The subtitle of this postmortem should say – Everything is Possible if you don’t know what you are doing.

Cobble Games was founded in 2017 and branded itself as a team of mercenaries who will deliver your project.  Company transitioned to LTD in 2019 with an investor on board and in it’s peak had 8 people working simultaneously on three projects.

We covered 95% of our operations from Co Development and Work for Hire projects. The only investment we received was from the business angel which was equal to 3 months of our “best time income”. 

What we managed to achieve? 

Co – Development

• GameInn #1 for Draw Distance
• GameInn #2 for Draw Distance
• Ritual: Crown of Horns for Draw Distance
• Vampire: the Masquerade: Shadows of New York  for Draw Distance
• Serial Cleaners  for Draw Distance
• Destroyer U‑Boat Hunter 

Full Games: 

• Futurust * 
  
  
• H1Jack  – mobile game for a IT Security Company. Later ported by us to Switch.
  
  
• Plane Mechanic Simulator * 
  
  
• Chains of Fury 
  

(* sort of – major issues with the publisher)

Smaller projects:

• Stump – preliminary porting for Simfabric. 
• Mr Blaster – Fixes for EI Games
• Plastic Soldiers  – delivering the last 10% for Detalion Games
• Titan Charge – fixes for Android and iOS.
• Preproduction of train simulation game
• Preproduction of hunter simulation game
• Glorious Companion fixes for Steam Early Access

True Objective

Build team and competence to deliver own games and become true independent studio with inclusive internal culture.

Result?

We managed to deliver 18 smaller projects, including Chains of Fury – comic boomer shooter inspired by Hellboy and Lobo. However the market situation and recoup was not enough to maintain the stability of the core team.

But it was a hell of a ride…

What worked out?

• Chains of Fury has been published simultaneously on Steam, Epic Games and GOG with Fulqrum Publishing.

• Chains of Fury was majorly self funded (1,5 mln PLN in wages vs 262K PLN from the publisher). 
• No debts or long‐term liabilities. 
  
• We built the company from scratch and gained tons of practical experience.
  
  
• We built a team of awesome people.
  
  
  

What didn’t work out?

• Chains of Fury production could have been shorter. 
  
  The project which I describe in another post mortem was too big for such an unexperienced team. The design had changed 3 times during the production. Moreover we encountered a lot of external challenges while making it – changing publisher, getting it funded, etc. It’s a miracle that the game exists. 
  More in this article: LINK
  
  
• The publisher decided to prematurely launch the game with no marketing.
  
  I can’t blame them since they waited 2 years for to make the game happen. However in my opinion the game could have been a bit better if they gave us more than 3 months notice to tell that the game launches in September.
  
  
• Due to War in Ukraine we failed to secure additional funding.
  
  Shortly after COVID I’ve decided to look for investors. I’ve spoken with SATUS, Erebor and Belweder entities. I also spoke with publishers and other venture capital. However as I mentioned before – getting the money in is a full time job. I had to run the workshop first and I did not have a partner to help me out with the administrative task. It was too much for a one person. After the russian invasion started all the entities vanquished or took a silece vow. No calls returned. Processes halted. You asked and noone responded. 
  
  
• We had to disband the team. 
  
  My plan B was to have us covered by work for hire and co‐development. Unfortunately the market has changed radically and money from co‐dev stoped coming in. Moreover one of the clients decided to cancel a tycoon management project we were doing with them… but forgot to tell us. In the end if I count all the money other people owned us but for some reason didn’t pay us – it was about one year of operation of the 4–5 persons team. 

Final thoughts:

What doesn’t kill you… gives you XP (and PTSD)

Major Challenges: 

• Constant battle to keep the engine hot
  
  Since we did not have a “rich daddy” who paid for our expenses we had to focus on survival first. Unfortunately due to my lack of experience and staying limited to Polish customers only, our margins did not provide us enough of safety buffor. We were lacking a person specialized in getting the money in. It’s a full time job to look for funding. You either run a workshop or gather fuel to power the workshop. You can’t do both in the same time.
  
  
• The sea is full of sharks
  
  The industry is generally a welcome and safe place. However due to it’s rapid boom in former years it attracted people who targeted just for an easy money. I had a misfortune of losing about 100k PLN just because a client was not honest with us.  
  
  
• Sometimes you can do everything right… and still get blown away. 
  
  We’ve managed to survive for such a long time due to a simple rule – always have a backup plan. However when our major client lost it’s funding and then plan B, C and D failed as well. We had to eventually give up. 

Was it worth it? 

What I’ve learnt?

The journey from zero to a professional.

• To code in Unity
  
  I started the company as a one man army which later expanded. However the core was always coding something for others. This was the major difference between me and other CEOs – I was not only managing the team but I was working on projects just like them. That’s why even though I no longer have a team I am still pretty decent with my technical skills. Which I again proved while recently working on a DLC for Serial Cleaner – 8 year old game which I had to dissemble, add new content and re‐assemble on my own. 
  
  
• Design, prototype and plan
  
  I designed and redesigned Chains of Fury. I also made every single mistake in the books telling you “don’t do that if you want to survive”. I also know why R&D and preproduction is so important since we haven’t done that and it costed me very dearly. I can even give you a number how much it costed us – about half a million zlotys. This is the amount we could have saved if we did the things the right way. 
  
  
• pitch games to Polish and global publishers
  
  Pitching is easy. Making games is difficult. The fact is that you really should not worry about pitching to publishers. If you have a nice demo they will come by themselves.
  
  
• Deliver games for PC, Console and Mobile
  
  Chains of Fury is live on Steam, Epic and GOG. H1Jack is on Switch. We did games for Android and iOS. 
  
  
• Cooperate with other Game Development companies using their know how
  
  This is actually the most valuable experience. Due to the nature of co‐dev business we had to be able to adapt to internal culture, skills and technology. 
  
  
• Administer LTD company
  
  It would be actually pretty simple if not only our government decided to change the rules with “Polski Ład”. It took me 3 months of stress which could have been totally avoided if only our government would not be a bunch of morons who never worked anywhere in the private sector.
  
  
• Build and manage game development team
  
  Throughout that 7 years I had a pleasure of working with roughly 20 people. I had to “fire” only one person because of their skillset which did not fit to our current needs. All of the people who worked with us are still in the game industry and we still keep in touch
  
  
• Find funding 
  
  I admit I am not the best in that area as I strongly believe all your work should be a product of your own hands. However I’ve learnt about financial instruments which are available to a game developer. 
  
  
  
• Manage multiple projects in the same time
  
  Due to nature of work for hire most of our projects where milestone based which gave us some time to work on something else while the milestone is evaluated. After a while I’ve learnt that there is a certain limit I can take and ideally I would like to avoid shuffling with projects. Everything is fine until everything is not. The creative business comes with it’s creative problems and if you have too much going on in the same time everyone will suffer. 

What’s next?

For now I think I have enough of playing a role of responsible adult. I still want to make games but I don’t want to handle 5 different areas in the same time. 

I really would like to focus myself on 1 project only without the need of worrying whether my team and I have means to survive. Even though I am back to square one working as a coder for other developers and making my own projects after work I am more relaxed than ever before. The heavy load of responsibility was crushing me immensly. In the end my body started failing. I am slowly regaining my health again. I’m focusing on rebuilding myself, my physical and mental health.

I am sure that when the time comes I will be better equiped to face the challenges of the game industry,