before, our game aims to provide
players an enjoyable experience with beautiful art style and a novel story.
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The BIT
We are making the world a more empathetic place by bridging the gap in understanding
between the neurodiverse and the general public through the powerful art medium of video
games.
II. The Team
Jennifer, CEO – A co-founder of Boundless Entertainment, the company that created the fun,
addicting, and successful game, Pitch Slap. Jennifer’s passion for games and studies in
underrepresented social issues inspired her to branch out to create a company that not only
creates engaging and fun games but ones that provide a message about those issues.
Dominick, COO – A 10-year veteran of the video-game industry, Dominick started in QA and
moved up to producing some projects. Dominick’s vast knowledge about the development cycle
and project management has allowed him and the teams he has worked with to develop on the
console, PC, and mobile platforms.
Vince, CPO - Trained by and an educator at Digipen Institute of Technology, a renown game
development college, Vince has programming and design experience in video game
development, producing several game projects and helping students create their own games for
several years.
Howard, Concept Designer – A writer and worldbuilder, Howard has an extensive knowledge
base on games from indie games like Hollow Knight to well-known games such as Castlevania.
With a drive to make the experience of single-player games more engaging and meaningful,
Howard crafts stories and worlds that challenge the current trend modern games follow.
Kyogo, CMO - Studied entrepreneurial marketing at Toyo University and University of
Washington. Kyogo has worked in various startups and multicultural environments. An expert
marketer, Kyogo uses his knowledge in UX to create many promotional videos for the
associations he has worked with.
Lukas, Community Outreach- A co-founder of a large gaming community, Lukas always puts
user feedback and experience first. An expert in marketing, Lukas never stops to find ways to
promote the company and our games to the world through different internet and media
platforms.
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AltForge Entertainment Advisory Board
Wanda Gregory: Ph.D., Human Sciences, (focus areas game studies and connected health),
professor and instructor of UW Bothell, Wanda’s current research focuses on the use of games,
and game technologies to create immersive experiences in the management of pain and stress
reduction.
George Fletcher: A food industry veteran with over thirty years of startup experience, George
has helped us with business strategy, hell night competition, and market segments.
Ena Xu: Ph.D. candidate of psychology, (focus study in psycholinguistics and cognitive
neuroscience), UW. Ena has provided critical feedback on gaming interactive environment
design to make sure we build a mental world as realistic as possible, and gave suggestions on
information collecting and research process of depression patients.
Owen Chen: CEO of QiXia Interactive, an independent game design company with a
development team sized over 40 people and has worked on many big titles.
James Youngman: Veteran game designer who’s worked in the industry since 2005 and is
currently working on personal game projects.
Sean Middleditch: A veteran game programmer who’s worked in the industry for ten years and
is currently working at Blizzard Entertainment in California.
III. Business model
Perhaps the most similar game to ours is Undertale by Toby Fox studios, https://undertale.com.
With its extremely unique, creative premise that goes against traditional game norms, old-school
graphic revisited by a twist, carefully-created storyline keeps the game exciting and encourages
multiple playthroughs. Undertale made a huge impact in the gaming community through word of
mouth.
Undertale was the top selling indie game on steam in 2015, and has a total sale estimated 2 to
5 million copies. Their method of sales has been to develop a game over several years, release
it on Steam, engage with the community to develop hype and word of mouth marketing, and
develop a new game during release. This is the business model we are emulating .1
Where our customer is:
“In general they (indies) just seem more interesting and varied than AAA games. Either that or
I'm getting old and looking for something a little different, instead of shooting/stabbing/punching
the same aliens/nazis/zombies/terrorists/robots for the 9834th time.”
1
See Appendix 1
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Our customers are vital to our success. And trying to box them in by demographic and interest
won’t do to allow us to engage with them as directly as we need to.
Niche market - Our customers are people who are interested in single player Indie games and
who enjoy story driven games with dark elements. They are very distinct and different from the
customers who only purchase mainstream games in the market. We interact with them via
Discord, Reddit, social media, and Steam Forums. And hope that they enjoy product enough to
generate their own hype via word of mouth and sharing our advertising to people they know.
This market is discerning. There are a fair amount of indie game makers out there, who are also
competing with major studios, and are resorting to the same tactics we are. To reach out to our
customers through this noise will require a lot of research and well crafted design and art that
strikes a chord with them.
Our Channels:
Steam - this is an online sales platform that takes about 30% of the purchase price for each
sale. It's very popular among PC users and is our first and primary focused market as it has the
least amount of hurdles and costs associated with it.
If we can't get on Steam then we will try GoG, Epic Store, and even Humble Bundle. All of these
are somewhat popular online sales markets for PC games.
Customer Relationships:
The primary relationship we have between our customers will be online interaction. Our
customers are our source of revenue and chief advertisers because of our limited marketing
budget. To engage with them, we will have a variety of platforms to utilize.
Discord - Discord is an online chatting service that many newer companies are utilizing. It
functions a lot like a forum but also allows for voice over internet protocol (voip/voice chat).
Social Media - Instagram, Facebook, etc. These platforms are useful and powerful and so we
will utilize these for announcement and comment threads.
Steam and Reddit Forums - These are popular forums utilized by gaming communities. We
would do well to use them for research and announcements.
Value Proposition:
What we are delivering, and how it is valued, is vital to the success of AltForge Entertainment.
Our value proposition is to deliver a “Fun and Memorable Experience” through an engaging and
beautiful video game that will also deliver an interesting story and stress relieving form of play.
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Revenue Stream:
The money we will raise currently only has one planned revenue stream.
Steam: Uses online transactions for sales. This is the platform that we would like to distribute
our product on.
Other Possibilities: GoG, Epic Store, and Humble Bundle are other platforms to sell games on a
computer. They are possibilities, but they are not ideal because they lack the sheer number of
users Steam has.
There will be no direct sales from us to the consumer.
Financials :2
We seek to get funding of $2-3 million to fund the first project, through VC and crowdfunding
sources (Kickstarter for example ). Our initial funding will consist of $152k of prototype funding.3
The game will be sold at a retail price of $20 and a sale price of $15, in line with similar indie
games. Key costs relate to salaries, overhead, and marketing. The cost for development is
fixed, with our only COG is that Steam will take a 30% cut of the sales, which lead to a margin of
70% of sales.
We expect to break-even and be profitable 100,000-150,000 unit sales. Selling costs
include allowances for promotional pricing, discounts. We hope to generate a substantial
amount of business through Steam, and have factored in fees and fulfillment costs.
IV. Customer and Market
A. Market Opportunity
U.S. Video Game Sales Hit $43B in 2018, Eclipsing Record Year at the Box Office. - The
Hollywood Reporter4
Many parts of the world have seen a strong growth of gaming industry in the past few years.
Video game revenue reached a new high in the U.S. last year, soaring to $43.4 billion.
represents That figure represents an 18% jump from 2017. (Entertainment Software Association
and The NPD Group.) While the gaming industry itself is booming, the market for indie games
remains intimidating and confusing. It is a very niche, hard-to-define market. The top titles make
most of the revenue, it’s the long tail that is suffering. (SteamSpy, 2018) Digital distribution and
2
See Appendix 2
3
See Appendix 5
4
"U.S. Video Game Sales Hit $43B In 2018, Eclipsing Record Year At The Box Office". 2019. The
Hollywood Reporter. Accessed June 11 2019.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/us-video-game-sales-hit-43-billion-2018-1178345.
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highly-accessible game engines have led to an incredibly competitive marketplace where
making a good game doesn't necessarily equate to success, makes it extremely hard for a
small, independent studio like us. Thus figuring out who our target customers are, and how can
we reach those customers, become the most critical question for us .5
TAM
There are more than 2.5 billion video gamers from all over the world The video games market is
expected to be worth over 90 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, from nearly 78.61 billion in 2017
(WePC, 2016) .6
SAM
Online PC games is expected to take up 47% of the global PC and console gaming revenues in
2019. (WePC, 2016)
5
See Appendix 6
6
“2019 Video Game Industry Statistics, Trends, and Data”. 2019. WePC. Accessed June 11, 2019
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SOM
According to the statistics from SteamSpy, there are 19168 games published under indie genre
till the end of 2018, 65 Million players own at least 1 paid indie game (22% of total Steam
audience), total copies owned by players are more than 1.25 billion with an average price of
%7.07, give us a potential market worth $8.83 billion (Steamspy, 2019) .7
B. Target customer persona
Meet Brandon
Brandon is the persona we came up with after our second round of survey and feedback
collected from hell night, combined with actual comments we often seen made by indie gamers
on video game forums. Brandon is a 21 year old college student that play games for fun,
reducing stress, and escaping from the real world. He’s a little bit of an introvert that enjoys
quality alone time more than socializing with friends after school. A laptop is his primary device
he uses to play games so he purchases PC games mainly on Steam.
Unlike many other gamers at his age who only play online shooter games such as Fortnite just
to “feel good”, Brandon finds himself tired of shooting/stabbing/punching the same
aliens/nazis/zombies/terrorists/robots for the 9834th time. What he seeks is something unique,
7
“Indie - Genre Stats”. 2019. SteamSpy. Accessed June 11, 2019
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novel and with more creativity. He wouldn’t mind to sit down for one hour or two to experience a
thought-provoking story. But paying the full price of a $60 AAA game is a scary thought for him,
given he’s still a college student with very low income. Usually he will wait for a huge discount or
till the game is 3+ years old and is at a permanent discount. However, buying an indie game
under most cases won’t cost him more than $15 and if the comments online or streamers he
follows recommend a game he would be happy to pay full price.
Our initial thoughts
Focusing on GOAL and PAIN on the persona, our first round of survey conducted before
midterm are focusing on general mainstream gamers. Those gamers have shown very different
characteristics and interest area than our target segment, and most of them don’t really
purchase indie games. They are likely to play a game for having fun, reducing stress, and
communicating with their friends. On the other hand, they tend to stop playing a game when
they have negative communications, feel skill gaps among players, encounter too strong
enemies, and repetitive game over. Therefore, if we are able to offer a game that covers these
elements and provides additional value, the customers will enjoy our product and spread
positive recommendations to their peers.
Secondary Insights and refining our segment
The question that still need further validation is, does our target customer really want our
product? We are currently working to obtain that information through surveys, interviews, and
talking to experts. We will redo our persona again when more data is collected.
V. Social Proof
We have conducted several surveys, mostly asking gamers with our affiliated gaming
community provided by our community outreach leader. The first one was about first
impressions of our concept art. The second was a set of qualitative interviews where we
presented the game pitch and asked further questions. The responses were very positive with
people showing real interest, even if it wasn’t within their regular genre of games. The third was
a large-scale quantitative survey which is further described below, containing the same game
pitch and concept art as the second survey had (except for the game trailer which wasn’t
available for the second survey). Note that most of the charts presented are a linear scale
ranging from 0 to 5.
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A. Game Pitch
The game is a 2D platformer where the main objective is to escape a dark and mysterious
environment which may come off as depressive. You will be confronting powerful enemies and
learn the story of the character by collecting memories, or you can choose to sacrifice the
memories to make the gameplay easier.
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B. Concept Art
C. Game Trailer ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZUO618QUEI )
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D.Final Questions
E. Summary
Our game pitch spikes interest and imagination; the concept art helps along and our trailer,
even though mysterious, makes people even more interested in the game. Our initial decision to
go with the gaming platform of PCs turned out to be a safe bet as over 90% of respondents
would play this game on PC.
Overall the responses were positive with around 50% of respondents being truly interested in
the game. This can also be seen as more than 50% would pay $15+ for the game, even though
the average age of respondents was below 20 years old.
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VI. Financial Markets and Descriptive Financials8
Our financial plan is to raise between $2-3 million based on the following estimates of employee
salary, overhead costs, and miscellaneous expenses plus a buffer for any unknown expenses
that may come up. Such as travelling and tabling fee for attending gaming exhibitions.
Regarding salaries: We need top talent to make this work. We won’t attract top talent by
paying less. Therefore we are using the average values for each profession from Glassdoor’s
analysis as a starting point for salaries.
Regarding Chief officer salaries: The chief officers are taking lower wages from the industry
standard to ensure the company has adequate funding. However, they cannot be paid nothing
as this would cause a number of incentive problems, including but not limited to diverting
attention from the project and running the company in favor of side jobs to make ends meet.
VII. Safe Harbor
The Safe Harbor section is to illustrate what we know can go wrong, and how we plan to
prevent or mitigate said challenges.
1. No funding - If we don’t get any funding, we’ll never make the game. It will be stuck in
concept. However, because we intend to reimburse designers and artists for their time,
we may need to raise additional cash to pay for them. So, we may have to work other
jobs, or save up before embarking on this venture.
2. Long time looking for funding - If we go a long time looking for funding, and stop
paying designers and artists because there isn’t more work for a while, we could lose
this talent. This would mean we’d have to continue paying them or incentivizing them
with stocks to return to the project once funding begins.
3. Longer time to develop - If production goes beyond the planned development time, this
could cost significantly more money to run. More so than we could pay for with side
work. So it's imperative we get buffer money from backers!
4. Need for more developers - If production requires more developers for completion or
proper delivering, it will cost significantly more money than can be raised by side work.
So it’s imperative we get buffer money from backers!
8
Appendix 2
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5. Having to move offices - If during production we suddenly have to move, it will be very
costly to production. This means we will need to include buffer time for development
included in our plan.
6. Little to no sales - If after production we don't sell enough copies to continue the
company, we will have to lay off everyone and sell the business utilizing one of the two
exit strategies listed in Exit Strategy.
7. Creative differences - Sometimes hires don't work out, and we need to let people go.
This could severely impact the art, design, and general direction of the project. For that
reason it's imperative we make sure everyone is on the same page and people remain
happy during production. To do this, team building exercises, and check in meetings,
should be expected.
8. Steam rejection - If our primary partner for advertising and sales, Steam, decides not to
do business with us. There are other less popular platforms we could utilize like Epic
Store, GoG, and Humble Bundle.
9. Bad press - Maybe we’ll encounter unfactual press about our project, or spun press that
doesn’t look good. There isn’t much we can do here but continue community
engagement and hope to fight off bad press with fan fervor.
10. Investor demands - We’ll be getting funding from VCs and crowdsourcing. Both will
impact our project! VCs may want less risky art and subject matter while crowdsourced
backers may want more of both. We’ll have to have an excellent negotiator to keep both
sources happy and maintain the integrity of the project. This will fall on the CEO and
COO.
11. Kickstarter rejection - If Kickstarter wont let us advertise and seek funding on their
platform, we’ll have to try IndieGoGo or other crowdsourcing means and more
aggressively pursue community engagement to get the word out.
VIII. Next Steps
A. Customer validation
A significant part of our development process is to ensure that we are developing a product that
our customer actually wants. Because we created our persona based only on our interviews, it
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is validated to an extent. However, the total number of interviews (around 20) is not enough to
validate the persona. Plus, if we find important facts which are related to our company or a
gaming market, we will have to identify it and conduct other interviews to examine the issues or
improvements again.
B. Talent Seeking
How will we continue after this class, when half of the team will leave? We will hire employees
with different talents to join the company, including executives, staff, developers, and marketing
officers. Those people are critical to our success. Top talent will be paramount to developing a
top tier product. Therefore, we will need to seek and attract them to work for us. Here are our
methods outlined by: Connections, Job Posting Websites, Our Website, Schools and Events.
Connections: Having numerous connections within the video game industry, Dominick and
Vince-Davis will attempt to gain talent through word of mouth and direct contacts.
Job Posting Websites: There are several job posting websites that can be utilized. These
include:
● Linkedin
● Craigslist
● Monster.com
● Indeed.com
Our Website: We shall have our own website that will be registered with Google and
Gamedevmap for easy searching for potential game developers.
Schools and Events: We shall advertise through school job posting, such as Husky Jobs, and
shall go to events at schools such as University of Washington and Digipen Institute of
Technology.In addition we shall attend Game Developer Conference in order to look for better
talent. .
C.Crowdfunding and VC funding
Running a successful kickstarter campaign takes a lot of time and a great amount of
work. For a considerably-sized campaign, ($30K and up), plan to spend at least 6
month ahead of time preparing is essential. What needs to be done during this time are
(see detail in appendix 6):
1. Research like crazy
2. Announce the game
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3. Build a community beforehand
4. social media outreach
5. Build a consistent brand
6. Conduct surveys before thinking of a launch date
7. Announce the campaign
8. Once the campaign is done: Say “thank you” and keep in touch
D.Marketing and Community Engagement9 10
Due to the nature of video game market, our marketing strategy is tightly combined with our
community engagement plan: people support you because of the good quality of your game, but
also because of the unique flavor/story you offer that resonate with their own personality. The
bigger impact we want, the more awareness we need. Build a community around this game
need social media coverage, which goes with marketing plan. We have divided our plan into
three phases.
Phase 1 will focus on preparation to reach out to our potential customers and community by: a)
performing large-scale survey (to get the final pre-production feedback, kind of social proof), b)
create social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Discord, Instagram, Steam,
Twitch, LinkedIn), and c) to create our official website (structured information, email and links to
social media).
Phase 2 will require us to already have a game trailer with in-game footage and in this phase we
will create pre-release game page on Steam, start publishing periodic development updates via
social media and find influencers who will later promote the game to their audiences (such as
Twitch streamers, YouTube game channels and other not necessarily gamers who have interest
in the game and have an audience to whom they could speak about our game.
9
See Appendix 6
10
See Appendix 7
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Phase 3 will require a playable demo (alpha/beta version) or the final product and in this final
and continuous phase we will make people be able to pre-order or Wishlist the game on Steam
and the influencers will play, comment, review and recommend the game through their social
media channels.
We are confident that if we use these channels and find the right people to help us promote the
game, we will have great influence over potential customers who are gamers as they frequent
these online content places.
A numbered list which serves as a checklist and a summary of this plan will be in appendix.
In the unfortunate event, we are unable to continue operations, we have two exit strategies.
E. Exit Strategies
Licensing: We can license out our IP to other firms to sell for a period of time.
Selling IP: We can sell our IP to firms that have a better marketing and platform capacity.
F. Pivot
Going to other media: Possibilities are board games, graphic novels and animated films. We
can also focus on a different market. Psychology education games are a possibility, and it would
be less competitive, but we are unsure if that market has a significant need for our product.
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IX. Appendices
1. Key Competitors
We are focusing on the field of indie games that have the same business model, which is going
to be competitive. Since the gamers don't really care that much about the content in terms of the
gaming market, we are comparing them under two metrics: the level of engagement and
replayability those games can offer.
COMPETITOR 1: Limbo/Inside
Limbo/Inside is about a child wandering a dark aesthetic world solving puzzles and navigating
through a surreal world. Some say this game is about isolation.
It uses the same business model as Undertale, in that they have a development time and single
release as opposed to early release with iterative changes.
Key Differences:
While our game will also have dark aesthetics, puzzles, and navigation, we will have more
interactive mechanics as well as a narrative story that will become more revealed through
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subsequent playthroughs. This will engage the consumer more. While using the platformer
aspect that we may be using, there is only a limited amount of replay ability because it focuses
on a very linear storyline with one to two endings.
We will have the same business model, but with a more engaging game.
COMPETITOR 2: Undertale
Undertale is about a child who travels a grim setting under the surface of the world and
encounters many monsters, who the player can choose to befriend, fight, or flee from. The
game focuses on player choice.
Because of the many interactions the player can make with the different npcs, the game has
different endings and a lot of replayability.
Key Differences: While our game like Undertale focuses on a dark aesthetic and replayability,
our game will focus on an entirely different from of engagement. Undertale focuses on the
bullet-hell and turn-based gameplay while we will be using a platformer aspect to tell our story.
We also understand the success of Undertale and will use some of its best aspects to create a
more engaging story and game.
We will have the same business model.
2. Financial Plan
Our financial plan is to raise between $2-3 million based on the following estimates of employee
salary, overhead costs, and miscellaneous expenses plus a buffer for any unknown expenses
that may come up.
Roles and salaries
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Assets
Phases Cost
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3. Implementation plan / Roadmap
In order of events, we will have the following phases of development:
Prototype Pre-Alpha Alpha Beta Gold Master Release
X 3 6 6 X/3 X
Total time of first project development cycle will be about 2 years.
Prototype - X Months
The prototype phase will be the concepting phase, making art and trailers to capture the idea of
the game to sell to investors. It will be a period of little to no funding while seeking funding. This
will take an unknown amount of time.
Talent seeking should occur at this time for lead development positions.
Pre-Alpha - 3 Months
After receiving funding, this will be the stage where game mechanics are designed and tested. It
will not have complete levels or gameplay. It will just focus on making sure the mechanics work
and the design is sound.
Hiring of non lead developers should occur at this time.
Alpha - 6 Months
During the Alpha phase, game mechanics will be implemented into game levels with the goal of
finishing a playable game from start to finish.
Beta - 6 Months
Also known as the “Testing” phase, this will be the time the game mechanics and levels are
tested for completion to prevent any software or design bugs.
During this time, the next project should be designed and planned for. This could mean seeking
more outside funding.
Gold Master - X/3 Months
This will be the period where the game will be tested by platform companies to make sure the
game adheres to their standards. This varies from company to company, and may result in new
bugs found and features redesigned. At most this should take 3 months.
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Release - X Months
This is the release period, sometimes known as “Live” or “post release.” The game will be
completed and available to the public. The development team will be downsized (depending on
funding and revenue from the first game) and or working on the next project while
simultaneously fixing bugs players find.
4. Development
As stated above, development has numerous stages. But a more intricate view of the process
should be detailed from the perspective of each development team.
Prototype
Designer - Will come up with the game concept. This is what the game is about and will dictate
art.
We will need one lead designer here, and throughout the remaining phases.
Art - Create concept art that captures the game concept and feel.
We will need one lead artist here, and then throughout the remaining phases.
Programming - Not required at this stage.
But, a lead programmer should be sought after at this phase.
Test - Not required at this stage.
Pre-Alpha
Designer - Mechanics design will be started and refined during this stage.
No additional Designers need be hired.
Art - Will begin primary art assets such as characters and backgrounds.
No additional Artists need be hired during this phase.
Programming - Implementation of mechanics.
No additional programmers need be hired during this phase.
Test - Not required at this stage.
Alpha
Designer - Level design will be planned and executed during this stage.
Art - All remaining art assets will be made at this stage.
Two additional Artists should be hired during this phase.
Programming - New feature implementation as needed and fixing bugs.
Two additional programmers should be hired during this phase.
Test - Testing levels and features for bugs.
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One lead tester should be hired during this phase.
Beta
Designer - Design bug fixing and next project concepting.
Art - Bug fixing and concept art for next project.
Programming - Bug fixing, prototyping for next project.
Test - Finding bugs.
No additional testers need to be hired during this phase.
Gold Master
Designer - Design bug fixing and next project concepting.
Art - Bug fixing and concept art for next project.
Programming - Bug fixing, prototyping for next project.
Test - Finding bugs.
Release
Downsizing may occur here.
Designer - Designing mechanics for next project.
Art - Bug fixing and primary art asset making for next project.
Programming - Bug fixing, and mechanic implementation for next project.
Test - Verifying community found bugs.
5. Crowdfunding plan
Running a successful kickstarter campaign takes a lot of time and a great amount of
work. For a considerably-sized campaign, ($30K and up), plan to spend at least 6
month ahead of time preparing is essential. What needs to be done during this time are:
1. Research like crazy
Page 24 of 32

There are many things we need to learn before starting a kickstarter campaign. Reach
out to successful kickstarter campaign creators before, talk to them to make sure we
fully understand what it takes to start a campaign and where our flaws are. Only about
35% percent of the gaming project get funded on Kickstarter. One must provide
something fresh, produce a game that brings something special or fill a niche where
there’s a clear demand. Customer validation matters, make sure is a market out there
that enough amount of people will be willing to pay for this idea.
2. Announce the game: Build a polished prototype or a demo that people can play
The Kickstarter community wants to see more than just an idea before they'll offer their
support. A good idea needs proof, a prototype doesn't need to be in large quantity, but it
must be done with good quality and highly polished. This process will take us about 3
months, we will bootstrapping to hire designers and freelance programmers to work on
the prototype.
3. Build a community beforehand
Crowdfunding is love-driven: people support you for the unique nature of your project,
but also because they know and trust you. When the campaign is funded already,
newcomers will feel safer knowing that several hundred others put their faith in our team
already. Communicate with our community daily to maintain them active and engaged.
4. social media outreach
This part goes with marketing plan. The more funding we need, the more awareness we
need. Build a community around our project needs to start with the websites we’ve
already use (most likely, Facebook and Twitter) and branching out to new ones: a blog,
Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, and more. Look for people, blogs, and websites in the
gaming industry, as well as our project’s area of interest, to connect with. The best way
to raise the sort of awareness required for a major development project is to receive
legitimate media coverage from an industry news outlet like Kotaku, GameInformer,
Machinima, etc.
5. Build a consistent brand
Building a brand that people can recognize is important. Try to come up with something
special our followers will focus on, and it needs to be consistent and unique. No matter
it’s the fonts, tone, color or the game itself. When people know you’re intentional, they
know you care. Try to add some personal flavor into it, always have a story can
resonate with our backers are what make magic happens.
6. Conduct surveys before thinking of a launch date
The best way to estimate how much we could raise is to count the people we know who
are likely to donate. Before thinking about launch date and giving an estimate of how
much we should pledge for, put out a form for people to fill.
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7. Announce the campaign: Incentivize our backers and Cross-promotion
The 20% principle: you must raise enough money in the first 24 to 48 hours to get
enough momentum to succeed. Once we’ve announced the campaign, we must try to
incentivize as many backers as we can. Spread the rewards well, Give upgrade
incentives to optimize rewards. What we can also do is to reach out to previous
successful campaigns, to ask if they’re willing to post an update about our campaign
and we will do the same in return.
8. Once the campaign is done: Say “thank you” and keep in touch
Be responsible to people who paid for our games. Fulfill our promises and keep our
backers and supporters posted on how our project is coming along. plan out how and
when to send out rewards, and stay organized to make sure we’ve thanked and
rewarded everyone.
6. Marketing stages (%=progress of the development)
Prototype X months 1-10%
1. Publish a trailer 1
2. Create Social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Twitch to set up
platforms for the advertisements.
3. Design and publish our website. ($4.95/month)
Pre-Alpha 3 months (before creating our game) 10-20%
[Market research]
1. By using facebook page or reach out gamers, conduct qualitative research
(projective questions, and interviews) and quantitative research (A/B tests and
questionnaires) to understand the customer’s needs in our game.
2. Start to create 2 personas to refine our first target customer. Each persona
should be composed of 10-15 interviewees.
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3. Check the websites and make sure who is interested in our game; decide
specific beachhead segments, and research them.
4. Ask UW game clubs or another game collaborators to improve our game; this
collaborator is expected to be the first influencer.
[Marketing]
5. Post our signs of progress on a Facebook page and Twitter, after that, post our
progress only if needed. (we don’t pay for any social media ads here. Just post
our progress to showcase our business) At the same time, we add new
information on the website.
6. Post articles about mental issues, which have meaningful information to many
people as well as Altforge. These posts can help prove that our company is
friendly to people who suffer from traumatic events and that we have many
insights into mental issues.
7. Create a LinkedIn account to showcase our business and hire other people.
Alpha 6 months (during creating our game) 20-70%
[Market research]
1. According to the beachhead segment, find a channel and research the
community(or communities) that we will target.
2. Keep finding and asking new collaborators.
3. Research who is coming to indie game events and figure out the potential target
customers in the events.
[Marketing]
4. Publish a trailer 2
5. Keep posting articles about games and mental issues.
6. Find and attend Indie game events as much as possible and distribute our
pamphlet with the visitors. (make a pitch for potential customers)
7. Start to post Instagram (share customers’ experiences with others by using
hashtags like #altforge, or #memoria )
Beta 3-6 months (before publishing our game) 70-90%
[Market research]
1. Still, make sure the visitors on our website and research them if necessary.
2. Research and decide our influencers and contact them.
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3. Start to research and contact mental experts or famous people who will support
our game in order to establish a brand.
4. Set a booth in gaming events and let the visitors play a demo, which is going to
be very short. Also, research who is interested in our game more and less.
[Marketing]
5. Publish gameplay 1
6. As opposed to prototype and “Alpha phase”, post many pictures in events, and
show that we are ready for offering new experiences soon.
7. Keep our social media open for engaging with all the gamers news websites to
have them talk about our game.
8. Set email news and start to send ads email to the subscribers who would have
accessed to our website during the indie game expos to keep them updated.
https://unity3d.com/cn/learn/tutorials/topics/developer-advice/how-market-your-g
ame
Gold Master 90-99%
[Market research]
1. Hand on our game to Youtubers or other influencers in a game field, or education
experts and receive feedback, which will be “good” and used as a quote for the
evaluation of our game.
2. Find and collaborate with Youtubers or twitchers.
3. Set “special gift” for people who will support our game.
[Marketing]
4. Keep the followers updated and share other influencers’ experiences on social
media.
5. Use as many social media as possible.
6. Use Google ads. The cost varies from word to word because it is an auction
style. (The average small business using Google Ads spends between $9,000
and $10,000 per month on their Google paid search campaigns. That's $100,000
to $120,000 per year.)
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/05/21/how-much-does-adwords-cost
7. If necessary, use Youtube videos’ advertisement. Most businesses invest $10 or
more a day to run an advertising campaign on YouTube.
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https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/how-much-does-youtube-advertising-c
ost.html 10*30days= $300/ month
[Most companies spend about 5% to 15% of annual revenue on marketing. Of the total
marketing budget, approximately 35% to 45% should be spent on digital marketing
activities. Of the digital marketing budget, about 15% to 25% usually gets spent on
social media marketing efforts (organic and paid)]
https://www.webstrategiesinc.com/blog/how-to-set-a-realistic-social-advertising-b
udget
Release/Live 100%
[Market research]
1. Keep track of the players' comments and find a keyword which may lead to the
next product.
2. Using our reputation and evaluation from others, research and reach out to
school or education place for gaining more customers.
3. Start to seek other channels and targets.
[Marketing]
4. Attend Indie game events and disseminate our game more.
5. Because we will be expected to make money, start to use more Ad networks to
attract more customers.
6. About Youtube videos’ advertisement, Most businesses invest $10 or more a day
to run an advertising campaign on YouTube.
https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/how-much-does-youtube-advertising-c
ost.html 10*30days= $300/ month
9. Use Google ads the cost varies from word to word because it is an auction style.
(The average small business using Google Ads spends between $9,000 and
$10,000 per month on their Google paid search campaigns. That's $100,000 to
$120,000 per year.)
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/05/21/how-much-does-adwords-cost
10.On Facebook, spend $5 per week ($1 per day)and doing so 4 times, as we can
see below, find the most appropriate dates and timings to catch the audience on
Facebook, and also make sure what kind of post work. After you spend $5-10 or
so on two ads over the first two weeks, you will start to have some information
about whether or not the ads you’re promoting are working. Keep track of reach,
impressions, clicks, and other types of engagement to evaluate performance.
Keep track of reach, impressions, clicks, and other types of engagement to
evaluate performance.
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https://www.godelta.com/blog/how-to-run-facebook-advertising-on-a-small-budge
t
(Cost 5*4=$20 months)
11. About Twitter, invest $5,000 per month. Buffer’s data indicates that the industry
average for social media marketing as a whole is somewhere between $6,000
and $11,000 per month. The Content Factory studies outsourcing and found that
$4,000-$7,000 per month is an average for outsourced social media marketing.
https://follows.com/blog/2017/01/much-spend-twitter-ads
7. Community engagement plan
Phase 1
a. Perform large-scale survey
i. To gather input from potential players
ii. This input might help find bottlenecks and target audience
b. Create social media accounts
i. Facebook
ii. Twitter
iii. YouTube
iv. Reddit
v. Discord
vi. Instagram
vii. Steam
viii. Twitch
Page 30 of 32

ix. LinkedIn
c. Create website to provide:
i. Structured information about company and projects
ii. Concept and in-game art, embedded YouTube trailer
iii. Links to social media
iv. Server should also provide email account (info@altforge.com) for
potential business partners or employees
Phase 2
d. Requirements:
i. Game trailer with in-game footage
e. Pre-release page on Steam
i. Info about game, art/trailer
ii. Pre-order button, wishlist
f. Start publishing periodic project updates
i. Doesn’t have to be weekly, more important is the content
ii. New artwork, changes to the game idea, team changes
iii. Changelog
g. Find people to spread message about us
i. Influencers
ii. Twitch streamers
iii. YouTube commentators
iv. Basically “gamers” who have viewers
v. They can start talking about the game and show game art
Phase 3
h. Requirements:
i. Playable demo or final product
i. Steam Early Access
i. Or demo or final product depending on the development
j. Influencers
i. Have the influencers show the game to their audience by playing it.
Page 31 of 32

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