Making Games Easier to Invest In

Rarebit came to Gardn with something many game studios struggle to build over years:

experience.

The team had shipped more than 90 games, generated billions of plays online, and developed a strong instinct for creating accessible, highly replayable experiences that audiences genuinely engage with.

But despite all of that, the investment conversation kept collapsing down to the same thing:
the individual game.

Every pitch became a debate around whether a particular title would break through, whether the genre was hot enough, or whether the concept felt commercially big enough.

That creates a difficult position for any studio.

Because investors end up evaluating uncertainty at the exact moment the studio is trying to communicate confidence.

The challenge wasn’t improving the ideas.

It was changing what the investor was actually being asked to believe in.

‍

The strongest part of the business wasn’t being clearly communicated

As we worked through the existing decks and materials, it became obvious that Rarebit already had most of the evidence investors typically look for:

• years of shipping games
• proven audience engagement
• working prototypes
• technical capability
• fast iteration cycles
• and a realistic understanding of how games are actually developed under constraints

But those signals were sitting underneath the surface.

The pitches were still heavily weighted towards explaining the game itself - mechanics, themes, modes and ideas - rather than helping investors understand why the studio had become increasingly good at reducing development and commercial risk over time.

The information itself wasn’t wrong.

The hierarchy was.

The conversation shifted from “potential hit” to “repeatable process”

Instead of positioning each project like a standalone bet, we restructured the narrative around Rarebit’s broader development model.

The focus became:

• how the team prototypes ideas quickly
• how they validate gameplay early
• how existing audience reach can support future launches
• and how technical uncertainty is reduced before projects scale

That changed the role of the games within the decks.

The games became demonstrations of the studio’s process and thinking, rather than the sole justification for investment.

Even Rarebit’s background in browser and web games took on a different meaning.

Rather than being treated as unrelated to premium PC and console ambitions, it became a strategic advantage:
a low-cost environment for testing mechanics, understanding player behaviour, and building awareness ahead of larger commercial releases.

That reframing made the commercial strategy much easier to follow.

Better structure created a clearer investment case

One of the biggest shifts was introducing far more deliberate structure into what was being communicated.

Rather than trying to prove everything at once, the decks became anchored around a smaller number of investor questions:

• What has already been proven?
• What risks have already been removed?
• What still needs validating?
• Why is this team capable of delivering?

That clarity made the same underlying business feel significantly more investable.

Importantly, this wasn’t about stripping personality out of the studio.

Rarebit’s creativity, humour and accessibility remained central to the pitch.

The work was about making sure those qualities sat inside a commercial narrative that investors could assess quickly and confidently.

‍

The lesson

A lot of investment pitches become overloaded because founders try to communicate every interesting part of the business at the same time.

But investors are rarely looking for perfect certainty.

They are looking for evidence that uncertainty is being reduced intelligently.

Often, the biggest strategic improvement comes from reorganising the narrative around that idea.

Not changing the product.

Not changing the ambition.

Just making the path to confidence easier to see.

‍