Business Model
Huebris makes video games. In addition to this product, we also have a host of secondary, and even tertiary products and services rendered. Our own studio has a need for a strong Internet presence. This stems from our need to have a website that reflects the brand of our business in an engaging company site. This site is home to a forum for all our fans. We also have sites created for our individual games. Completing these tasks in-house is not only cheaper than outsourcing them, but also allows our game development staff to allow the world of their video games to crossover to the Internet and vice versa. The web team also helps to update our proprietary project management systems, which operate in “the cloud”. We update our project management software as needs are discovered, however, we package it for resell to other game development studios once a year. This product is very valuable to our company as well as others. We develop training books that outline how to use our own software, as well as books on good practices within the game development industry. Many of these books are compiled from research into our own projects, as well as our developer blogs and forum entries. We find that selling our trade secrets does not hinder our growth, but develops a loyal consumer base—both to our video games, and to our software releases. With time, our company also plans to produce our own game engines (the coded platform upon which a game runs), and sell other studios licenses to produce games in our engines. It's a lot to take in, so here is an outline:- Direct to consumer products
- Video games
- Game expansions and add-ons
- Community websites
- Game guides
- Franchise toys and collectibles
- Official soundtracks
- Game developer products
- Project management solutions
- Training and educational materials
- Game engines
Competition
The video game industry has been accused of being recession-proof on numerous occasions. However, the recent economic climate has proven that no industry is truly immune to such things. Despite the disappointment that such claims aren't true, the industry itself is in much better shape than most. In times of recession, the entertainment industries usually find that they do much better than others. Why? People still need an escape from their humdrum lives. They can't afford the fancy cars and houses, but they can dream, and entertainment media is all about the fantastical. It's the vicarious fulfillment of all our needs at a fraction of the price.With all the new technology and devices, games will assuredly continue to enjoy growth. Today's TV's are coming packaged with "apps" and app stores (Samsung app store). The mobile game market is exploding as all the manufacturers scurry to catch up with Apple's app store. Today games are being developed for the iPhone, iPad, Droid, Blackberry, and the new Windows 7 phone line. The latter is giving users the chance to sync up with other phones and even with their Xbox consoles. So we have an influx of devices, and they are all starting to talk to each other. This doesn't even include social gaming that happens by the millions every month on sites like Facebook. The hard question to answer is, "Where do you invest your time as a developer of these games?"
Huebris plans to make fun games for the whole family. We believe that no company has truly monopolized on attaching their brand to this idea. As a console, the Nintendo Wii came close to selling itself as fun for people of all ages. This idea certainly helped them to sell more consoles of this generation of devices than their competitors at Microsoft with the Xbox360 and Sony with the Playstation 3. Although, some may attribute this success to the much cheaper price tag, sitting comfortably well under the competition. Nintendo is a huge console vendor; Huebris is a game developer. We intend to be the first developer to become a household name for family-friendly games. We believe games can be fun, engaging and entertaining for everybody. Our philosophy is that we do not need to market to one group through exploits into the arena of gory violence and hyper-sexualization. These markets are already saturated anyways. So, in many ways, our titles will vary in content when compared to our competitors.
They will, however, not vary in pricing structure. We want to establish ourselves as a major competitor in the world of video games, and as such our games will match the prices of our competition. This will instill the idea that our games are quality entertainment in the minds of our consumers. In a way, it is prestige pricing. People assume quality from full cost titles. For this reason, we have no plans to sell ourselves short of our competitors. So far, the closest competitor that we feel resembles our philosophy is TT Games. They are the driving force behind the Lego universe of video games. Their titles include Lego Indiana Jones, Batman and Harry Potter. These games are built around high action franchises, but still maintain a playful "G-Rated" feel. However, they probably aren't nearly as universal to people of all ages as Pixar movies are to the film world.
Customer
Obviously, Huebris will market products to both consumers and other businesses. In the world of our video games, we hope to reach all demographics. We believe titles can sell that are popular to children, college students and adults. The game industry is evolving and maturing. Society is finding that kids who grew up with video games aren't letting go with age; they are further cementing their childhood obsessions. According to a very recent Nielsen report, the average World of Warcraft player spends 471 minutes a week in the game. That's nearly a full workday spent in a digital universe, and most people play more than one game! Even more promising for games that appeal to all ages is the fact that the same Nielsen report shows the top ten titles, and among them are games like Call of Duty (for college aged people and adults) and Lego Harry Potter (For Years 1-4). Access the Nielsen Report here.For our business-end product lines, we have very few competitors. There are very few companies that sell both video games and the tools to make them. Even fewer, are the developers who sell project management software tailored specifically to video game development studios. Most studios have to depend on solutions developed in-house, which can have the benefit of doing exactly what the studio needs, but more often has the negative consequence of being developed haphazardly and becoming a tangled mess. Huebris would probably receive more competition from everyday business project management suites such as Basecamp (http://www.basecamphq.com) than specific suites that cater to a game development studio's needs. So far, we have been unable to find a single example of such a product.
Game engines are an area where competition will exist, although still not on a large scale. There seems to be a gap between pricing structures for game engines as well. The high-end engines run at around a million dollars to license. This price can be seen in the Unreal engine. The engine has the latest and greatest capabilities and robust developer back-end toolsets. There are few engines that are comparable graphically, easy to use, and have community laid track work. Few competitors also parallel their support. The Crytek engine is on par graphically, but the support community and ease of use aren't nearly as approachable.
Once you get past these behemoths, other engines range in the $1,000 - $10,000 range. Engines like the Unity3D engine and Torque engine are much cheaper to develop games on, and they have seen much success in allowing their engine to operate on mobile platforms like the iPhone. Even small Flash engines can make their way onto the Xbox Live arcade, and cost very little to license. Huebris believes that there is room for a mid-range tier of game engines. Much of the reason the Unreal engine license costs a million dollars is because there is little competition for it. If Huebris creates a true quality product--and we should, we are following the same development plan that the Unreal engine did--we can offer an excellent game engine at a much more affordable price model.
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