How Camouflaj cheated death in a volatile industry

The Rise of Steam

I remember the mass exodus from premium iOS like it was yesterday. As 2014 pressed on, it was clear that the vast majority of iOS customers were more comfortable with the freemium mode, causing countless publishers and developers to shift focus to the last beacon of premium pricing: Steam.

Throughout the year, backers and industry friends asked us to move up the PC release of République-instead of waiting until all five episodes were released on iOS-to take advantage of the new gold rush happening over on Steam. I dragged my feet. While it was clear that there were big revenue opportunities on Steam, I opted to put the development team's focus on building Episode 2 and Episode 3. My main concern was related to my commitment to Telltale's pricing model, which dictated that you don't sell episodes piecemeal on Steam, but rather at a flat $24.99 price point. This meant that we would be initially charging $24.99 for the two-hour pilot episode, which seemed like a highly risky move. (Friends also suggested Early Access for the game, but we weren't seeing any successes of narrative-driven games using that model.) I was also concerned about the growing resentment Steam users were showing towards quick mobile-to-PC ports seeking refuge from the state of the App Store. When we released République on PC, I argued, it would not simply be a port but a high quality remastering of the game with the first three episodes included.

This rare display of pragmatism on my part-despite the extremely dangerous financial position we were in-did, in fact, result in Camouflaj pivoting to developing the PC version earlier than planned. Upon releasing the third episode, the development team took a break from creating new episodes to spend five months on an ambitious version of République for Steam. Due to the many warnings about mobile-to-PC stigmas I received from industry friends at Valve and elsewhere, we settled on the headlining feature that would warrant excitement from the PC community: a full remastering of the game using the brand-new Unity 5 engine. (You can read our extensive postmortem on that collaboration with Unity over here.) In addition to the months spent on silky smooth keyboard-and-mouse controls and on hundreds of improvements, we readied our premium-priced homecoming on Steam...

When we finally released on Steam in February 2015, we were surprised at how quickly our game disappeared from the front page. Despite carefully choosing our release window and co-marketing the game with Unity to launch the game alongside the full release of their new engine, République Remastered had a quiet launch on Steam. While backers and press reviewers were happy with the game's quality, the game's lack of high volume sales out of the gate buried it under the dozens of other releases. The game's shelf life on the front page was so short, in fact, that I contacted our Steam account manager to ask when the featuring would kick in. He replied that it was already over-I didn't even see the game featured on the front page on release day.

"Fears of studio closure were real. Close business associates suggested it was time to wave the white flag..."

Our Steam launch was disappointing and was hard on the team-after launching four major releases of the game on four unique platforms, the team was in desperate need of a win. Our launch party for the Steam version was appropriately somber, and we lost a handful of really talented folks in the following months. Fears of studio closure were real. Close business associates suggested it was time to wave the white flag, and for good reason: Camouflaj repeatedly proved that it could create praiseworthy content, but we lacked the ability to market and finance the game properly. Unless we could find a partner who can make something of the high quality content we produce, Camouflaj wouldn't survive 2015...

The Rise of PlayStation 4

Over the past five years, Camouflaj faced impending doom on more than a few occasions. We survived those moments of crisis because I simply refused to give up. Not only was my personal pride on the line, but I also felt a heavy sense of responsibility to not let everything fall apart. We had commitments to over 11,000 backers, and our failure to deliver would have damaged consumer trust not only on Kickstarter but also for other season pass-fueled episodic games. I also had my team and their families to think about.

We explored every potential avenue, which usually resulted in a new business opportunity with République in exchange for additional development funds. Learning our lessons from overcommitting with our Kickstarter, we brokered a number of deals throughout the development of République, always making sure the timelines were realistic and the business relationships were based on trust. With our backs against the wall once more, I focused my attention on finding a publishing partner while the team got to work on the final two episodes.

GDC 2015 was a major battleground for Camouflaj. While the team participated in PC launch promotions with Unity, I jettisoned from meeting to meeting in pursuit of a publishing partner interested in helping us take République to the finish line. It was time for us to look beyond our own ability to market and fund the game, so it was on me to make a compelling case to the dozen or so publishing candidates we met. Thankfully, I had a few surprises up my sleeve.

To kick off the meetings, I made sure to lean on the game's quality, especially its newly remastered graphics in Unity 5. This allowed me to convince skeptical business folks that we just weren't a small mobile house, but a budding AAA developer with legitimate talents and ambitions. I then spoke about our next big pivot for the game: in an ironic twist given our indie background and anti-console "one touch" iOS origins, we wanted to partner with a publisher to launch all five episodes of République as a full console release. We argued that PlayStation 4's healthy ecosystem was a perfect match for what would result in a 10-15 hour campaign once everything was packaged together. And then, before anybody could voice concerns about how this formally "one touch" game would control on console, I had a playable prototype of République on a DualShock 4 controller at the ready. (You can read more about the original controller prototype here on the PlayStation Blog, if you're curious)

Months prior, while the core team was busy on the Steam version, I quietly worked with a trusted programmer friend in Brazil on a controller-based prototype of République. Via this ten-minute demo, we were able to prove out the idea of one-to-one controls and forced camera switches in the vein of old school survival horror games like Resident Evil and Parasite Eve. If Camouflaj was destined to fold, I wasn't going down without a fight. Thankfully, our "République on PS4" pitch was strong and we had a number of serious publisher candidates to follow up with after the big show.

The Rise of the Publisher (Again)

We signed a publishing agreement with GungHo Online Entertainment last June after a number of really strong meetings. Throughout the process I was reminded of my business partners' advice to only pursue trust-based relationships, and I couldn't shake the feeling of mutual respect we got from the GungHo staff from the very beginning. We met with a number of excellent publisher candidates, but ever since our first meeting with GungHo, it was obvious that our company and project goals for République were aligned with their own company vision. It also didn't hurt that the CEO of GungHo, Kazuki Morishita, was a fan of République's original release on iOS.

Having worked quietly and independently on République for so many years, I expected the transition to working with a publisher to be more tumultuous, but it has been anything but. Soon after the arrangement was signed, GungHo got to work on securing a retail release of République on PS4 and prepping the PS4's debut appearance via their PAX Prime booth-two things I always secretly wanted for our game but was never able to achieve on my own. From then it's been a constant stream of back-and-forth approvals for promotional materials, working through submission, and collaborating with their QA team who expects a level of polish that far exceeds my own high standards.

"Our industry has been in a state of hyper change for the past decade, so it's adapt or die. The publishers of today are very different than the publishers of 2011"

It still gives me chills writing this: the week of March 22, the entire République experience was released on PC, Mac, iOS, Android-and for the first time-PlayStation 4 as both a digital and retail product. GungHo's partnership with Atlus and NIS America also yielded a limited edition SKU on PlayStation 4. In addition, all versions of the game on PS4 include additional gameplay modes in the form of unique costumes for Hope, including a 32-bit era inspired "Survival Mode."

The past nine months can only be described as surreal. Having cheated death on multiple occasions, it's amazing to think that our crowdfunded, multiplatform, episodic, Unity 5-remastered epic has not only been released in full, but also properly marketed and distributed by a global publisher. I can finally sleep at night knowing that players are able to experience Episode 5: Terminus, and that our team has finally finished what they started. There's a feeling of relief and liberation that's been with me since partnering with GungHo, and it permeates my day despite the stresses experienced while preparing the game for release and plotting our next game. Our goal of releasing République is complete, and that's all I ever wanted to achieve these past five years.

Despite these warm and fuzzy feelings, on occasions, I've wondered if we betrayed our principles (and backers) by signing with a publisher. Thinking on the past decade since Unity democratized game development tools, Apple led the charge of self-publishing, the subsequent season of anti-publisher sentiment, and the whole Kickstarter revolution, I never thought République's ultimate fate would be a publisher, nor would I have ever expected it to be a positive experience. And that's what brings me to the core of this opinion piece: our industry has been in a state of hyper change for the past decade, so it's adapt or die. The publishers of today are very different than the publishers of 2011, which is something I'm reminded of when I look around at my independent developer friends and their new publishing partnerships, from Necropolis now with Bandai Namco and Galak-Z with GungHo. It's a reminder that everything's all right.

The Rise of Camouflaj?

My goal for the past four years was to finish what we started, and despite the many twists and turns (or perhaps because of them), République's fifth and final episode was released on March 22, 2016. When I take a step back, I often come back to this theory that our arduous path to release was actually the only path to release. That, if I had stuck to our initial assumptions and business plans, would we still be around? What would have happened if I had scoped République down to a $4.99 standalone iOS game like The Room? What would the game have sold if we had dropped everything following the initial iOS release, didn't remaster the graphics and simply ported Episode 1 on Steam? It reminds me of the superstitious second-guessing sports fans do when thinking about their team's victories: sure, mistakes were made, but those fluke plays lead to different outcomes-take away those pivots and the proceeding events may have actually resulted in a loss.

While balancing this season of reflection and thanksgiving, I have moved on to my next goal for Camouflaj: building on our strengths, learning from our mistakes, and releasing another game. On that note, I'm happy to report that game two is well underway via a partnership with a great publisher. I'm curious what my next development tale will entail, but if I've learned anything these past five years, I think it's safe to assume that our next journey will have a few twists and turns...