Reflection, Part 2
by Craig Fortune · 05/27/2010 (1:53 pm) · 7 comments
Previous entries:
Reflection, Part 1
Something exciting happened today. I became a director of a company worth a mighty and astonishing… £2.
I was pondering over the last couple of days about which of the topics from my last blog post I would tackle first. Well, an email that dropped into my inbox today, containing many an exciting document, sort of sealed the deal.
I’m proud to announce that as of 27th May 2010, “BoxFrog Games” is incorporated and officially in business!
It has been somewhat of a ride to get up to a point where I’ve been comfortable enough to “put up or shut up” when it comes to games development of my own projects. I’ve been freelancing for years purely as a sole trader ("sole proprietor" in some countries) and always had a few projects of my own going on in the background. Typically they have stalled and/or become “backburnered” (That’s a real word… honest). This has led to the unfortunate situation where when I wake a project up it externally appears that the project has been worked on for potentially years, which simply isn’t accurate.
The plan currently is to release our first game under the BoxFrog Games banner sometime in the Summer/Early Autumn. It will be an iPhone game called “Dave’s World Tour” and is a collection of mini games based around the theme of “Dave” visiting different countries. A second game which is already well under development is pencilled in for a release later this year too.
What I’ve quite enjoyed on the journey to this point in the process of getting a game out the door is discussing with Steve, my partner in business (I typed crime on the first draft of this, haha) the general driving thought behind the business.
Ultimately we intend to be a company that treats its customers, clients, contractors and peers with decorum and above all else respect. This is much more than just refusing to be a “hard ass” or refusing to assist others in a competitive market. It is to do with valuing the people we work with, as they are the ones who can hold the key to our success or indeed failure.
Case in point, about a week ago we advertised for some help with audio for Dave’s World Tour. We were struggling to find audio to purchase that really fitted our needs. FX were fine, but musical backing tracks were simply either not close enough to what we wanted or simply not what we deemed a viable purchase at this point in time.
We advertised on GumTree for someone to help us out, on a purely voluntary basis and stated that we were a tiny startup. Much to our surprise we received several responses within a 24 hour period. The responses on the whole were strong and deserved more than just a “he’ll do” response. We gave each of the strong candidates a loose brief for a short music loop and some FX and assessed the results they came back with.
The crux of the matter is this, we specifically decided upon any situation like this that we would respond to each and every person who contacts us, and give them a proper response, address them individually and not just fob them off if we didn’t think they were suitable. Ultimately, we didn’t disrespect the fact they had contacted us with either ignoring them or feeding them, well, BS :)
This may seem trivial at first glance, but have you ever respected a company who ignored your CV application? I think not.
Anyway, I think I’ll finish on that note, as I’ve just noticed how much text is here already. Cheers if you’ve reached this far and you should understand now that I genuinely mean that :D
PS: £2 = 2 shares at £1 each in case you were wondering ;)
Reflection, Part 1
Something exciting happened today. I became a director of a company worth a mighty and astonishing… £2.
I was pondering over the last couple of days about which of the topics from my last blog post I would tackle first. Well, an email that dropped into my inbox today, containing many an exciting document, sort of sealed the deal.
I’m proud to announce that as of 27th May 2010, “BoxFrog Games” is incorporated and officially in business!
It has been somewhat of a ride to get up to a point where I’ve been comfortable enough to “put up or shut up” when it comes to games development of my own projects. I’ve been freelancing for years purely as a sole trader ("sole proprietor" in some countries) and always had a few projects of my own going on in the background. Typically they have stalled and/or become “backburnered” (That’s a real word… honest). This has led to the unfortunate situation where when I wake a project up it externally appears that the project has been worked on for potentially years, which simply isn’t accurate.
The plan currently is to release our first game under the BoxFrog Games banner sometime in the Summer/Early Autumn. It will be an iPhone game called “Dave’s World Tour” and is a collection of mini games based around the theme of “Dave” visiting different countries. A second game which is already well under development is pencilled in for a release later this year too.
What I’ve quite enjoyed on the journey to this point in the process of getting a game out the door is discussing with Steve, my partner in business (I typed crime on the first draft of this, haha) the general driving thought behind the business.
Ultimately we intend to be a company that treats its customers, clients, contractors and peers with decorum and above all else respect. This is much more than just refusing to be a “hard ass” or refusing to assist others in a competitive market. It is to do with valuing the people we work with, as they are the ones who can hold the key to our success or indeed failure.
Case in point, about a week ago we advertised for some help with audio for Dave’s World Tour. We were struggling to find audio to purchase that really fitted our needs. FX were fine, but musical backing tracks were simply either not close enough to what we wanted or simply not what we deemed a viable purchase at this point in time.
We advertised on GumTree for someone to help us out, on a purely voluntary basis and stated that we were a tiny startup. Much to our surprise we received several responses within a 24 hour period. The responses on the whole were strong and deserved more than just a “he’ll do” response. We gave each of the strong candidates a loose brief for a short music loop and some FX and assessed the results they came back with.
The crux of the matter is this, we specifically decided upon any situation like this that we would respond to each and every person who contacts us, and give them a proper response, address them individually and not just fob them off if we didn’t think they were suitable. Ultimately, we didn’t disrespect the fact they had contacted us with either ignoring them or feeding them, well, BS :)
This may seem trivial at first glance, but have you ever respected a company who ignored your CV application? I think not.
Anyway, I think I’ll finish on that note, as I’ve just noticed how much text is here already. Cheers if you’ve reached this far and you should understand now that I genuinely mean that :D
PS: £2 = 2 shares at £1 each in case you were wondering ;)
About the author
#2
Name me a country where badgers are stereotypical and I'll look into it :)
05/27/2010 (3:10 pm)
GumTree was used pretty much on a whim one night by my colleague - we really didn't expect any bites, and certainly nothing like the quality that came back! The main thing was that we were looking for someone somewhat local to us, which advertising in most online job marketplaces won't achieve. I also wonder if the fact we were looking for audio expertise rather than game specific expertise had an impact on that (I believe it most likely did).Name me a country where badgers are stereotypical and I'll look into it :)
#3
06/01/2010 (10:25 am)
Does "common" align with "stereotypical?" Badgers are fairly commmon in many temporate forest areas of the United States. Perhaps some back-wood badger toss or something. You'd perhaps want to find a voice actor who could get that hillbilly flavor, though....
#4
06/01/2010 (10:45 am)
Haha, maybe.... not :) 
#5
The badger game should be set China, Hunt a badger, shave it and make a badger-hair shaving brush. Sounds like a good minigame to me!
The problem is, what brush do you use to shave the badger?
P.S.
How's it going Craig? I've still got these Argos pens for your pointless-shoulder-pockets, not seen you since :/
'Cyclone' Joe Warriner
06/03/2010 (7:02 am)
I like it! I'll buy a share for £1 making it a £3 company :]The badger game should be set China, Hunt a badger, shave it and make a badger-hair shaving brush. Sounds like a good minigame to me!
The problem is, what brush do you use to shave the badger?
P.S.
How's it going Craig? I've still got these Argos pens for your pointless-shoulder-pockets, not seen you since :/
'Cyclone' Joe Warriner
#6
06/03/2010 (4:55 pm)
I like the way you look at business Mr. Fortune. You've gained my respect already, best wishes to you and your company.
#7
@Sidikian Cheers!
06/04/2010 (12:45 am)
Haha, I need to dig that pointless shoulder pocket shirt out again :) other people reading this must be so infused right now, lol.@Sidikian Cheers!
Associate Steve Acaster
[YorkshireRifles.com]
I was surprised that you'd got a response from ... or even used something like GumTree which appears to be rather "everything and the kitchen sink" Classifieds --- as opposed to some sort of gaming/media specific site.
"Dave's World Tour" ... sounds like it would benefit from the inclusion of badgers ...
Reaches for his dictionary ...