With publishers, the connection to global events was far more


obvious: essentially everyone was running for the bunkers and their behaviour was very bearish. There were a few interesting talks with larger Asian publishers who were looking for an entry into Western PC markets, or products to introduce to their markets; but ultimately, like VCs, the offer was just not sexy enough. Another major problem we faced was the fact that, although we


had a ton of content, no decent MVP or vertical slice had ever been developed by AMG. Seemingly, with regular cashflow from EG7, no- one had ever felt the need to pitch a polished VS until it was too late. So we had checked a few boxes: experienced team, knowledge of


our market, IP with some recognition, fans’ goodwill; but we lacked the crucial factor of a publisher-ready build and, thus, funding. That’s where our community came in...


THE POWER OF THE COMMUNITY Through the work of volunteers we were able to put out announcements and media content using the UE4 build of ’83; enough so to make our Discord and other communities realise that ’83 was not dead. This was how we got our lucky break, in the form of contact from an angel investor, Kevin Green. Kevin had been a long-standing fan of Rising Storm 2, not least


because his father was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and he had been following the progress of ’83 and our team on Discord. He approached us and offered, for a small amount of equity, funding to help us develop the kind of demonstration of the game that publishers need to see. Without our active Discord community it is safe to say that we would never have got this funding… and it was a game-changer. Around October 2024 we set ourselves the goal of using Kevin’s


funding to finance a small team working on a publisher friendly version of the game. At that time publishers were just starting to emerge from their bunkers and were nervously eyeing the lack of titles on their books for 2025/26. This gradual sea change was, however, not quite enough to tip the balance for us until New Year 2025.


‘THAT TRAILER’ We had funding to take us through to the end of March 2025 and, around New Year, things were looking decidedly dicey for the situation beyond that. Publishers were more receptive now that we had the makings of a build to show them, but still remained to be convinced that our game had the support and community goodwill that would convert to the kind of sales that are needed to justify an investment. We took the bold decision that, in order to demonstrate that we


had the support needed, we would officially ‘re-announce’ the release of an Early Access version of ’83 for some time within one year. A trailer was released. To our delight, the trailer absolutely took off, gathering over half


a million views. Our Steam wishlists also shot up. Publishers who had previously been sceptical started to take note. Our investor saw enough of an uptick in interest that he was prepared to commit more funds to carry us further beyond the initial VS phase of development.


August/September 2025 MCV/DEVELOP | 29


BUILDING THE TEAM READY FOR EARLY ACCESS We have very recently concluded a deal that will provide us with the investment needed to fund a team of 30 full-time devs to carry development through until Early Access. Earlier investment had put us in a good position to address the two main technical questions facing any game designers for as long as games have been made: 1) “How much can we achieve in the time we have, with this size crew?” and 2) “How can we optimise the game so that it is not just the preserve of people with next-gen hardware for their PCs and servers?” To address these questions we have been very lucky that the cloud


of the games industry meltdown has had the silver lining of a glut of incredibly talented and experienced people on the job market. We have been able to hire teams of people who have worked together on similar titles; so much so that we now appear to be a refugee camp for former Ubisoft, Toadman and Bulkhead employees. Extremely experienced technical and production staff have helped


us to take a long hard look at what we can achieve and the amount of optimisation that is needed to make the game perform well, both graphically and in terms of network optimisation… 40v40 PvP matches in UE5 are no trivial matter to achieve on a server. I’m pleased to say that the latter has been achieved and both aspects are improving every day. A question we have often been asked in job interviews is, “How


much stability can you, as a start-up, offer me in this position?” The facile answer to this is, “Compared to whom?” One thing the last couple of years have demonstrated is that no-one is safe. What we DO offer our employees is a project which, through a


combination of passion for the game, an absolutely bloody-minded refusal to accept a negative outcome, and a fair dose of luck in terms of funding, is now on a stable footing and offering them a good place to continue their careers with a supportive team. We believe that we need to be as open as we can with our staff


about the company’s situation and prospects, sharing strategic updates on a regular basis. This hopefully helps the staff to understand that they are not just numbers on a spreadsheet — an impression it would be easy to get in the current industry climate. We are very proud and grateful that we can do that for them.


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