An investor is wanted: an indie developer from St. Petersburg is looking for funds to promote a mobile game about tanks

We continue the series of articles about projects in need of investments or publishers. The current material is dedicated to the free-play arcade game Tanks World: Arena. Its developer Sam Turenkov has prepared a business plan for potential partners. We share.

The main thing is:

The producer of AMT Games has single-handedly developed the mobile arcade game Tanks World: Arena;
A working prototype has already been published, test purchases have been carried out and the first business indicators are available;
The developer wants to attract 5.6 million rubles (about $88 thousand) to finalize and promote the project;
the developer plans to reach payback in 2.5 years.

From the editorial board: The text below is published with minor editorial edits (they relate mainly to the structure of the document, and parts about the mobile games market as a whole are also not included). The author of the material will be glad to receive feedback in the comments on both the project and the business plan.

Content:

1. About the developer
2. About the project
2.1 Description
2.2 Key principles
2.3 Technical features
2.4 Development plan
3. Financial plan
3.1 Objectives
3.2 Business plan, requested amount and current project performance
4. Competitive Advantage of Tanks World: Arena
5. Possible risks
6. Contacts

1. About the developer

Sam Turenkov

Over the past few years, I have been solving mainly production tasks at AMT Games on a mobile project with a multi—million audience - Battle for the Galaxy. In addition, for the last five years at the company, I have also been involved in business development, marketing, web development, level design and user support in mobile and desktop gaming projects. All my professional experience is listed in the resume here.

2. About the project

2.1 Description

Tanks World: Arena is a minimalistic tank game. Its core gameplay is dueling in small arenas. The meta-gameplay is to improve the tank. The game features short game sessions and loopoli graphics.

2.2 The concept of the game

When developing the game, I proceed from the following principles:

The basic mechanics of the game are available for free, but additional benefits are offered for in-game purchases;
Easy to manage: most actions are performed by touching one finger to the screen (pressing buttons, moving and performing other actions);
short game sessions that allow you to play a game match within a few minutes;
there is a meta-gameplay, it takes place outside the main gameplay and involves "managerial" actions;
The vertical orientation of the screen allows you to play the game with one hand. The project can be played in a public place (in a queue at a store, while traveling on public transport, and so on);
speeding up the progression for money: it will take decades to complete the game without IAP, so the value of offers that accelerate the passage is formed;
Low entry threshold: The game has an easy-to-learn and beginner-friendly gameplay, the complexity of which increases as you progress.

2.3 Technical features

Mobile devices are significantly weaker than personal computers. This involves the use of simplified graphics and optimization of computational functions.

To reduce the load on the server, given the instability of the mobile Internet, it is assumed to use fast, simple operations. For example, instead of a simultaneous multiplayer game, asynchronous multiplayer is implemented against artificial intelligence with the characteristics of a second player.

In addition, the game should have a small size (up to 100 MB), because this increases the chances of installing the application by the user who visited the game page.

2.4 Game Development Plan

The following functionality is implemented in the prototype of the game:

A combat system with the ever-increasing complexity of an AI-controlled opponent;
seven battle arenas;
client-server interaction for account registration, saving user progress, accrual of purchases;
one type of tank with a system of parameter improvements and abilities;
mobile-optimized 3D graphics rendering;
a joystick for finger control and other user interface elements.

Within two years, there will be functionality that will diversify the gameplay, improve the conversion of users into buyers, add depth to the game, and so on. Among other things, it is planned:

increase the number of tanks available for the game to eight, balance their parameters and abilities;
add an additional game location;
increase the number of game modes (add asynchronous multiplayer, periodic events);
enhance monetization (add special offers and additional advertising);
to refine the interface elements and some secondary screens;
implement new optimization techniques and solve emerging problems;
to produce new advertising materials for marketing campaigns.

3. Financial plan

3.1 Objectives

The project aims to achieve the following in 2.5 years:

return on investment with a profit of at least 20%;
create an autonomous revenue-generating product and achieve operational payback;
indicators required for scaling;
scale up the project by increasing marketing expenses.

3.2 Business plan, requested amount and current project performance

The prototype of the Tanks World: Arena game is already available in three major Android stores (Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store and Amazon App Store). It allows you to get analytical data on the main metrics of the product. The results of further development will be clearly displayed on graphs. I assume that the project will fully pay off in two years and five months.

The cost of monthly game development by one person is 90 thousand rubles.

To get organic users from the sites themselves (Google Play and App Store), you need to do marketing yourself. Already at the prototype stage, an advertising campaign should be launched, the budget of which will grow simultaneously with the growth of indicators.

The cost of advertising campaigns will start from 30 thousand rubles per month. In a year, they will have to be at least 200 thousand rubles per month (it is planned to use Google, Facebook and Unity Ads advertising channels).

The purchase of traffic will affect the position of the game on key queries on trading platforms and attract more organic installations, since the game may end up in the collections of the top 10-100 different categories, which in turn will be an opportunity to request special placement from site managers.

In addition, with an increase in the number of users, it will be necessary to increase server capacity, the cost of which may also increase from $30 (running costs) to several thousand dollars per month.

So I am looking for investment support in the amount of:

2.16 million rubles for two years of game development;
3.5 million rubles for marketing during the development period;
340 thousand rubles for related expenses (company registration, payment for servers, unforeseen expenses for hardware and software).

An important and attractive aspect for an investor is that the full amount of investment is not required immediately and can be provided monthly in the required amounts, according to the financial plan.

The expected figures given in the financial plan are rather a bad scenario, but at the same time more realistic to achieve in the next two years. The main indicators of mobile games are:

The percentage of users returning to the game for 1, 7, 30, 180, 365 days;
the average income per paying user and the average income for all users;
conversion of users to paying users.

The improvement of these indicators will also affect the position of the game in the ranking of popular games, which will lead to more installations with less marketing costs.

Test purchases by a small number of users showed that there is interest in the game and about 12% return to the game the next day, about 6% still log into the game after seven days.

Examples of the cost of purchasing app installations in a Google advertising campaign

Test campaigns for the purchase of users for a prototype of the game from the USA and England showed an installation cost of 9 rubles, and taking into account the deducted VAT and possible financial errors — 15 rubles per user.

Depending on the channels and traffic quality, the user's cost can reach $10, but these channels are not planned to be used until the initial goals are achieved.

4. Competitive advantage Tanks World: Arena

At the moment, I have launched a prototype of the game, which regularly adds new content and functionality, while simultaneously testing key user indicators through purchases of small cohorts of target users.

As soon as the test cohorts begin to show the desired results on key indicators, it will be possible to scale the purchase of users around the world.

It takes me about a year to complete the project. I plan to reduce development and server costs as much as possible, using most of the available funds for marketing and user engagement.

Main strengths:

low cost of development (at least ten times cheaper than studio);
high quality of the product, thanks to technical skills and production experience;
a unique game that is not an analogue of existing games, but borrows effective game mechanics from various successful projects;
low entry threshold for players: different age groups will be able to figure out and master the game;
other characteristics revealed in the game concept and technical features.

5. Possible risks

A. The project is fully implemented by one person: me, so one of the risks is my performance. This risk can be offset by insuring my performance and life.
B. Problems with the technical implementation of the project: the risk that the game may be temporarily unavailable due to high server load or attempted hacking and data corruption. The risk is offset by an increase in equipment capacity, security tests, and the creation of backups.
B. Low performance compared to expected. It is impossible to accurately predict the number of organic users and conversion rates. Actual indicators may differ for the better or for the worse from those prescribed in the financial plan. This risk is partially offset by the low cost of development, partly by the ability to stop financing at any stage, and partly by the ability to return investments with a longer delay than indicated in the plan.
G. Copyright infringement. All available code, 3D models and other elements of the game were either created from scratch or distributed under a license allowing use in commercial projects without royalties.

6. Contacts

You can contact me at this email address: sam.tyurenkov@gmail.com

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From the editorial board: if you also want to appear in the category, write to alexander.semenov@app2top.ru .