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Interview: Project M’s Sean McNicholas explains how the upstart game studio plans to take on Candy Crush

Housed within WeWork’s imposing co-working space in Aldgate Tower, entrepreneur Sean McNicholas is building a game studio that he hopes will one day be jostling with the likes of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans and taking a bite out of the $99bn mobile gaming market.

The former corporate financier has spent the last four years building up his startup Project M into a 12-strong team of experienced developers, coders and designers, who have been hard at work on a new mobile game, Dig That Gold, that they hope is set to take the app charts by storm.

The killer idea? Rewarding players with real gold.

Bdaily spoke to Sean on the cusp of the app’s big launch to get a better idea about how Project M hopes to spark a gold rush, both for its players and the studio itself, and how a former finance man came to find himself helming an app studio in one of London’s most vibrant startup communities.

“I was coming into this, in a new type of sector; that’s why I needed to immerse myself with the right type of people.”

Sean is quick to point out that, while his background is not in gaming or even app development, his financial roots have given him a unique perspective on the mobile gaming industry

That said, from the very beginning he recognised the need to surround himself with the right people, as he explained: “I was coming into this, in a new type of sector; that’s why I needed to immerse myself with the right type of people. People that had experience, [Project M’s Senior Developer] Mike Barrow for example had experience at EA Games, Activision. So I was learning very quickly.”

Initially the team, which consisted of Sean, Mike, a server developer and a head artist, worked remotely, meeting up once or twice a week at Shoreditch TechHub to lay the groundwork for what became Project M.

Now, the team has grown to encompass a wide array of industry veterans with experience working for big games developers such as Rockstar Games, Ubisoft and 2K Games.

“I saw how popular these games became and how fast they became viral globally.”

However, it has not just been a case of surrounding himself with the right people. It’s clear from talking to Sean that years of diligent research has gone into building the studio from the ground up and that lessons have been learnt from runaway global successes such as Angry Birds.

“I saw how popular these games became and how fast they became viral globally. So for me I just kept looking and thinking: these games are making so much money in such a short space of time.

“And this market will only grow faster and faster as more and more people have mobile devices, the technology will improve and activity will only increase around the world including the BRIC countries,” commented Sean.

With smartphone use in the developing world set to explode in the next few years, Sean speaks of his ‘global vision’ and it’s that worldwide outlook that inspired the unique, real-world reward that provides the firm’s first major release, Dig That Gold, with its signature hook.

He adds: “These games never give anything back to the user other than pleasure. I just thought why do these game companies take so much from the user and give nothing back in return.

“So I thought wouldn’t it be cool if we could reward users for playing the game and being sort of ambassadors of the game and be loyal to this specific game. What cool award can I give away that people can resonate with people across the globe? And I came up with gold.”

Not just any gold, but real, honest to God 24-carat gold bars of which 300 have already been given away to players following the app’s soft launch.

“It’s because of my background that I knew how to set up this infrastructure, corporate structure, legal structure, framework and so on.”

The game sees players navigate through mines, destroying blocks in search of gold whilst keeping tabs on their air and energy levels which become exhausted over time.

Players are then taken to a mini-game where they pan for gold which can then be exchanged for real gold bars, starting from 1 gram with no upper limit on how much they can redeem.

It is an eye-catching concept, and one which serves to curiously mingle both the virtual and the real world, something which is taken even further by the app’s franchise model.

Effectively, entrepreneurs and investors are able to franchise levels within the game and are responsible for marketing and attracting players to their level, from which they retain all the proceeds once Apple’s fee and Project M’s 20% management cut have been taken into account.

In this way franchisees become both ambassadors and marketers for the game, spreading the game across social networks in the hope that it becomes viral.

Unsurprisingly, Sean and the team have faced some resistance within the industry, but he insists that the concept has been fully signed off by a chartered accountant and is careful to abide by Apple’s strict app store rules, with his corporate finance background proving crucial in getting all the legal’s signed off.

“It’s because of my background that I knew how to set up this infrastructure, corporate structure, legal structure, framework and so on. So I knew what we had to do before I proceeded with it.”

The top spots on both Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store have become increasingly dominated by a small coterie of big-name developers making it difficult for smaller developers to break out with a runaway hit.

“I think I’ve got the unicorn, I think this could be something that is going to change the world.”

For an app to get noticed in such a crowded marketplace it needs to have a disruptive concept which shakes up the market.

Pokemon Go is an excellent example of an app which, significant brand cachet permitting, effectively came from nowhere to become a massive, viral worldwide hit thanks to its game-changing mix of the real and the virtual.

Whether Dig That Gold has that million (or even billion)-dollar idea remains to be seen, but Sean is confident that the innumerable hours of research and years of hard work that has gone into his ‘unicorn’ will see his app take off:

“The only way you can make a dent in the market now is if you have a unicorn which totally disrupts the market. I think I’ve got the unicorn, I think this could be something that is going to change the world.”

Project M’s Dig That Gold is available to download on iOS now ahead of its official launch on 18th September.