Speaking at Devcom, Stray Fawn co-founder Philomena Schwab talked about how the Zurich-based studio has survived the past eight years, from refusing to work with a publisher to the importance of community support when developing a game.
Schwab emphasized that Stray Fawn is proud to be an independent studio without a publisher or outside investors.
Even when the first game, genetics survival game Niche, attracted interest from publishers after successful crowdfunding, the studio continued to reject offers. This was due to previous experience with developing a mobile game where the publisher was not so successful.
“So I thought, the next time a game flops, I want to take full responsibility for it,” she explained. “It’s not someone else’s job to flop my game. That’s on me, so we turned down the offers we had.”
Stray Fawn continued to turn down offers from publishers despite the recent success of The Wandering Village (although it was “harder to say no”).
“I think about 50 publishers contacted us,” Schwab recalls. “We were keen to work with some of them because it was such a risky project. But we decided against it – not only because we wanted to keep all the revenue, but also because we didn’t want to have any external deadlines and didn’t want to compromise on the quality of the game.”
This was in line with Stray Fawn’s ethics, as the team wanted it to remain owned by the developers and not have any third party involved.
“It was never our intention to build a studio and sell it in the next five to 10 years,” she said. “We wanted to create a place where we could have fun making games together and make a living.”
And since the studio was founded, the developers have earned their living with the same salary.
Additionally, someone who works for the developer for three years will receive the same bonus as the founders. The only other factor is whether an employee works part-time or full-time.
“The next time a game flops, I want to take full responsibility for it.”
“Everyone earns the same amount, everyone knows what everyone else earns,” Schwab added. “I think that motivates everyone a lot because they benefit directly from the work they have done.”
Aside from the studio’s internal workings, Schwab stressed the importance of community support. The studio’s first game’s early access launch was small, but that success skyrocketed upon full release as the growing community shared the game on social media and garnered attention from streamers.
“It was a very fortunate first scenario,” Schwab noted. “It’s not very often that you make a first game and it’s actually successful. But building a community was a very big part of the first success.”
By creating this foundation of community support, it has been able to attract a growing number of players to all games released by the studio, regardless of genre.
While the five games in the studio’s portfolio vary greatly from one another, the same cannot be said for its publishing.
“I think we did something smart because we’re signing games that are similar to our last game,” she said of The Wandering Village.
This allowed Stray Fawn to promote the city building games together with their latest game and vice versa.
“My team doesn’t want (the next game to be in the same genre as the last one), so the publishing side will release similar games to the ones we’ve made recently.”
The decision to become a publisher themselves, even though they didn’t want to work with one, was an easy one, according to Schwab.
“We’re trying to be the publishers we’d like to sign with,” she explained. “It’s still a side thing for us. We’re not really dependent on publishing revenue, so if a game doesn’t work out, we don’t want to put too much pressure on it.”
“We try to do our part, but we don’t want to push developers in a (certain) direction if we feel they have a completely different vision than we do.”
“It’s about not being under any time pressure and not wanting to set any limits on your creativity.”
GamesIndustry.biz is a media partner of Devcom. The organizers provided travel and accommodation.
