For this week’s Publisher Profile, Akupara Games‘ David Logan took some time to talk about the work they do in getting players, press, and influencers to check out their clients’ work.
Who are you?
David Logan, Akupara Games: I’m David Logan, CEO of Akupara Games.
Can you tell us a bit about your company?
We’re based out of Los Angeles, but we have team members all around the world working remotely!
We support indies by assisting with development, porting, marketing, and publishing. When we publish a game, we want to give the same passion the indie developers give their own games, and create campaigns that bring innovation and “out of the box” ideas.
What work do you do to help developers reach an audience? How do you make developers’ lives a little easier?
Distribution – We maintain strong relationships with our partners, such as account managers from Nintendo and Valve, or hardware manufacturers such as NVIDIA and Razer. We look for ways to leverage the developer’s title to the fullest, getting physical editions, soundtracks, and swag made. We enter the game into sales and handle full financials, making it easy for the developer who we pay out monthly. We also cover full cost and management for ratings, and set up all store pages.
Development – We provide advising for every aspect of the game’s development, and sometimes this even means we’ll bring a few resources from our own team onto our partner’s project. We handle the full porting process with our in-house team, bringing titles to mobile and consoles. We provide QA for every platform, and localize titles into many languages and regions.
Marketing – Our team has fantastic press and influencer connections, and will schedule interviews, articles, and press releases. We create trailers and key art. We handle our own social pages, generating lots of original GIFs, videos, and images, and we provide community management across social, forums, and Discord. We bring the game to multiple conventions, applying for awards and working at the booth ourselves, showing off the title.
What is it that you’re on the lookout for (genres, content, etc.)?
We aren’t picky on genre, but we’d like to find innovative games in art and design that tell unique stories. We are looking for titles that are a premium price model and that we could put on PC and Consoles for a simultaneous worldwide launch. We are looking for titles that have a lot of replayability and are well-suited for streaming.
What do you look for in the games you choose to publish? In the developers you want to work with?
As cheesy as it sounds, games we work with need to have heart. We want stories that inspire and do something different.
We look for developers who have a great personality, an open mind to our sometimes off-the-wall marketing ideas, and ultimately, someone who we can grab a beer with.
Is there anything developers do to make themselves more appealing to publishers? Anything they do that makes them less appealing to publishers?
More appealing – know what you’re looking for from a publisher. Approach publishers with a pitch deck that outlines your current progress, your projected progress, what the game could look like completed, and what you need from a publisher. Have a trailer or gameplay video, and definitely bring a build! If you can build a social presence beforehand and show that people are interested in the game and engaging with you, that’s a great sign!
Less appealing – If you’re discriminatory in your game’s presentation or how your team carries itself.
As long as you’re a cool team and good to other people, we want to talk to you. Even if your game isn’t the right fit, we’re always open to help indies succeed!
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