What is it like to build up a successful virtual reality gaming company? What are the common pitfalls and where will the technology head next?
Digital Journal caught up with the COO of VR game developer Sinn Studio, Almir Brljak, about how an up and coming VR studio that nearly went bankrupt created one of the top-selling titles internationally.
Sinn Studio is a virtual reality game development studio founded in 2017 and its best-performing title is “Swordsman VR”.
Digital Journal: Why did you decide to focus on virtual reality for gaming?
Almir Brljak: My co-founder Alek Sinn had been experimenting with interactive hardware for a couple of years before the founding of Sinn Studio and identified multiple use cases where virtual reality gaming would be better than flat gaming. In addition to the belief that it would be a better user experience, we noticed that multiple tech giants were investing significant amounts of capital into VR/AR. The first is Meta (Facebook, Sony, HTC), followed by Apple and ByteDance.
We also understood that when a new industry is being built, there are no experts and everyone starts on the same line, allowing for experimentation and failure without detrimental consequences.
DJ: What struggles did Sinn Studio face early on?
Brljak: Many. We were small, inexperienced, and cash-strapped. For the first three years of Swordsman, Alek Sinn was the only full-time employee, so while our imaginations were grand, our scope had to be relatively small. Personal funds and company revenue entirely funded swordsman; this is extremely difficult as we have no room for failure, as one sub-par update could lead to multiple bad user experiences and a decline in sales. Our studio almost dissolved in 2019; after two years of work and three sub-par titles, we were tired, in debt, and demoralized. In July 2019, we agreed to shut down Sinn Studio and take what we learned from our entrepreneurial journey and take different career paths.
DJ: How did you turn this around?
Brljak: After we agreed to dissolve the company in 2019, I decided to keep it running for a couple of months so my co-founders had time to reflect and process the two years we had spent attempting to develop and publish VR titles. After two months, I reached out to Alek to catch up and discuss the potential of attempting to develop a new title. In my meeting with Alek, I explained to him that I never closed the company and the future plans I had for the company. I believed we had the knowledge and experience required to develop and publish a successful VR title. We developed Swordsman with all the feedback we received from our first three titles and our community throughout beta; we leveraged online communities and smaller influencers to ensure Swordsman got an adequate amount of visibility on the launch day.. The rest is history.
DJ: How has Swordsman maintained its popularity?
Brljak: It’s a combination of different things. We’ve taken a community-first approach, and that has created brand evangelists, working with all the marketing resources that platforms like Steam and PlayStation provide that other studios don’t utilize and utilizing social media creators to ensure users are coming across our title at all parts of their internet usage.
DJ: Where do you see gaming technology heading next?
Brljak: It’s evident that the goal of the big hardware players is accessibility; this can be broken down into affordability and ease of use. I think we’ll see VR devices become more affordable and continue on the path of standalone hardware; the need for an expensive PC is extremely off-putting to users considering VR. In addition, with the pace of innovation in technology being rapid, I think we can expect better graphics, larger playable areas, and the introduction of new technology (haptics and hand-tracking).
DJ: What are the main challenges of being an entrepreneur?
Brljak: Personally, it’s the limited time. As an entrepreneur, you must understand your product, competitors, and industry, and you must always have your finger on the pulse as interactive hardware and software are changing rapidly. Attempting to keep up-to-date on all these different components is tough, but running a company simultaneously makes it much more difficult.
DJ: What advice can you offer for up and coming entrepreneurs?
Brljak: To have patience and understand the importance of timing. A great product that is late to the market will fail, and a poor product early to the market will fail as well.
