Some of the biggest causes of a game studio to fail include: a demotivated and/or burned out team, lack of funds, legal trouble, not seeing the problems ahead, a neglected game and/or audience, internal arguments and publishing problems. At the start of January 2014, Critical Force Entertainment based of Kajaani, Finland had every single one of those challenges one way or another. This talk is intended to share the insights, learned lessons and best practices of how we succeeded through failing endlessly, even with a game that had a huge audience which we sadly never managed to properly monetize. Regardless of that, being creative and coming up with solutions to our problems on a step-by-step basis got us to become strong than we ever thought we could be. The main focus of this talk is on sharing our story of performing a complete startup turnaround regardless of the relative success we've had with our games. Topics include: I will be sharing concrete examples of how we tackled the above topics and will provide various forms of data, references, tips, best practices and learned lessons.

1. The Complete Game Startup
Turnaround
HD Redux Edition
When even 27 million
downloads and 300.000
DAU can’t keep us safe
Slides: www.slideshare.net/VGVisionary

2. Question
How much are you willing to sacrifice
to do something nobody else is doing?

3. Table of contents
• The story of Critical Force Entertainment
• What does a damn game startup turnaround look like?
• The lessons we’ve learned so you don’t have to go
through this crap
• Summary
• Questions

4. Who am I?
This is a talk by
Vlad Micu
Head of Studio at
Critical Force Entertainment
Used to be the PR Manager of
Grambleworld.com
Did production, game design and creative direction for
arkavis Siam co. ltd. in Thailand
Wrote for many other international outlets including
Gamesauce.org, TechInAsia.com,
PocketGamer.biz, Control Magazine,
Gamer.nl, XBLAFans.com, Casual Connect
Magazine and many more.
@vgvisionary

5. Partners & Clients

6. Where does this all come from?
• 600+ developers
interviewed
• Personal start-up
experience
• Advising multiple
international studios &
getting tons of advice
• Reading a BUTTLOAD on
the interwebz & listening
to other devs.

9. Not enough to succeed!
The past 9 months looked like this:
• (A) Post traumatic stress from
layoffs,
• (B) then just hoping the wheels
don’t fall entirely off the car,
• (C) then investing in product
pipeline,
• (D) then on-boarding new team
members and leads, then —
and this is the place we’re at
now —
• (E) solving for a repeatable
viable business model.

10. Coincidence
• Jason Gold
This talk is inspired by a blogpost on Startup Turnaround by
Jason Goldberg, Founder and CEO of Fab (betashop.com)
He took a lot of words right of my mouth…

11. “The experience we will gain in this turnaround will be the
most valuable experience of our lives.”
– Random Fab Employee

12. Our challenge:
A complete startup turnaround
• Team Culture
• Legal Concerns
• Funding
• Staying alive
• Investors

13. #1 What is our culture?
• Team = Not a family, but
a well-oiled machine.
• Responsibility > Authority
• The ‘24H bother’-rule
• Weekly reports
• Shareholder agreement
“I can say with confidence that Fab will win or lose based on our ability
to assemble and manage the right people for right now.”
– Jason Goldberg, Founder and CEO of Fab

14. Adding the right people
Ben + Minh =
25+ years of game development experience

15. Do we foster young talent
the right way?
• First month of
intensive research &
training
• Giving them more
responsibility
• The simple rule:
make informed
decisions based on
proven practices.
Free or Unpaid internships?

16. #2 Do we optimally exploit our
own products?
300+ websites iframed the web version of Critical Strike Portable
from Kongregate.com

17. Solution: Funnel

18. CriticalStrikePortable.com

19. Early results

20. Success!

21. Now

22. 2 Million users!
Earning us 19757.59 euros
from Feb 25 – September 17th 2014

23. #3 How are we handling our
budget?
• Monthly burn-rate:
+- 20.000 euros
• Major budget cuts!
• Improve our existing
revenue sources
– ad optimization
– IAP design
• Find alternative
sources of revenue

24. Bootstrapping: my example
• No salary
• Living in the office
• Travel costs covered
as a speaker
• Computers from
university
• Collected cans on the
street for ‘pant’
(Finnish for change)

25. Kurt Varner lived in his car for 4 months, renting a
coworking space and using a gym subscription to shower
http://blog.kurtvarner.com

26. Petsku from Zorg Entertainment sold his Transformers
to fund his startup and game AG Drive

27. The BetaDwarf team lived in a university classroom for 7
months before getting discovered and kicked out
http://i.imgur.com/yacucU1.jpg

28. (Smart) Work for Hire
= Perfectly alligned jobs that allow you to
work on/prepare for your own dreams

29. Early results
“Although The Last Tinker feels like a blending of different genres
and earlier games, the gorgeous art style and creative story offer a
vibrant new appeal.” – VentureBeat
"The Last Tinker is a colorful and truly beautiful game." - IndieMag.fr
At first, I thought The Last Tinker: City of Colors was a childish
game. It turned out to be the game that has made me smile the most
in the past year. – TheDailyChill.co.uk
“The Last Tinker is particularly eye-catching for
being so colorful in a Viva Piñata-esque manner” –
Destructoid
115 Preview articles from February – April 2014

30. YouTubers
47+ YouTube videos from February – May 2014
with a total of 750.000+ views

31. Final Results
153 Reviews published after launch on Steam

32. AppCampus
There is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’

33. #4 Is all of that enough for us to
keep running?

34. Focus > Growth
• Different platforms
• Reskinning
• Growing audience
• 3rd party devices
• SDKs SDKs SDKs

35. We’re a fucking start-up!
“What is Fab right now? Right now it’s a fucking startup.
It’s really hard. It’s intense. It’s a struggle. It’s ambiguous. It
changes a lot. It’s all consuming. It’s a lot of sausage making. It’s
working weekends to hit numbers and dates. It’s stretching people
beyond their comfort zone. It’s insisting on doing it better even
when it’s already pretty good. It’s being brutally honest about gaps
and weaknesses. It’s one day you’re headed in one direction and the
next day another, because the first move wasn’t the best move. It’s
being ok with things not working because that creates opportunities
to learn how to fix it.
It’s a fucking startup.”
– Jason Goldberg, Founder and CEO of Fab

36. Vision: become the Riot Games of
Scandinavia!
Company Mantra:
Become market leader of real-time multiplayer mobile
games with a competitive e-sports community

37. Different attitude & vocabulary
• Sustainable traction
– who’s ever used that word?
• Cash flow positive
– or this one?
• Share holders agreement
• Business plan!?
Get standardized legal documents for your startup here:
http://seriesseed.fi/

38. Having everything in written
• Every important
meeting
• E-mail followup
• Contracts, jezus!

39. #5 Pitching = Knowing thyself
• Know who you are and
who you aren’t
• Know what the other
person wants and doesn’t
have
• Use that to disarm your
opponent and put
him/her in the defensive
• Make yourself rare/scarce
Learn from Eminem!
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/18/how-to-get-an-mba-from-eminem/

40. The #1 Skill? Resilience
But be prepared

41. A support system helps
Colleagues
Mentors &
Peers
Therapist
A FUCKTON of Friends
books

42. Our result: we’re getting there
Progress, huzzah!

43. A closer look

44. We’re sustainable!

45. Take aways

46. Take aways

47. Take aways

48. Summary
•Team
•Product
•Funding
•Vision
•Pitching

49. Further reading
• http://www.businessinsider.com/kurt-varner-lived-out-of-his-car-for-4-months-in-silicon-valley-2014-8
• https://eliademy.com/catalog/appcademy-online/appcademy-dealing-with-investors.html
• http://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/174030515/making-mistakes
• http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/how-to-get-funding-as-told-by-august-capital-video/
• http://reidhoffman.org/linkedin-pitch-to-greylock/
• http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/06/24/the-margin-manifesto-11-tenets-for-reaching-or-doubling-profitability-in-3-months/
• http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/how-five-men-are-changing-the-business-and-size-of-game-publishing
• http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/08/whats-it-like-to-lose-100000000-at-facebook/
• http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-08-06-dan-adelmans-advice-for-indies
• http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/10/28/business-mentorship-and-muses/
• http://www.businessinsider.com/if-someone-handed-steve-jobs-a-pen-this-is-how-he-wouldve-sold-it-2014-8
• http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-influence-anyone-2014-8
• https://medium.com/@morganb/ten-things-i-learned-researching-ten-of-the-worlds-fastest-growing-startups-a53106e2599a
• http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-entrepreneurs-creed-inner-beliefs-of-true-entrepreneurs.html
• http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/06/24/the-margin-manifesto-11-tenets-for-reaching-or-doubling-profitability-
in-3-months/
• http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/how-to-negotiate/
• http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/18/how-to-get-an-mba-from-eminem/
• http://betashop.com/post/83367408084/its-a-fucking-startup-why-are-you-here
• http://www.incomediary.com/decoded-17-secrets-to-jay-zs-entrepreneurial-success
• http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/03/26/the-psychology-of-automation-building-a-bulletproof-personal-finance-
system/#more-1528
• http://lifehacker.com/make-46-meals-for-under-100-in-4-hours-1480339310
• http://blog.readyforzero.com/how-to-create-a-budget/
• http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/04/the-top-22-mistakes-of-first-time-ceos/
• http://www.zef.fi/building-incredible-company-culture-buying-tesla-wont-salvation/
• http://www.businessinsider.com/etsy-chad-dickerson-blameless-post-mortem-2012-5
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2013/05/10/5-things-founders-dont-talk-about/
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/06/07/70-disengagement-3-ways-to-engage-those-who-arent/?
utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
• http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/22/on-trust-founder-fall-outs-and-6-steps-to-getting-things-back-on-track/

50. Bonus tip: watch my other lectures
www.youtube.com/vgvisionary

51. Contact me
#imlonely
• @vgvisionary
• Mail me at
vlad@criticalforceentertainment.com
• Slides: www.slideshare.net/VGVisionary

52. Thanks!
Questions?