There is a new publisher of mobile games — ChargeUp Games. Promises not to offend developers

Two experienced bizdev/sayzla, after six years of developing a consulting agency for publishing games, decided to publish games themselves. To do this, they turned to another consulting agency — DDM. Now they promise to love and appreciate developers.

Hyper Heroes
A new publisher is entering the mobile games market.

This is a young startup called ChargeUp Games. It was founded by Kevin Flynn and Adam Flanders.

Kevin has been in the industry for about ten years. He was a producer at Crowdstar, where he helped “distribute a $10 million development fund,” then worked briefly at Kabam, where he was responsible for licensing machines for Fast & Furious 6, and also headed publishing at Z2Live (now owned by King), in which he concluded deals in Asia and Latin America.

Adam has been in the industry for much longer. He worked for about nine years at THQ (the one that went bankrupt). First as a financial analyst, then as an account manager in her mobile daughter THQ Wireless. Then he was responsible for sales at Glu Mobile for more than six years.

Together, Kevin and Adam have been developing Mobile Games Partners since 2014, a marketing and business agency that is “focused on helping mobile developers launch games successfully.” Among the announced partners are Hyper Heroes (battler, who developed $ 30 million), Empire Z (a role—playing project with a box office under $ 40 million), Hollywood U (now closed sim, which managed to raise $ 7 million). There are no new products in the list, as well as other games that have been noted for good earnings.

After more than six years of consulting work, the guys decided to start publishing on their own. According to their interview with VentureBeat, they are outraged by the “charismatic practices” of publishers who take 50% of the revenue of indie teams, but at the same time they often do not want to make efforts to promote projects at all. “If, as a result of the purchase of users, the game does not meet expectations, they simply stop spending money on the project and go to the next game,” laments Flanders.

How exactly ChargeUp Games is going to work is not reported. So far, only general theses are given. The company promises:

• treat developers with respect;
• an honest business model;
• work closely with each game;
• to take a small amount from the project, whose value will depend on the stage at which it was received by the publisher;
• leave IP rights to the developer;
• do not release games into the store in a “queue”, watching which one “shoots”;
• soft finish in small markets, and then optimize projects for a global start.

Now only two people work in the company — the founders themselves. To help in finding new employees, as well as partners, Kevin Adam turned to DDM, where, by the way, the latter is one of the consultants.

So far, the situation looks funny. Still, it’s too early to declare yourself at this stage. On the other hand, the guys have experience in the industry and they could well have started an information campaign to find investors.