Tabletop gaming company started in the bedrooms of co-founders Mat Hart and Rich Loxam in 2014.
The company now employs between 40 and 50 people at its warehouse-cum-office space in Trafford Park and, last year, the firm was crowned M.E.N. Business of the Year winner in the 拢5m-拢10m turnover category.
Loxam, based in Manchester, says Steamforged Games started when Hart, who lives in Chelmsford, Essex, messaged him on Twitter.
He explains: 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know Mat, it was about eight or nine years ago and I was playing a lot of games myself and was quite a highly-ranked player in the tournament scene.
鈥淗e asked if I had any tips to help him out and I looked at his profile and he was working at Ninja Theory, a computer game company down in the south of England.
鈥淚 was a digital designer, so I鈥檝e always been interested in modelling and the computer game industry so I got chatting to him and we became good friends and we sat down at a tournament a couple years later.
鈥淲e said we could make a game and that鈥檚 when we started coming up with concepts. Mat was a very big thinker and I was more into the details, so we were filling in the concepts with characters and how it would work and we kind of flowed.鈥
The pair eventually came up with their first game, Guild Ball, a sports-based miniature game, which it then launched through a Kickstarter campaign, generating 拢130,000.
鈥淚t was meant to be a small thing and a hobby project to see what it would do but within a year we had made 拢1m turnover on that product alone,鈥 Loxam says.
The pair say a lot of their success has come from creating their own niche.
Hart says: 鈥淲hy be competitive and why go to all that effort if you can actually choose somewhere that no one else actually exists?
鈥淲e look to disrupt current baseline assumptions, so we will look for a gap in the market or we will look for two things that are successful and we鈥檒l just smash them together and see what it looks like and create a new sub-genre.
鈥淪uddenly we鈥檙e the only people in that space...and the advantage is massive and owning a space is massive and it鈥檚 incredibly hard for someone else to come into a space that you dominate.鈥
The company now has two original games - Guild Ball and God Tear - and is also responsible for tabletop versions of licenced games including Resident Evil 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Dark Souls - Devil May Cry: The Bloody Palace.
Loxam said creating Dark Souls, its first licenced game, 鈥渟hot us into another world鈥, selling some 40,000 units through the Kickstarter campaign and a further 50,000 from retail in the first year.
After its release, the pair 鈥渞ealised we can鈥檛 both do the creative side, someone鈥檚 got to drive the business side while the other one keeps the creative side bubbling鈥.
Loxam took on the chief executive role, overseeing the business and production aspects, while Hart took control of the design and creative side, coming up with ideas and getting IPs.
Hart says the timescale of coming up with an idea and bringing it to market is 鈥渞eally flexible鈥.
鈥淕od Tear was a tiny idea that I had about two-and-a-half to three years ago and then I sat on it for about a year and a half just mulling it over and doing that world building and thinking about how a game could work.鈥
He says he ideally wants the initial design phase to be about 12 months, however, creating Steamforged鈥檚 second original game was a 鈥渓ike a difficult second album鈥 and took longer. 鈥淕uild Ball felt effortless but with God Tear there was a lot of pressure to really come up with something again and replicate the same response we had from the playerbase again.鈥
Hart says, when creating games, the world needs to be extensible, so the business can keep releasing new content and making money.
鈥淲e鈥檙e a business, so we need to have a commercially viable product, so it鈥檚 identifying something in the marketplace that makes a lot of sense and starting to build a world that is simple and compatible with that view.
鈥淥nce you鈥檝e got those boring base layers in place then you need to start thinking about how we make it unique, how to make it interesting and, more importantly, how do you create a hook that people just get as quickly as possible.鈥
Loxam says: 鈥淲e always say it鈥檚 like a train. [Mat] was laying the path and I was bringing the train up behind him and pulling it through.鈥
鈥淭he lovely job that I inherited was to grow this company from nowhere to basically where we are now and try to stabilise that.鈥
Loxam says growing the company in the space of four years from a small 拢50,000 turnover to 鈥渂asically 拢8m to 拢9m鈥 was a 鈥渂ig job鈥 and managing without experience 鈥渨as tough鈥.
But last year, Steamforged Games secured 拢5m investment from Foresight Group, which has allowed them to scale up and employ more people in senior-level positions.
Loxam says this year has been about 鈥渟ettling down鈥 and 鈥渟olidifying its base鈥 and 鈥渂uilding that senior level team and now it鈥檚 not just the me and Mat show any more. 鈥淚t鈥檚 turning from entrepreneurial into...a more structured environment so we can actually support the growth and the opportunity we鈥檝e been given鈥.
鈥淚 think we know our industry and we鈥檝e always said me and Mat are a nucleus, but we always questioned if we were making the right marketing decisions and if we were making the right commercial avenues,鈥 he says.
鈥淲hat it鈥檚 allowed us to do is get individuals around us, such as experts in marketing, experts in logistics and put that structure piece around what we created, which now we know we鈥檙e starting to see the benefits of.鈥
As part of the investment, Ian Livingstone CBE, one of the founding fathers of the 海角视频 games industry and co-founder of Games Workshop, joined Steamforged as a non-executive director.
Loxam says: 鈥淔inancials are great, don鈥檛 get me wrong, it helps the company, but more importantly it helps get the experience level in place to really go 鈥榳ell we鈥檝e got an opportunity here we鈥檝e got great partners and great licensing partners, we could make great IP ourselves, so how do we grow it, where do we grow it and who can guide us with that?鈥欌
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about Mat and I but the wider team.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got a lot of people here that rely on us and we want to give them an opportunity to really carve their careers out.
鈥淲e have individuals here that started four years ago on packing and are now working on projects and we鈥檝e got variety with the individuals that come in and we really want to see the whole ship lift up and really succeed in the industry and carve our name out as one of the better or one of the best tabletop game experiences out there.鈥
Since the investment, Steamforged increased its headcount by around 10.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got end-to-end here,鈥 Loxam says.
鈥淚deas from the creative team get passed onto the development team before reaching the production team, who will 鈥渢ake that idea and then re-mould it and the parts come in from China, and they鈥檒l work with sculptors鈥.
The company鈥檚 logistics, commercial and marketing team are also at the Trafford base and some fulfilment also takes place at the warehouse.
Hart says the real benefits of the investment are yet to come.
鈥淚 think 2020 is when you鈥檙e going to see the real impact of what we鈥檝e done, because a lot of our timeline is over a nine to 12 month lead, the things that are being worked on now are going to come out in August and September this year and that鈥檚 when you鈥檙e going to see the real growth,鈥 he says.
Looking to the future, the company will remain focussed on its 鈥渢wo-pronged attack鈥 of business, in creating both original and licenced games.
Hart says: 鈥淲e have the option now to increase the amount of original content that we make so we have two or three product lines that are coming out over the next six, 12 and 18 months.鈥
One of which is a game called Animal Adventures, for which they launched a Kickstarter campaign at the end of January.
Hart says it began as a 鈥渨eird idea I had with our sculptor . . . and both play Dungeons and Dragons so we said it would be funny if your character got turned into a dog and then you had to play as a dog with a wizard鈥檚 hat on鈥.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 where Dungeons and Doggies came from and then we did Cats and Catacombs and that鈥檚 now grown into its entire product range.鈥
Steamforged launch Kickstarter campaigns for every new release, which Hart says has enabled the 鈥渓owering of the barrier of entry鈥.
鈥淗istorically you鈥檇 need 拢30k to 拢40k of your own sweet money to invest in a prototype and then you鈥檒l hope and pray that you can actually sell 5,000 units to recoup your money back.
鈥淣ow you can take that wonderful idea and put it on Kickstarter and present it in a way to see if people are as excited about it as you are and what that means is you get a huge amount of awesome ideas that will actually see the light of day.
鈥淭he quality bar goes down so the quality goes down, but I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 necessarily a bad thing, I just think it gives more consumers more choice and a broader spectrum to look at when they鈥檙e looking to part with a hundred dollars on the game.
鈥淭hey now have options between top tier AAA products that cost millions of dollars to produce and indie games that might just cost you $20 but give you a cool experience that鈥檚 a bit innovative or quirky.鈥 Loxam says he is constantly looking at the industry, evaluating where it is going and what is opening up.
He says the role-playing sector has benefitted from Netflix TV programme Stranger Things, in which the characters play Dungeons and Dragons.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a household name, it鈥檚 becoming that more and more, and I think people that are entering Dungeons and Dragons now are not necessarily people who sit down with a bunch of friends with a book and play the game.
鈥淧eople want more immersive experiences and really see the visuals of that world.
鈥淚 think that鈥檚 where Steamforged are uniquely poised to help that vision become reality.鈥
As well as creating the games, the Steamforged headquarters also houses a tabletop gaming space called The Forge.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an offshoot of our business. It started out as a bit of a staff perk . . . and then we thought we might as well open a little retail store.
鈥淲e now have 20 to 40 people come down and play Dungeons and Dragons every week and it鈥檚 great to see that interaction and meet the people who want to play our games.鈥
