Are you considering raising awareness of a particular topic? Dissent Games can help!

We will work with you over six months to create a game about your campaign. You bring us the ideas and the audience, and we create a game which you can use as a campaign tool or teaching material.

So, how would it work? While we’d set up a bespoke timescale for each project, most projects can be divided into several different sections: design, outreach, logistics, and finances.

Design stage (the first three months)

Dissent Games would meet with you at least six times over three months. It’s best if this meeting is with one or two members of staff, although you may like to bring others in for the first meeting. It’s essential that those members of staff have the authority to sign off game themes and confirm that the game being developed is the right fit for your organisation.

1. General ideas for theme, phrases to avoid, what we want people to feel
2. Type of game, how ideas mights fit, trying things out
3. Suggestions for games, what works etc
4. Testing ideas, playtesting (this section may last more than one meeting)
5. More playtesting, and confirmation that the game so far works for you
6. Artwork, packaging, marketing

During these three months both Dissent Games and your organisation will blog/tweet/post to followers and supporters. We will discuss with you what sort of insights from the meetings you’d like to share. This is about engaging your supporters in the process and building an audience for the final game. 

Outreach (through the project, peaking in month four)

After approximately four months, we will launch a Kickstarter. If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, then have a look at these Christmas cards from 2021. It is essentially a place to crowd fund by taking pre-orders for a product still in development.

Dissent Games will be responsible for creating and managing the Kickstarter page, and all logistics around crowdfunding. We may also promote the game on Twitter and Facebook.

Your organisation will be responsible to marketing the game to your supporters, speaking to influencers, and promotion in general. Whether we sell 200 games or 1000 games relies primarily on your marketing and outreach. Ideally the audience-building will help to engage supporters and encourage them to pre-order a copy of the finished game.

Logistics (mainly months five and six)

Once the Kickstarter has finished, Dissent Games will arrange the manufacturing of the game. We will arrange for postage to Kickstarter backers and for storage.

Usually, we would only be able to sell to people in the UK. However, if you have a number of supporters abroad then we can discuss this at the start of the project and arrange for some shipping to be done by an external company. This would cost extra.

The game will need to be manufactured here in the UK. That means that it would ideally be a card game or a roll-and-write. In order to create it in the length of time being discussed, it should be a small game.

Finances

At the start of the project Dissent Games will set out costs for the game, and agree them with your organisation. 

You will not need to put any money into this project. Instead, your input will be in staff time, particularly during the first few months. You should receive some funding from the sale of the games – as well as social media content throughout the project. Our usual arrangement is that profits from the first 250 games are split 50/50, and profits from subsequent games are split 30% to Dissent Games and 70% to your organisation.

The costs may change significantly depending on the type of game you wish to make. For example, if you wanted to make a card game, of around 52 cards, in a box, the costs may look something like this:

• Artwork: between £200 and £1000 depending on quantity and complexity
• Kickstarter fee: 9% of all funds raised
• Postage: a game would be posted as a small package, currently £2.85
• Packaging: something in the region of £0.50 for each postage box, packing paper, and sellotape etc
• Manufacturing: 250 packs would cost around £5 each, or 1000 packs around £3 each

Let’s assume that the artwork costs £600, and that we sell the games at £10 each, with an additional £3 postage and packaging. If we sold 250 copies then the total profit would be £370, which would be divided 50/50 between Dissent Games and your organisation. If we sold 750 copies then the total profit would be £3060, of which £1938 would go to your campaign and the remaining £1122 to Dissent Games.

The bank account used would be Dissent Games, Dissent Games would be responsible for VAT and corporation tax, and Dissent Games would own the artwork and creative rights over the game. Your organisational logo and branding would be used alongside that of Dissent Games.

If this sounds like a partnership you’d be interested in, please do drop us an email!