Applying to WINGS, by Audrey Leprince — Co-founder, WINGS
Thank you for coming to WINGS for investment in your game!
Our application form can seem long and you might not have the answers to everything yet, but it’s completely ok for you to apply with whatever you have.
What really matters to us is your team’s diversity, your game prototype and pitch and your funding needs. The rest of the questions just help us understand your vision for the game and how you plan to make it a success. So fill in what you can, and if we feel we are missing information that we really need, we will come back to you.
“Unlike others, WINGS are willing to listen to small developers. They are helping me not only with money but more importantly with valuable advice”. — Ester Sanchez, Resistance Studio
We’ll ask you for some simple questions from the get-go such as contact details, your team name and your location, but there are a few other things we’d love to have more information on:
Diversity: We are all about diversity here at WINGS and the first important question you’ll be asked is what makes your team diverse? We’d love to know more about your team members and their roles, and be sure to specify what makes them diverse. It would also be really helpful if you included their pronouns. You can link a document in this section that expands upon the team, as well as any diversity-related mission statements your team or company may hold true.
Demos and prototypes: For us to consider your application, we need to be able to play a demo or prototype version of your game. While animated trailers and artwork are incredibly valuable, we feel the playable versions give us the most information about your game and your team.
Investment and Budget: Coming up with a solid budget for your game and figuring out how much investment you need can be a difficult part. If this is your first time making a budget we recommend searching resources online to see what is typically expected. Include everything you will need to create the game, and also to promote it.
In terms of investment, tell us how much you have secured and how much more you need to make the game happen. This is where we can help!
Remember to check that your budget and your sales expectations match. WINGS is looking to invest in games that will be profitable so we can use the returns to invest in more games down the line.
Sales expectations are always hard to come up with. It’s like looking in a crystal ball! But there’s information you can find on the internet and talking to your connections in the industry. Your sales expectations should be based on the sales of recent games in the same genre targeting the same audience as yours. They are based on your net revenue per unit (after the platform fees, the VAT and other royalties have been deducted). They should take into account several games, not only the rare multi million sellers! The internet has a lot of resources to make estimates (you probably have heard of a few “thumb rules” to estimate the sales of a game on Steam for instance).
Marketing strategy: How to make sure your game will be discovered by players? When you design your game you already know its strengths and what will make it stand out from its competition. You have also seen how successful developers achieve to drive visibility to their games: building a community, being active on social networks and events, finding ways to produce interesting content, developing relationships with store and platform holders… We don’t need many details in the application, just to make sure you have a first idea of how you will approach it within your plans..
Pitch deck: Your game pitch deck is the vision of the game, and all the things you could not show yet in the demo/prototype or trailer. It can be a presentation, a video, any format our Selection Committee can review.
If you’ve never created a pitch deck before, here are a few things that you can include:
- Presentation of your team/company and your experience and portfolio
- Elevator pitch: what’s your game about in two sentences? What makes it unique?
- More details on your game content: your vision for the game, with also what could not be seen in the trailer and prototype. A whole game design document is not needed, just the high level key points, covering your game key features and unique selling points.
- The game business model: pricing, sources of revenue, intended audience, sales expectations based on competitive analysis.
- A draft marketing plan: how will you lead players to find your game?
- Financial projections: the game budget and investment plans.
“The process with WINGS was really straightforward — we chatted a bit over email, then had some calls to go more in-depth into what I needed, and how WINGS would be able to help me”. — Charlotte Sutherland, Cave Monsters
Again don’t hesitate to apply, we are here to help. If anything is missing we will come back to you and we will take it from there together. We’re here to help you succeed.
