Industry Video game industry Number of locations 2 offices (2014) Website www.gambitious.com Founded 2011 Type of business Private | Founder Paul M. Hanraets Area served Worldwide Headquarters Amsterdam Number of employees 9 (2016) | |
Key people Paul M. Hanraets (CEO, EU)
Mike Wilson (CEO, US)
Brian Grigsby (COO) Video games Transport Fever, Train Fever, Hard Reset, Hard West, Pathologic | ||
Gambitious BV, doing business as Gambitious Digital Entertainment, is a Dutch video game publisher based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company was founded in 2011 by Paul M. Hanraets through online funding platform Symbid.
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In early 2012, Devolver Digital founders Harry A. Miller IV and Mike Wilson joined Gambitious as founding partners, and in September 2012, Gambitious opened their crowdfunding platform, of which Gambitious boasts that it is the first global crowdfunding platform exclusively for video game development, as it utilizes funds raised from accredited investors worldwide to help independent developers to complete their game, and repays the investors with funds from the game's sales.
The company's publishing label was opened in 2014 to offer professional, developer-friendly production, marketing, and distribution services to ensure a timely return to both investors and developers involved in these projects.
Crowdfunding
Gambitious launched its equity-based crowdfunding platform in 2012. It is said to have been the first of its kind, enabling both large and small investors to invest in various different game projects in exchange for an equity stake in the project, thus netting their own share of the profits garnered from the venture, as opposed to acting solely as a donator. They did this, in part, as a reaction to the surge of crowdfunding services, stating that "[c]rowdfunding is causing a great seismic shift in how projects get funded, however, there are risks of crash-and-burn due to unfulfilled projects and unfinished games." They aimed to create a platform specifically for the gaming industry, offering their knowledge of publishing, marketing, and games production to help smaller creators fund their games, while also managing development.
On 20 March 2013, Gambitious successfully closed the world's first equity-based crowdfunding campaign for Train Fever, developed by Swiss independent developer Urban Games, which raised €250,000 from 640 international investors.
Gambitious also experimented by offering pledging as a funding option on their platform. This resulted in a successful funding for charity project Special Effect, which raised 113% of it target aimed towards purchasing specialized computers for severely disabled gamers that can be controlled using eye movement.
Transition to indie game publishing
On 4 September 2014, Gambitious published their first title, Train Fever, which became profitable for its investors less than a week after it shipped. To date, the game has sold over 140,000 copies.
Every game that Gambitious has signed on has been funded and released, with four of the first six titles delivering profits to investors in the first month following release. Gambitious CEO Paul M. Hanraets stated that they only accept projects that they as a team are excited about, and therefore have vetted and signed as a publisher. Furthermore, he added that they guarantee the project funding, lead the financing, and raise money from their growing investor network. He adds that they now have a core group of 30 investors who are eager to invest in all the new projects probably also because four of their first six titles returned a profit within the first month of sales. And finally, Hanraets stated that they are now allowing their investor network to grow so they can greenlight more titles.
After the funds are raised, the team provides support for both investors and developers, protecting the interests of everyone involved, with a flexible and realistic approach. They also maintain that they allow the developers to handle all creative decisions. Additionally, Hanraets underlines that developers have the final say in everything they do.
Changes to crowdfunding methodology
Due to international regulatory differences on the topic of equity-based crowdfunding, Gambitious was forced to restructure their model several times, leading to the eventual decision to officially separate from Symbid in February 2015 and transition into an independent game publisher. Gambitious still utilizes an evolving set of crowd finance tools and techniques in order to fund their games. Whereby they rely on a private network of investors who invest alongside them under the same exact terms and conditions. In January 2016, Gambitious opened their network to new United States accredited and European sophisticated investors.