Summary
Dun Rite Games is on a mission to get back to the basics of mobile gaming by putting the gamer at the center of the universe. The notion that the customer is always right is the whole premise of Dun Rite games.
Their social gaming platform, which continues to progress in development has been designed with continuous feedback from potential future users with the hopes that if you build exactly what they want, they will come. With major winners like Fortnight in the category grossing billions in revenue, Dun Rite Games hopes to be the next major win in the market.
Check out how Jake Dobbins and his team hope to accomplish this in an industry plagued with wins and losses.
Funding Round Details
- Company: Dun Rite Games
- Security Type: Convertible Note
- Valuation: $10,000,000
- Min Investment: $100
- Platform: Wefunder
- Deadline: Jan 25, 2019
Jake, your background is quite varied so how did you end up drumming up the vision for Dun Rite and why do you think you are the right person to build this business?
I’m a gamer, have been for over 30 years, console, PC, and now Mobile. I was and am deep into the mobile gaming market, spent upwards of 8 hours a day playing the games, making content on YouTube, and talking with other mobile gamers via comments and live streams, podcasts, etc.
I know what is lacking in the market and what the thousands and thousands of representatives of that market are looking for that isn’t out there. The need for something better is where the vision came from, it really is that simple.
Can you tell us a bit more about Dun Rite as a game and the type of gamer you are targeting?
The reason we named the company this is because of the gamer. Most of the mobile gaming companies out there look at their customers as an ATM machine, how can we squeeze another dime out of them? How can we force them to spend money to play our “free to play game” instead of asking themselves the question they should be, which is how can we make this game more fun for them?
How can we give them a richer experience and improve the quality of life of the player when they are on the game? We firmly believe if we create this unique experience not found anywhere else on mobile, they will play, and a higher percentage of the players will gladly spend money on the features we are offering in our monetization strategy.
The type of gamer we are targeting is all of them, everyone who has a mobile device and enjoys games. We have something for everyone, from the super casual player that has no interest in competition but enjoys building something, customizing it, working on it, to the eSports player that wants to be the best in the world at our competitive game modes, and everything in between.
One of the major concerns we have around investing in games is the fact that a lot of the success of the game just relies on going viral with the customer base. How are you trying to de-risk the game?
For sure with the free to play model it is a numbers game. You have to have players and even free to play players are content for those that spend money, they need someone to compete against and to look cool in front of with their shiny upgrades.
From the very beginning we have vetted our ideas with gamers from all sides of the gaming world, casual, competitive etc. We are making sure that our games appeals to as large an audience as possible. You can’t really “de-risk” anything in this world, but you can listen to the people that are giving you their hard earned money, and you can give them what they want, and what others aren’t giving them.
How will you monetize the game and what proxies can we use to get a sense of customer willingness to spend in-game?
Well while we aren’t reinventing the wheel with the genre we have chosen for our first game, in a sense we are reinventing how the wheel works with our monetization strategy. We are introducing two monetization modes that have never been seen in the mobile real time strategy market.
One of those is customization. In all of our competitors games all bases, troops, heroes etc. look exactly the same for all players. With skins we are giving the player the ability to customize the look and feel of all of these aspects of the game with in app purchases. Some games succeed on this strategy alone.
On top of that we are using the proven strategy of skipping ahead and not having to wait for upgrade times like all games in this genre have used, and also been hugely successful on this strategy alone. We then have a third, still secret strategy that no game in mobile period has used, but outside of the mobile platform has been hugely successful as well. So with this layering of monetization strategies approach we think we will blow the industry standards out of the water.
As you think about the long term vision of the business, do you think this will continue to be a standalone business or would you look to get acquired by a larger gaming conglomerate?
The plan is to build this business into the best gaming company on the planet that makes games players look forward to long before they are released as they know they will get a quality game that always has them the player at the forefront of decision making and listens to their feedback to constantly improve what is out there, and what is coming in the future.
That being said, in the past you have seen companies being purchased for billions of dollars. I am sure there could be a situation where an offer like this couldn’t be turned down because it is just simply too good for the company and our investors.
Do you have a sense of acquisition multiples seen in the gaming space that we can use to gauge the types of opportunities you might have for sale down the road?
My understanding is while each deal is unique, a 5x multiplier of a companies yearly sales is a good gauge of value for a purchase of the company.
For those who are still tentative about investing what is the one thing you want them to know about Dun Rite and the team?
Dun Rite Games is different than everything else out there, our vision, the way we approach the games we make and the way we monetize them. The feedback we have gotten from day one has confirmed we are on the right track to fill a huge gap in the market and change the way companies look at mobile and their player base.
We have been told by YouTubers with millions in their audience, “if you execute on what you are telling me, it will be big” So now our goal is to do just that, make this vision a reality so mobile gamers have a home for the foreseeable future.
There are inherent risks when you invest in games because the reality is there is an element of luck involved with appealing to a mass consumer audience and getting the viral appeal to experience hockey stick growth.
However, we do appreciate and think that the approach of listening and building the product alongside the user does help to increase the likelihood of this being a winner rather than a loser. We also love that the founder is absolutely a user himself. Interesting gaming investment by all means. Will you INVEST?
