How it works

Almost any good team can build a prototype. Very few can turn one into something that ships.

Everyone helps at the start. Jams, incubators and accelerators crowd the first three months. Publishers arrive at the end, once there is something finished enough to evaluate. The twelve to twenty-four months in between is where teams actually die, and where nobody is selling help.

0 · Capital4 to 8 weeks

Grants, a publisher advance, soft loans, or preparing an equity round. Most teams start here.

1 · Concept2 to 4 months

A prototype becomes a project. What the game is in one sentence, and what evidence would settle it.

2 · Ship6 to 18 months

The long middle. Scope made visible before it makes itself, a date the team can defend, cuts surfaced while cutting is still cheap.

3 · Launch1 to 2 months

Store presence, beta sequencing, day-one operations, patch readiness before it is needed.

The wedge is the long middle. Phase 2 is the part nobody else sells into, and the part that decides whether a game exists.

Live operations after launch is a different engagement for a different buyer, and it is not sold here. The engagement has an end. Advice shaped to extend a contract is worth less than advice that is not.

Two sizes. Cash and revenue share are published below and are not negotiated. Equity as payment is by arrangement and is agreed in writing before any work begins. The three can be combined, split by hours worked.

Revenue share is always defined on net receipts to the company. That is what the team actually banks, after any publisher share. Never on store-level revenue.

Equity work is preparation only, charged as a flat fee, never as a percentage of a round. Placement is a licensed activity in Sweden, and since 1 March 2026 conducting it without authorization is a criminal offense.

• Not capital. FirstPlayable helps find money. It does not provide it.
• Not a publisher. No rights, no distribution, no claim on the game.
• Not a co-founder seat. No board seat by default, no veto.
• Not management. Nothing is taken out of the founders' hands.

What a team buys is foresight, from someone who has already been there. The founders decide.

Teams of three to twelve. Pre-revenue, often unfunded, usually first-time founders who recently left a large studio. Proud, short of money, allergic to being managed, and they have never raised.

It is a bad fit for a team that wants someone to run the company, for a studio large enough to have solved delivery already, and for anyone looking for an investor rather than an advisor.

A team that has already launched and is struggling in live operations needs a different engagement, and I will say so on the first call.