Let’s start simple. Who are you?
Hey, I’m Matt, founder of Fieldcraft Games. The studio has grown into an independent publisher, but it started with me building wargames in the evenings, and that spirit has never left. My working life has crossed sales, marketing and finance, which is not the traditional route into games, as several people have kindly pointed out.
Away from the screen I’m a husband and a dad, and family life comes first. I love my sport, football especially, and getting outdoors whenever I can. Long walks are where most of the design problems come loose, usually about a mile after I have stopped thinking about them. Fieldcraft is built in the gaps around all of that, which is exactly why it is called Fieldcraft and not Empire Something Studios.
And Fieldcraft is… what, exactly?
An independent publisher. We make our own games, and we help other developers launch and grow theirs: everything from a one-off strategy session to full launches, ongoing marketing and, for a small number of studios, a long-term publishing partnership.
The short version is that we handle the commercial side of games properly, so developers can spend their time on the bit only they can do.
Sales, marketing, finance… and now a games publisher. How did that happen?
Slowly, and then all at once. I have spent my working life on the commercial side: sales, marketing and finance. Games were the thing I kept coming back to outside of it, and for years I built them in the evenings, which taught me something valuable the hard way: the game is only half the job. The store page, the positioning, the pricing, the launch plan, the audience. Nobody teaches developers any of that, and it is where good games quietly die.
I kept watching talented developers pour years into something brilliant and then hand the business side to hope. I have sat on the other side of that fence professionally for a long time. At some point the two halves of my life stopped being separate things, and Fieldcraft was the result.
Publishers do not have the best reputation with indie developers. Why should you be different?
Because most publishing deals are built on a percentage of your game, forever, in exchange for work nobody itemises. We think that model is broken for small teams, so we priced our work like professionals instead: public prices, clear contracts, no revenue share, and honest advice, including telling a developer when they should not spend money with us. That last one surprises people, but a launch that should not happen yet is not a sale we want.
And the developer stays in control. Our job is to strengthen studios, not take them over. You keep your vision, your IP and your revenue, on every package and in every partnership. Even our bespoke Publishing agreements are built together, openly, or not at all.
What is the Fieldcraft Standard I keep hearing about?
The principles everything gets tested against. If a recommendation does not contribute to a better game or a stronger business, we do not make it.
- Transparent pricing.
- Honest advice.
- Developers remain in control of their vision.
- A small number of studio partners.
- Long-term relationships over quick wins.
- Decisions backed by data.
- Sustainable growth over short-term hype.
Last one. Where do your own games fit in?
They are the proving ground. Everything we offer developers, store pages, websites, community, launch planning, is practised on our own catalogue first, which keeps the advice honest: we recommend what works when it is our own money on the line.
History is where our games started and it is what I love, but I am careful not to box Fieldcraft in. What unites everything we make and publish is simpler than a genre: games built around decisions that carry weight, made properly, by people who care about them. If you want the development side of that story, Southers tells it far better than I do in our developer interview.