The indie gaming space is undergoing a dynamic transformation, witnessing an exponential rise in game releases at the pace of well over 1200 games daily (from over 50,000 studios).
With often fewer than 10 employees and no dedicated marketing departments, indie studios often self-publish on platforms like Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG.com. And many of them encounter obstacles due to the lack of adequate self-publishing tools.
Fungies.io is looking to change the game by empowering studios to effortlessly establish their own Web Shops, enabling direct game sales to players without intermediaries like Steam. Fungies is not positioned as a direct competitor to Steam, though, but rather as an additional sales channel that offers unique benefits.
The first significant advantage is that studios can bypass Steam’s hefty 30% commission charged when selling directly through their Web Shops. How? Players can conveniently purchase Steam keys during the checkout process, allowing studios to maximize their profits and keep more revenue in their own pockets.
Fungies also provides lots of customization options, including color schemes, fonts, layouts, and more. Fungies is continuously expanding its Templates library, enabling indie game studios to build their Web Storefronts within minutes rather than spending weeks acquiring hosting services, integrating plugins, and managing payments.
Fungies also seamlessly integrates with Stripe, offering players various payment methods, including credit cards and over 250 alternative options for purchasing game or in-game items.
Fungies will empower studios to manage their own communities and access critical customer data, such as email addresses and purchasing behavior. This functionality enables studios with multiple games to consolidate their offerings in one place and effectively upsell new games to their existing player base.
Fungies.io also plans to integrate with a multitude of third-party apps, including Mailchimp, Zapier, Intercom, and numerous marketing tools so that indie studies can efficiently market their games directly to their players.
Fungies plans to extend its services in the future to support mobile game studios in selling in-game items, assets, and currencies via their Web Shops. Some publishers earning over $100 million annually from mobile microtransactions are already experiencing a 10%-20% share of sales through Web Shops, highlighting the immense potential of this market.
“We firmly believe that gaming commerce will continue to soar in value in the coming years, given that players already spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on in-game items and assets, both Web2 and Web3. Our mission is to equip game studios with the essential tools to self-publish directly to their players,” stated Duke Vu, CEO of Fungies.
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While the team is based in Poland, Fungies is incorporated in the US with an office in Palo Alto, California. The company has secured funding from renowned investors such as Outlier Ventures, CV VC, Tatum, and StartupYard.
Over the next 12 months, Fungies aims to onboard 2,000 game developers and publishers, providing them with the ability to effortlessly establish customizable Web Shops within minutes.
The fully functional platform is set to launch by the end of September 2023.
For more information, visit Fungies.io or follow @Fungies_io on Twitter.
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