We decided to write a short and informative blog post about our future plans here at HAVE and today we’re focusing on our vision to build custom mobile games for charities across the world. 

Currently, there is a huge potential for charities all over the globe to tap into the world of mobile gaming and generate not just awareness but more importantly, donations to fund and fight for their cause. As a socially responsible publisher, we are here to bridge the gap between charities and mobile games. 

Table of contents: 

1. A short history of our company, HAVE 
2. The mobile gaming industry 
3. Charity approach 
4. Tools used to create custom games 
5. Final thoughts 

1. A short history of our company 

We founded HAVE in June 2020 by a group of people with more than 10 years of experience in Game Development, Tech, Marketing, Management Consulting, and Entertainment brought together by a shared passion for philanthropy and gaming. 

Our goal is to entertain you, your family, and friends with high-quality, fun, and empowering games that will challenge and inform you, all for social good, by helping charities. We aim to develop and publish custom mobile games as fundraising and awareness tools for charities across the globe. 

Through our socially good mobile games, we bring to life a new, fresh and engaging way to connect with different target audiences worldwide. We soft-launched our first mobile game, Robbie the Robot in 2021, in official partnership with Sightsavers, a charity protecting sight and fighting for disability rights around the world. 

2. The mobile gaming industry 

The mobile gaming industry is currently booming, and there are no signs of it slowing down anytime soon. Different game styles (e.g. puzzle, casual, arcade, sports) are used to target various demographics across the globe by age, location, or relevant interests.

The gaming industry opens new perspectives for digital funding and awareness-raising as the world continues its digitization trend, highly accelerated by COVID-19 as well. HAVE wants to give charities the opportunity to connect to this market and take advantage of this rising trend. 

3. Charity approach

Custom mobile games have a huge potential of generating revenue which can be later used by charities to solve pressing challenges around the world. We have the means and the necessary infrastructure to build brilliant custom games, tailored for each charity. In fact, our first socially good mobile game, Robbie the Robot, proved to us that our strategy is viable and the game can be scaled through a mix of different marketing channels and growth tactics.

Games are released as free-to-use and are available on mobile and web, creating the lowest barrier to entry possible. The games can be configured to generate revenue from advertisements and/or in-app purchases. Alternatively, the games could be released as freemium/premium, collecting money from users upfront. We also offer embedded fundraising mechanisms to collect donations directly from players during the game.

As a 3rd-party game developer based in the UK, we also have the benefit of being able to claim Video Game Tax Relief (25% development cost back from the UK government), which charities are unable to claim themselves.

4. Software and tools used 

Unity

Unity is a game engine that offers cross-platform game development for Android, iOS, and Web in 2D, 2.5D, or 3D. Developing a mobile game is practically FREE for a charity if they choose to work with a 3rd party mobile game publisher, just like HAVE. 

App Store Profiles

If a charity chooses to publish the games themselves, they would require developer accounts to be created with Apple and Google when releasing the games onto the app stores. Apple costs £79/year while Google only requires a one-off £29 fee. Instead, charities can choose to release the games through a publisher such as HAVE, as we are already set up on the app stores and handle all aspects of the publishing process, speeding up the time to release.

Marketing and Growth 

Our team already tested a number of different channels on our first socially good mobile game and we know what works and what doesn’t. In terms of tools used, we have at our disposal a variety of digital tools used to track, optimize and scale our mobile games. 

At the same time, our team has the necessary knowledge to successfully apply our growth strategy and the willingness to adapt to new digital technologies, trends, or strategies. 

5. Final Thoughts

Having in mind the current state of the mobile gaming industry, its potential for the future, and the acceleration of the digitization process, we strongly believe this could be a lifetime opportunity both for charities and for socially good publishers to take advantage of. 

There is a pressing need in our modern society to approach troubling challenges like climate change, homelessness, eradicating poverty, and many more. We are ready to help charities that are tackling any of these issues. 

For more information about this recipe, you can contact: [email protected]