QBo

We are QBo and our moto is “Curing Boredom one game at a time!”

We are a small indie game development studio with a fresh take on the process of creating mobile games. We follow the DevOps principles and we abide to the following core mantras: Be original, creative and innovative.

We work with Unity and we are self-funded for now. We are in our planing phase for the first few months of 2022, since our projects only now entered the development phase.

The problem

The mobile gaming market is growing. In 2023 it is expected to have 2,7 billion active users worldwide and reach a turnover of 103 billion.

Despite the advances in technology and the new ideologies in project management practices in other industries, the gaming industry is suffering in those aspects. Games take years to complete, with constant delays, which also increases the development costs. The games ship full of bugs and compatibility issues. The companies invest time and money and cross their fingers on release day, with only speculations and estimates on how the games will be received by the players/market.

The solution

A startup that works with the DevOps principles, with small and flexible teams that create game MVPs. Test those MVPs on actual players to see their reactions, early on, and develop games with their feedback at the center of the creative process.

This continuous experimentation and open communication with the players, allows us to gain valuable market knowledge. This gives us valuable insights on how to move forward with each title, creating engaging games that require minimal marketing spending and also make use of the community’s reactions to promote them even more effectively.

Throughout development, we continually make sure to optimize and automate our work flows, using the extra time we gain to focus on increasing: User acquisition and retention, In game purchases and Ad revenue.

Milestones

We participated in:

Venture Garden, Thessaloniki (November 2021)

Microsoft Startup School, Athens (December 2021)

Organized by Startup Pathways and sponsored by Microsoft.

John & Mary Pappajohn competition, Thessaloniki (July 2022)

We were awarded the 2nd substitutes position.

Projects

Shipowners is a mobile game where players inherit a ship and make routes unlocking bigger ships all the way to huge cruisers and behemoth cargo-carriers. It’s an MMO set in a real-world map with more than 7.500 real ports.

Revenue Model

We will make profits from:

• Ads: We target many users with the free distribution of some of our games, with advertising mechanics that reward the player when they choose to see them or unlock temporarily certain content.
• Monthly/Yearly subscription fees: These subscriptions a) unlock all content eliminating the need to watch ads. b) gift players in-game currency for purchasing skins. c) unlock tools that allow the player to do things in-game much easier (e.g.: calculators for best routes for “Shipowners”).
• Skin Bundles: Beautiful, unique and sometimes rare skins for the player's characters/tools/ships/UI elements.
• Product Placement: In certain games and for certain occasions.

We plan to publish all of our games on Android and IOS market places. Some of them will also be published on Steam and other game consoles.