At Devcom, Stray Fawn co-founder Philomena Schwab shared how the Zurich-based studio has survived the past eight years, from refusing to partner with a publisher to the importance of community support when developing a game.
Schwab stressed that Stray Fawn prides itself on being an independent studio, with no publisher or outside investors.
Even when its first game, genetic survival title Niche, started to attract interest from publishers following its crowdfunding success, the studio continued to turn down offers. This was due to its previous experience creating a mobile game with a publisher that didn’t fare as well.
“So I thought that the next time a game failed, I wanted to be fully responsible for that failure,” he explained. “It's not anyone's place to ruin my game. This will be my fault, so we turned down the offers we had.”
Stray Fawn continued to turn down publisher offers even with the recent success of The Wandering Village (even though “it's harder to say no”).
“I think we were approached by about 50 publishers,” Schwab recalls. “Some of them we were very tempted to work with because it was such a risky project, but we decided we didn't want to do it, not only because we wanted to keep all the revenue, but also because we didn't want to have external deadlines and we didn't want to compromise the quality of the game.”
This was in line with the spirit of Stray Fawn, in that the team wanted it to be owned by the developers without a third party.
“It was never our intention to build a studio and sell it in the next five or ten years,” he said. “What we wanted to do was build a place where we could enjoy making games together and make a living.”
And since the studio was founded, the way developers make a living is by earning the same salary.
Additionally, if someone works for the developer for three years, they receive the same bonus as the founders. The only other factor to consider is whether the employee works part-time or full-time.
“The next time a game fails, I want to be fully responsible for that failure.”
“Everyone earns the same, everyone knows how much everyone else earns,” Schwab added. “I think that's very motivating for everyone, because they benefit directly from all the work they've done.”
Beyond the studio’s inner workings, Schwab stressed the importance of community support. The studio’s first game launched in early access as a small game, but it skyrocketed upon full release due to its growing community sharing the game on social media and attracting attention from streamers.
“It was a very lucky first,” Schwab said. “It's not very often that you make a first game and have it be successful. But building a community was a very important part of the first success.”
Building this community support base helped an increasing number of players become interested in any game the studio released, regardless of genre.
While the five games in the studio's portfolio are very different from each other, the same cannot be said of its publishing side.
“I think we did a smart thing, because we're signing games that are similar to our last game,” he said, referring to The Wandering Village.
This has since allowed Stray Fawn to cross-promote city builders with their latest game, and vice versa.
“My team doesn't want the next game to be in the same genre as the last one, so the editorial team is going to publish games similar to the ones we've created recently.”
As for why they decided to become editors despite not wanting to work with one, it was an easy decision according to Schwab.
“We're trying to be the publishers we would have liked to have signed with,” he explained. “For us, it's secondary. We're not really dependent on the revenue that publishing brings us. So if it doesn't work out with a game, we don't want to put too much pressure on it.”
“We try to contribute, but we don't want to push developers in a (certain) direction if we feel they have a completely different vision than ours.
“(It's about) the lack of time pressure and not wanting to put creative limits.”
GamesIndustry.biz is a media partner of Devcom. Travel and accommodation were provided by the organizers.