It has been 3 months since inception and we started with the intent of creating FUN games with financial education embedded into it. And we are still sticking to the same idea!
Not sure which one is harder: creating a game company or a business start up. In the last few 6 years of my life I have been a bit disconnected from the game industry and because of that I may feel that a business start up is easier than a game start up.
Business Vs Game Start up
When creating a business start up we ask ourselves the following questions: is this idea solving a problem? Is the problem big enough that people would pay for it? What is the size of the market?How about games? That's where it is tricky. Games are very subjective. What is fun for me, may not be for you. What is beautiful for me, is ugly for you. What now?
A game start up is very similar to a business start up. You need to understand your market and build accordingly. For example, if we are trying to reach teenagers, what do they like? What are their aspirations? I find hard to believe that if you create a game with technical financial terms in a setting similar to the real world we would be able to reach them.
The key question always is: what is your target market and how is your product/game attractive to them.
The game
What would be a game company without a game ? We have pivoted the idea, several times. :) As you do. The theme is always the same: financial literacy, but what has been changing is the way we approach it.One thing that we have always kept in our minds is keeping it short: both the game and the development.
The game we are sitting in at the moment is: Money Tree. We will engage our players by allowing them to collect money and items from trees and learn about investments at the same time.
Our time box is one month. Let's see how we go :)
