The video game developers at Psyonix Inc. are living proof that experimentation pays off.
The bootstrapped company, which has been quietly building video games in downtown San Diego for the past decade, has struck gold with its latest release: “Rocket League,” a game that’s amassed millions of fans. The game has catapulted Psyonix from a little-known indie developer doing behind-the-scenes contract work to a smashing worldwide success. “Rocket League” earned Psyonix over $110 million in the first 12 months after its launch, landing the game at the top of the best-sellers list next to titles made by much bigger firms (with much bigger budgets).
The CEO and studio director of Psyonix, Dave Hagewood, looks almost dazed as he talks about the company’s rapid growth. He says the game basically multiplied the company’s revenue by a factor of 100 in a matter of months.
‘“Rocket League’ is one of the top games in the world right now,” Hagewood says slowly, pausing as if he’s still trying to process that fact. “It’s like a small indie studio put out the latest blockbuster movie or something. It’s insane.”
Driver’s Test
So what’s captured the attention of 23 million gamers worldwide? Rocket-powered, flying bumper cars meet the World Cup.
The wacky video game, which can be played on PC, PlayStation 4, and the Xbox One, features sports cars playing soccer with a giant ball. The game’s cars zoom around elaborately constructed sports arenas, rocketing into the air to bump or block the ball. If you’re thinking that mashing together two concepts (sports cars and soccer) isn’t really a hundred-million-dollar idea, you’re not alone.
Psyonix pitched major game publishers on the concept, but all of them passed. After the latest release of “Rocket League” in 2015, some users were even confused about its popularity.
“This is a cross between two niche categories,” a gamer wrote on a popular game forum. “How in the heck is this the top-selling game?”
Another commenter replied, “Because it’s amazingly fun.”
As an aside, “Rocket League” has been tested by absolute nongamers in the Business Journal’s newsroom (due diligence, and all that). Amazingly fun pretty much sums it up.
Goal Oriented
The strange and endearing wackiness of “Rocket League” didn’t happen overnight or as an “a-ha!” moment from a genius game developer. Instead, it was experimentation over many years that led to the game’s design.
Psyonix has been around since 2000, when Hagewood founded the company in North Carolina. Knowing the competitive market of video game development, he knew it would be nearly impossible to break into mainstream with an indie concept. Instead, Hagewood built a team of video game developers who could do contract work on big-name titles. The company earned a reputation for solid work, and landed contracts for projects on blockbuster games like Gears of War and Mass Effect 3. In the video game industry, these are called AAA (pronounced Triple-A) games — some of the biggest titles in the $70 billion industry.
Landing a steady stream of contract work helped Hagewood slowly grow his studio until he was able to allocate 10 percent of his team and resources to what he calls “experimentation.”
“I can’t honestly say that any of us would have sat in a room and designed from scratch a game where cars are playing soccer,” Hagewood said, laughing.
The Game Changer
“Rocket League” started as a battle-style game with cars that could jump and flip and were loaded with rocket boosters. Then, one day, a developer suggested throwing a ball onto the battlefield.
“When we threw the ball in and put ourselves in a soccer arena, we became obsessed with it,” Hagewood said. “It was so much fun, we couldn’t stop playing it.”
Indie video game companies, often small and underfunded compared with their giant competitors, are known for coloring outside the lines. They push the boundaries of what big time game publishers would never consider, but the result is a niche audience of indie game enthusiasts.
That’s basically what happened to “Rocket League’s” first iteration. In 2008, the company released its first original title, a game hilariously titled Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars.
“We called it this long, crazy name hoping that it would garner some more attention, but it ended up working against us,” Hagewood said. “It was so long that people couldn’t remember it.”
It had a loyal following, but not global blockbuster success.
From the Minors
Psyonix continued doing contract work for Triple-A games, earning “street cred,” experience, and bootstrapping its own experimental game ideas.
In 2015, Psyonix released “Rocket League,” a hugely upgraded and newly titled iteration of its original Supersonic game. The main difference between the original concept and the hundred-million-dollar “Rocket League” was marketing, strategy, and years-worth of polish that perfected the user experience.
After spending a decade or so developing Triple-A games for bigtime game publishers, Psyonix knew how to elevate its own game’s design.
“We made an indie game that didn’t follow the rules, but with a Triple-A polish that people didn’t expect,” Hagewood said.
After landing a smart deal with Sony Corp., “Rocket League” was available for free to certain PlayStation 4 gamers for a one-month period. From there, it spread like wildfire.
“You really have to play it before you understand the appeal, so offering it for free during that time really paid off,” Hagewood said. “That was a catalyst for us.”
The game, which sells for $19.99, has sold more than 8 million units and shows no sign of slowing down.
With in-game purchases available to gamers (for things such as cosmetic upgrades to cars) and a user base that just won’t stop, Psyonix stands to gain more revenue from in-game sales than from initial game sales.
Creating Concepts
Hagewood said he hopes to be a multifranchise studio one day, so he continues to dedicate a 10-person team to experimentation. They have no deadlines, and no budget limitations. They spitball ideas and build out wacky concepts all day long.
As for the rest of his 70-person team, Hagewood said they’re busy developing free upgrades and additional content for “Rocket League” enthusiasts, cementing their user base and keeping the game at the top of the best-selling charts.
The company’s team has grown so fast since the launch of “Rocket League” that Psyonix is moving out of its crowded 9,000-square-foot office into a two-floor, 40,000-square-foot lease at 401 W. A St., a tower called 1 Columbia Place.
Hagewood said he’s committed to contributing to San Diego’s downtown tech hub (he’s even become an investor in some local tech startups recently, including Zesty.io).
Besides being an up-and-comer in the video game development world, Hagewood said San Diego’s tech community is “really building up.” He hopes to be part of that growth, eventually drawing more video game developers to the downtown neighborhood.
