Galaxy on Fire - Alliances is nearing completion and the next space action game set in the Galaxy on Fire universe is in late pre-production.Ĭombined with our 40 million-strong hardcore install base of the different iterations of Galaxy on Fire across all mobile games platforms and our excellent OEM relationships, we have a pretty strong story. Various due diligences are still being carried out and some high potential people knocked on our door after they read about our situation last week.Īlso, going through chapter 11 puts us into a new situation where we can buy-out all our assets and restart with a new legal entity and a fresh, healthy capitalisation - including a reasonable stock option program for the team.Īfter all, we are still a veteran mobile games team, including seasoned free-to-play and console games experts, that has two promising products in the pipeline. We have been talking to investors for some time now, keeping them up-to-date on the most recent developments. How confident are you that you'll get the money you need? To make things worse, any stock option programs for the team would have been taken from that 39 percent as well. With the founders being down to 39 percent, getting new investors on board for a potential Series B round has been next to impossible. However, our biggest challenge followed from the fact that we had given away too much equity in our Series A funding round back in 2007. If you don't have a game that has the potential to generate $1 million a day, it is a tough call. You might think success stories like Supercell have made it easier to raise money, but for some investors and even strategic partners the opposite is true. Raising money is always a challenge, especially when you don't yet have a live game that shows great metrics - at least in a handful of countries. How hard is it to raise investment? Or was this a case of getting the right investor and the right deal? Unfortunately, we've not yet been able to secure such an investment. Therefore, we knew that we had to raise additional cash towards the second half of 2013 if we wanted to continue our ventures unabatedly. Ultimately, we were no longer able to deal with these challenges without the aid of a significant investment. However, there have also been obstacles that slowed us down, such as the transition from premium to free-to-play and constantly keeping up with an ever-changing mobile market, which is dashing towards console quality at lightning speed. With such a strong foundation, we had been able to expand continuously over the past five years with growing revenues and profits year-on-year. The pillars of our success have been the Galaxy on Fire saga, including its two major add-ons, and our long-term co-operation with the Volkswagen Group, which brought forth seven highly successful branded games. Michael Schade: We have indeed enjoyed quite a bit of success after we'd decided to drop Java games for feature phones in favour of iPhone games back in 2009. Pocket Gamer: What can you tell us about why you are in this position? Everyone thinks of Fishlabs as a successful company? Of course, we all hope - and expect - a well-known studio like Fishlabs to pull through and gain future success, but the situation does underline that while the mobile games market continues to boom, there are also growing inequalities. That made the news the company had been forced to make 25 staff redundant a shock.Įven more surprising was that it has been in the German equivalent of Chapter 11 protection from its creditors since July 2013.Īs CEO Michael Schade reveals, there were many reasons for the situation, but the main one was the company's corporate situation notably its need to raise more investment, something that was hindered by its shareholding structure. It's been pushing the envelope when it comes to 3D graphics on mobile devices since the days of Java, and is renowned for its successful Galaxy on Fire space shooter franchise. German developer Fishlabs is one of the world's most experienced mobile game studios.
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