Overstep
60 840 € (273%)
of 22 320 - 70 200 € goal funded
360 € minimum investment
Quick Pitch
Overstep is a next generation first person shooter in development, that will be free to play on Xbox One and PC. Bringing totally new game mechanics and a unique art style, combined with team members with high previous experience, will give us a great competitive advantage. As well as working from low cost - tech advanced Estonia.
We have signed contracts with Microsoft, inclusive of rapidly scalable distribution, software and hardware support via development kits and marketing. To make sure the player pool keeps growing, we are developing Overstep with a high focus on e-sports.
For more information, visit our website.
Problem & Solution
The main problem in the gaming industry is that AAA-games (games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion) are getting too expensive and low-budget indie games are flooding the marketplace. In addition, freemium games have emerged in the past few years where gamers have to pay extra money to win or to have fun at all.
We want to change how people get into e-sports. The most popular e-sports games are free-to-play. Our solution is to make a free-to-play game, using the latest technologies. This is possible thanks to the team already working for free for a whole year, and the low cost of IT-development in Estonia.
E-sports is becoming a serious profession. We're building a game for those who prefer first person shooters to other video game genres which already excist for e-sports enthusiasts. The current options are either the typical point-and-shoot; expensive games, meaning a lower amount of players; or just not designed for e-sports. Our focus will be supporting our competitive community and giving them something with an addictive learning curve.
As Overstep is free to play, we don't gap the player pool with money. The other main frustration about competitive games is the learning curve, which is especially high in Overstep. We have a solution for that. If in a typical first person shooter, your health points are 100 (which allows one shot kills), then in Overstep you play with about 500. This means an engagement between a tank and a close-quarters combat unit can last up to two minutes. This, combined with a high focus on teamwork means that the player will have time to make mistakes, learn from them and get better in a fun and rewarding way.
Traction & Accomplishments
Business
- 30 people working for free for over a year, wanting nothing more in return than a paid job upon funding. Currently, the average input per team member per week is ~10hours. With funding, it can be 40h per week.
- A digital distribution contract with Microsoft, for Xbox One, including hardware and software support
- A contract with Epic Games, Inc. to develop Overstep on Unreal Engine, one of the most powerful engines for first person shooters, which we absolutely love working on.
- Established branding visuals and a social media audience of over 15 000 people
- Prototron TOP10
Development
- A comprehensive Game Design Document, covering 37 various elements of the project.
- A functional first person shooter, going through testing and tweaking based on our GDD.
- Two playable environments in development.
- Visual assets: concept art, 3d models, particle systems, materials, textures, etc.
- Soundtrack and sound effects created by our own composer.
How We’re Different
Our CEO was recently interviewed by Games Bulletin (UK) and they asked: "What is it you think sets indie apart from AAA games?" The answer was: "The story." How do we have a social media audience of 15 000 people in such an early stage? Gamers can relate to us, we are transparent and share every step of our journey, with them.
If we're talking about all the first person shooters out there, we have a lot of competition. Based on the problem we are solving, we are still very confident that we will get our piece of the pie. Our main competitor will be Team Fortress 2, being also a free-to-play first person shooter. That is a game is catered to casual gamers, so competition in the e-sports space will be low. Overstep has been built for e-sports since day one.
Competitive advantage:
- Being independent, more flexibility than AAA producers.
- Having a great team, more production edge on most independent developers.
- There is no other free-to-play first person shooter on Xbox One and PC that is designed for e-sports.
- Team members that have worked on video games with a total of 2 billion dollars in sales.
- Bringing a unique art style on a destroyed, but beautiful planet and totally new game mechanics like climate changes to the FPS genre.
- Our sole focus is e-sports, meaning a competitive community that grows organically.
Uses of Funds & Timeline
After the seed round, our goal is to bring more team members to Pärnu and prepare for the Kickstarter campaign. This first round of funding is an accelerator to allow us to dedicate more of our time to the project, boosting the production tenfold. As volunteers, our team members can work an average of 10 hours per week, with funding that could be 40 hours. Salaries are going to be the main expense with this funding, getting us to the level of development we need to launch our Kickstarter campaign, if not further. Based on our social media audiences size and activity, we can nearly guarantee the success of our Kickstarter. In the unlikely event of it failing, our plan B is to get funded by a game publisher. This would mean giving away 30% of the revenue, hence our current strategy.
Our traditional business plan includes more detailed information, combined with this awesome-looking overview of the game mechanics.
Closed Alpha for the game will air for one month in Q3, 2016. Final release is planned within Q2 - Q3, 2017. By the end of 2017, we are expecting 1.2 million downloads with a revenue over 9 million euros. This is the combined projection of our Microsofts contacts, our Monetization Advisor Uluç Ali Kırangil, the fact that over 20M people will see the option to download Overstep on Xbox One and our chosen platform on Steam has over 125M users.
Planned funding timeline:
- 22 000€ - 70 000€ via Fundwise - Q3, 2016
- Valuation after the funding round: 1M€
- 180 000€ via Kickstarter - Q3/Q4, 2016 - As we have operated with the Kickstarter campaign as a part of the plan since the beginning, we've had a high focus on growing our social media audience which is the key element for a successful Kickstarter campaign. For our campaign to succeed, we need ~2000 backers. We've seen games succeed on Kickstarter with a social media audience smaller than a 1000 fans. As we don't want to leave anything to chance, we've already built an audience of 15 000+ fans and plan to double it before our KS launches in October, the latest.
- Valuation after the funding round: 1.5M€
- Potential options for investors: Selling to third party at that valuation.
- 500 000€ via private investment - Q4, 2016 - Intent given, based on a successful Kickstarter campaign with at least 1000 backers. This agreement has been made in December, 2015 and stands as agreed.
- Valuation after the funding round: 3M€
- Potential options for investors: Selling to third party at that valuation; buy-back by Gamecan at that valuation at the contingency that it doesn't slow down the operation.
- 700 000€ via private investment - Q2, 2017 - During the past year, we've talked to dozens of big-shot investors whom have stated that they would be interested in doing a later stage investment. Many of these investors are regurarly updated with our progress.
- Valuation after the funding round: 5M€
- Potential options for investors: Selling to third party at that valuation; buy-back by Gamecan at that valuation at the contingency that it doesn't slow down the operation.
Obligations to Investors, Profit Distribution
We want to emphasise that you are not only investing in Overstep, but Gamecan. The vision for our company is to have a team of 80 people by the end of 2018, with a distinct company culture. Overstep will remain our main project for at least 5 years, with occasional side-projects. We will develop it as an on-going platform and build a strong e-sports community around it.
That said, we understand that investors have different goals, hence we have built our strategy around different income options for our investors:
- Early exit after the next funding rounds, at the price of that rounds valuation. Explained in Use of Funds & Timeline.
- Semi-annual dividend payments after we have reached a profit margin of 20%.
We hope that our investors too have a shared passion between gaming and business, which will allow us to have shareholder meetings that include playing the early version of Overstep. We will make sure that our shareholders will get the best possible experience out of everything Gamecan creates.
The valuation is calculated through a series of discussions with our internal advisors and outer contacts. Looking at start-ups, at the early stages valuation does not show the true nominal value of the company. It shows how much of the company the investor gets for his investment. Some of the factors that go into that calculation are team, traction, advisory board, value proposition, prototype and most important, early third party contracts. Going deeper into the algorythm, valuation depends on how much money the start-up needs. In our case, choosing the multiple stages strategy, the first 3 rounds need to cover 6 months of runway.
Equity distribution:
Currently - The CEO Marten Palu is a 100% shareholder.
Agreements that will manifest after the campaign:
- Fundwise investors - 2.42 - 7.24%
- Founder members - 10%
- Advisors and investors - 4%
NB! We are changing the company statute to provide for an electronic vote at meetings; and to increase share capital and share premium.
Risks and Mitigation
As with every other industry, the Gaming Industry has trends. The current emerging trend is e-sports and our only risk would be releasing the game too late. That would mean that the currently available spot for an e-sports free-to-play first person shooter will be filled by another game. Yet, in the case of another game like this coming out in the next few years, we can see that in the other game genres, the e-sports pie is still fairly divided, thanks to unique game mechanics per game. Being first is just a great competitive advantage.
The whole team has been working for free for the last year and to narrow down any motivational and performance risks, we are now looking for investments to speed up the progress and put people to work on full time, instead of ~10 hours per week. Thanks to operating in Estonia, we can develop on a fifth of a development budget, compared to AAA companies in other countries.Our communication with Microsoft helps us keep a bird eyes view on the industry to time our development, regarding the risk mentioned.
In the unlikely event of the next funding rounds being postponed for some reason, leaving a gap in the salaries, our team members have given consent to continue with the project with high determination as we have so far.
Company name: Gamecan OÜ
Company's registration code: 12931206
Company's address: Akadeemia 7, Pärnu 80010, Estonia
Company's e-mail: marten@gamecan.eu
Homepage | Facebook
Fundwise's e-mail: info@fundwise.me
Investment amount
22 320 - 70 200 €
Equity offered
2,42 % to 7,24 %
Equity offered per investor
360 € to 18 000 €
Current share capital
2500 €
Company current valuation
900 000 €
Share capital after campaign
2 562 - 2 695 €
Company valuation after campaign
922 320 - 970 200 €
1 € nominal share price
360 €
TEAM
Christopher Parnian
3D Artist
Christopher is a CG artist who specializes in designing character, creature, weapon and equipment concepts for games and film. His work can be seen in publications such as CG Arena Magazine, Digital Art Masters, 3D Creative Magazine, Digital Mayhem, and more. Online, he has been featured on GameArtisans.org, 3DTotal.com, CG Arena.com and others.
M. W. Burweila
Investment Strategy Advisor
Wanis M. Burweila is the owner/director of companies in Europe and Asia. For the past 15 years, he has been working for his family business founded in the 1960s. Due to his unique international background, studies including law and political science, Harvard edX Verified Certificate for Contracts, and experience in the world of business in countries worldwide, he now maintains and enjoys a wide network of contacts not only among investors but also among politicians, think tanks and media influencers.
Uluç Ali Kırangil
Monetization Advisor
Mr. Kırangil has tens of years of gaming industry experience, covering translation in any language pairs, localization, UI/UX, media management, media production, 360 degree marketing, product positioning and strategy, digital marketing, social media management, design, digital PR, tournaments and events and partnership with giant companies. Click "See More" for the full bio.