Indie publisher Hooded Horses has built quite a catalog of excellent strategy games from small developers, including titles like Against the Storm and Manor Lords. A core part of the company's business plan is sustainable growth – which means they're very open to making sure games aren't pushing long-term players away by releasing in an unfinished state.
"Part of the Hooded Horse ethos is making sure games are ready when they launch," Hooded Horses president and CFO Snow Rui tells career development newsletter Find the First Step. "We're very delay-friendly – we don't ever want to push a game out too early. So early on, I defined part of our strategy where operating costs can be covered by our back catalog. Since the strategy games we publish tend to have long tails, ongoing sales of released games tend to be sustained and we can build on top of that."
A game publisher saying that it doesn't want to put out unfinished games might sound like a pretty cheap PR win, but Rui suggests that it's part of a larger plan to ensure the business is sustainable. Rui, along with her husband Tim Bender who serves as CEO of Hooded Horse, defined a business plan that doesn't involve a buyout or hitting the stock market. "We want to stay private, profitable, and sustainable," Rui says.
"Tim and I are very independent, so the idea of running a public company was never appealing to us," she continues. "I think we're very aligned in what motivates us and we want to provide a kind of stability in the creative industry where stability is so rare. Many of our hires from the industry had experienced pushing games out too early and the consequences of that, so our vision of supporting developers and allowing them to focus on the game instead of worrying about cash flow resonates with them."
You'll find the Hooded Horse label on many of the best strategy games and best city-building games out there.
