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Contact UsSteamforged Games
Stockport-based tabletop gaming company, Steamforged Games was co-founded by Rich Loxam and Mat Hart.Â
The duo turned their hobby of gaming into what is set to be a £10m business this year. As avid gamers, the co-founders met at a gaming convention and launched a crowdfunding/ kick starter campaign and raised over £3m in 24 hours.Â
The business turns popular video games, such as Resident Evil, into tabletop board games.
Q: The good and the bad about working with agencies?
We work with a lot of agencies across our projects at SFG. It's critical for us to really understand early on what we want to achieve clearly from the relationship. Entering into conversations without a clear understanding can quickly lead to work received being unfocused, not hitting the mark and ultimately costing quite a lot.Â
One area we have worked well specific to SFG and crowdfunding is Backerkit. They are an advertising agency we have used for years to help build and promote our crowdfunding campaigns. Â
The key way the relationship works well for us is their access to data and user profiling is very specific for the crowdfunding world - which means our ROI and return is focused and predictable. Having trialed other agencies within the space although they had similar approaches in terms of awareness and brand - finding an agency that has an active reach to your target demographic is key in securing a solid return.Â
Once we find a good agency, we really do like to build and lean into that relationship - building a strong network around a company that works really does help you focus on the core of your delivery - and in our case, that is making great games.
Q: What advice do you have on growing a brand in today’s marketplace?Â
Today's market is one of opportunity. The speed in which data is consumed and the various platforms it can be taken from allow for a lot of opportunity and encourage much more 'opportunistic' behaviour. You have to be quick - jumping on trends, building on a viral video hit, testing different approaches. General quality of video and graphics due to the tools available now is high. The growth of tiktok shows that content and entertainment are what people want. Don't spend hours crafting the perfect marketing plan - start experimenting - see what content actually is being taken...build on that.Â
Don't pay for reviews - the consumer knows what is genuine or not. Build relationships with people. Build relationships with the customer. Listen to them. Building a strong community doesn't come overnight and it takes time - you will make mistakes along the way but be honest and open as you build and it will repair and mend. Â
Crowdfunding via Kickstarter has been one of our biggest drivers of building our communities and marketing and I believe over the next 5 years we will continue to see the platform grow and become more mainstream - recently we have seen the likes of authors such as Brandon Sanderson make huge waves on the platform...this will only continue.
Brand building is all about understanding what it represents. You have to know the core DNA and building blocks to be able to properly represent them. Working with several AAA video game companies and translating their games to the tabletop - we work very hard to distill that flavour into the games so when someone plays they instantly go 'this FEELS like X' and catapults that person back to the great enjoyment they had being immersed into the video game world.Â
Massive thanks to the team at Steamforged Games for sharing their journey with us!
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