The end of Pocket Burger Games.

No regrets.

It's with heavy heart that I make my first announcement in awhile: Pocket Burger Games is shutting its doors. Time to turn down the grill and cook up something new.

The reasons are varied, as they always are. But the truth is making mobile games that can sustain a business is hard, and always has been, and it got harder while we were running PBG. The carpet of an entire industry moved beneath our feet, and we were faced with a choice: change our company strategy to be safer and endure in the new normal, or double down on what brought us together: innovation, exploration and new games for new markets. We did the latter, and we ran out of time to prove it in a very tough investment market. I have no regrets that we did so, as opportunities to do what everyone else is doing will always be around.

Normally this is where people say "I learned as much in my few startup years than all my others combined" and while that's true, that's the minimum I expected to get out of this. The biggest thing that came out of PBG, corny as it sounds, is the connections and friendships that grew out of it. I was astounded at how many people in the industry, from top to bottom, just want to help. How many people gave their time for advice, support, and shared knowledge expecting nothing in return but the hope we would succeed. And that's on top of the incredible connections with my cofounders and employees at PBG, whom I will be eagerly working with in some capacity for the rest of my career, I'm sure. Overall, to my surprise: I came out of this loving the game industry more than when I came in. For that, I think I’m very lucky.

A few shoutouts:

Joakim Achrén, Eric Seufert, Tom Hammond, Mark Müller on the angel side, who always took the time and made so many intros and connections. I was very proud when the DoF events entire morning was helmed by speakers on the angel side of PBG. :)

Our wonderful crew of investors who believed in us when were nothing but crazy ideas and ambition: Oliver Kicks and Concept Ventures, Affan Butt at Aream, and of course the fiercely wonderful crew at Sisu Game Ventures, Samuli Syvähuoko, Erik Gloersen, Jere Partanen, and Paul Bragiel. I hope you keep funding dreamers like us.

Michael Willis and Cristina Mereuta at Marmalade Game Studio, who were wise enough to pick up half our team. We spent as year making board games at PBG, so Marmalade was a perfect fit. I know Mark Ffrench, Dan Fiddis and Magda Mackiewicz (Assoc CIPD) are going to kill it over there for years to come.

Speaking of those three, they deserve shout outs of their own:

Mark FFrench: You know that kids science experiment, where they fill a jar with marbles, then sand, then water? We were all marbles, and Mark was the sand and water. The company really started to build and learn at great velocity when Mark joined, and his work touched everything in the company, from an incredible design sense to making T-shirt designs for company events. Mark’s boss.

Dan Fiddis: We originally hired Dan to “draw hot dudes” after his time at Fusebox. We didn’t get him drawing a lot of hot dudes in the end. Instead he drew EVERYTHING ELSE. Characters, backgrounds, icons, we all watched Dan grow from a pigeonholed character artist to a full fledged 2D powerhouse. I’m incredibly, incredibly proud that we gave Dan this room to spread his wings and prove what he could really do, and his career is just getting started. Watch Dan. Mark my words.

Magda Mackiewicz: When we were interviewing for Magdas role, we met lots of great candidates but Magda was an instant hire: she interviewed us. At first I just needed someone to help with accounting, HR and paperwork. Within the first week I was making plans for Magda to become our COO. (Sorry we never got there, Magda.) Magda saved my ass on more occasions I can count, and was driven to excellence in everything. (If you don’t believe me try playing any sort of competitive game with her.) An incredible woman who I’m proud to have worked with.

As for my fellow founders, a few individual shout outs:

Matt Down: Matt's a great programmer. I know plenty of those. Matt's a great guy, I know plenty of those too. Matt is ruthlessly dedicated to the exploration of games like no one else. He would be the first person to challenge what "couldn't be done", and he was frequently frequently right on things that no one believed but him at first. It's a certain rare strength, and its going to serve him well in his upcoming indie work.

Adam Sullivan: I never expected Adam to be my right hand man. I was really happy to get a dependable and talented UI/UX designer that I liked and trusted. Adam proved to be so much more than that. He was built to be a startup founder. The attitude, the hustle, the rapid development of skills, Adam is just meant for all of it. I never expected Adam to be my right hand man, but I’m really really glad he was. He’s freelancing right now and killing it, I think he’s a man who does his best work in control of his own destiny.

Jarrod Gecek: It was great to finally run a company with Jarrod. We’d talked about it for years, started all sorts of insane projects together. But when PBG hit the ground running, Jarrod became the heart of it. Our sense of humor was his. Our sense of style was his. In many ways, PBG was Jarrod. I know its a cliche that a small startup has an Art Director who is drawing everything himself, I have to shout out that it was obvious that Dans growth happened as a result of working with Jarrod, and lots of artists should be so lucky. I say no regrets, but my biggest sadness since PBG ended is not getting to work with this brilliant and wonderful man every day. I just couldn’t move to Barcelona to join him with the wonderful folks at Zeptolab. :)

As for me? I’ve been taking a break. I know what I’m doing when it’s done, but that’s another post down the line.

Thanks again to everyone who supported us. See you all in our next amazing adventures.