Mob Rules Annual Benefit Report

Available here, for all to read, a PDF of our Annual Benefit Report, describing our commitment to open and worker-oriented values.

Mob Rules Games Annual Benefit Report

Transparency Guidelines

Mob Rules is committed to operating its business in as transparent and open a manner as possible. We think that doing so will help earn your trust, and we hope to serve as a model to inspire other businesses to do operate transparently as well. But what does “operate transparently” mean?

We take our cues on transparency and openness from Open Game Labs, which is developing a checklist and verification process for transparency. It’s in the earliest stages and is liable to change and grow, but right now it’s a great guide for us.

Mob Rules will make the following information about our business open and easily accessible to everyone. We will also submit to regular transparency audits and ratings from Open Game Labs.

Information Shared

• Sales Volume: Quarterly sales of all products.
• Fundraising Data: Amount raised and number of donors through Kickstarter or other sources.
• Sponsorship Data: Amount taken in through advertising and sponsorship.
• Investment Data: Amount invested every quarter.
• Gross Income: Total funds taken in every quarter.
• Net Income: Total profits after expenses and profit sharing.
• Total Employee Compensation: Divided between salaries, bonuses, and profit sharing.
• Expenses by Category: Charts of how much we spend arranged by category.
• Costs for Manufacturing suppliers, vendors, and goods.
• Sales demographics: General info about ages, locations, amount paid.
• Marketing Data: cost of marketing and metrics for its effectiveness.
• Corporate bylaws and decision-making process.
• Compensation, bonus, and profit-sharing plan details.
• Employment policy and manuals.

Open Game Labs is developing an infrastructure to make reporting, sharing, and accessing all this information easy, but none of that is in place right now. For now, we’ll report the information here on our site.

Our Plan for the Future

How do we get from a handful of developers with a small grant to a game you can play and enjoy the hell out of? We’ve got a plan. There are elements of this plan that might seem crazy to some. Certainly we’re trying to do some unusual things, and our particular combination of unusual, untried, and untested ambitions is probably unique. But that is by design. Our first priority is to make some great games, but almost as importantly, we want to find out if this new way of funding their development can actually work. 

Step 1: R&D with a Support from Open Game Labs

This is what we started doing before launch, working with a team of three on a shoestring budget to build the basic structure for the game. All three of our possible winning games share enough underlying features that work done here applies to all of them.

Step 2: $20,000+ Funding Drive

This step starts with the launch of this site. Using Kickstarter, we’re trying to raise at least $20,000 to see us through our prototype development phase. At the end of that, we’ll have a fun, playable demo of the game.

Step 3: Vote and Build Prototype

Once we’ve raised our twenty-grand, it will be up to the generous supporters who provided those funds to vote on which of the three games we’re going to make. Then we’ll bear down and get that prototype made.

Step 4: $50,000 to $100,000+ Funding Drive

With prototype in digital hand, we have our second fund raiser, and this time it’s a big one. We’ll know better by then how much we’ll need, but $100,000 seems a likely goal. We’ll have two months to try and raise this money, all the while working away on the full game.

Step 5: Build and Release

Shooting for about a year after we start this whole thing, we’ll use all that generous support to finish the game. We’ll regularly come to the voters to get their opinions and ask them to decide certain features and design elements. The budget will include enough resources for our team to continue supporting the game in the months after its release.

After that, well, we repeat the whole process for the next game. And the next. Onwards into infinity.