18 months ago I started thinking about lots of big questions: How will we work in the future? What are the problems facing games companies? How can I help? As these questions bounced around my head, I began to realise the answer was incredibly interconnected. I believed there was a demand for some kind consultancy or agency that could connect companies with experts. It was an exciting proposition: To help games companies solve their problems by forming teams of knowledge experts.
One year ago today during GDC 2019, I gathered a small group of friends in a pinball arcade in San Francisco and Department of Play launched to the world!
What’s happened since? It’s been a wild ride!
Our First Year In Review
We engaged 18 clients and completed 34 projects.
We worked with clients across 6 countries.
We worked on-site for 3 clients (UK and China). All other engagement was remote.
We have work on paid, subscription and F2P games.
Projects have been split between mobile (~65 %), PC and console (~25%) and web (~10%).
Our biggest client is Facebook with 45,000 employees and offices in US, Canada, Ireland and India.
Our smallest client is a 2-person start-up just outside of London.
Our longest engagement was six people for four weeks.
Our shortest engagement was one person for two hours.
Our network consists of 21 experts across product management, game design, art, UI / UX, marketing and publishing.
We sent out 35 Christmas packages to our friends and clients, including the famous DoP hat.
We just introduced a $1,000 referral scheme.
We were nominated for our first award.
Thank You!
All of what we’ve achieved so far is thanks to our fantastic clients who believed in what we set out to do and have returned as they’ve needed help.
But we’re only able to deliver what we have thanks to our talented and hardworking network.
What’s Next?
As I look forward in to 2020, it’s a scary place as a new business owner. While the games industry is well positioned to weather the storm of COVID-19 (and even thrive), teams are rightly focusing on readjusting to remote working and caring for distressed and sick employees. As such we’ve seen a sharp drop in incoming business. We do hope this will be a temporary change and that we can continue to help companies to grow and support our freelance network.
In the short term we are putting more focus on the blog and bring you guides, case studies and information that will help your business take advantage of the opportunities ahead.
If you think we can help you and your games grow, please reach out. If you think you know someone who might need our help, read more about our referral scheme.
About the author
Department of Play founder and Chief Product Consultant. Will has worked at the likes of SEGA and Rovio, took Angry Birds 2 top 50 grossing and is author of Free-to-Play: Making Money From Games You Give Away.
