The Monetization Manifesto
How we make money, and the lines we will never cross.
Every studio has a business model. Most would rather you never read theirs. We are putting ours in writing, in public, because we would rather earn your trust for a decade than your money for a week. This is exactly how Fathomfire Foundry intends to make a living, and exactly what we refuse to do to earn it.
Why We Are Telling You This
Let us be honest about something. Keeping a studio alive costs money. Development takes time, and time has to be paid for. The only real question is how a company chooses to cover that cost. Some squeeze players with engineered frustration and then sell them the cure. We will not build our business on the worst moment of your day.
Here is the part most studios would never admit: because most of what we build favors offline play and keeps online needs to a minimum, our running costs tend to stay modest. We are not bleeding money on servers that force us to wring every last dollar out of you. That means we can afford to be patient. We can afford to put fun ahead of profit, because we honestly do not need to take much to keep going. Building more, and building it faster, is a different question, and that is what support and funding are for. Never for squeezing you harder.
"We would rather grow slowly with people who trust us than quickly with people we have tricked."
How We Will Make Money
Four honest ways, and not one of them costs you the game
Cosmetics That Never Touch Power
We sell things that look incredible and change nothing about the balance of the game. Frames, visual flourishes, personalization. If an item affects a single number that matters in combat, we will not sell it. And the best-looking items in any game will always be earnable by playing, too.
Expansions Worth Paying For
When we charge for content, it is because we built something genuinely new and you want more of a game you already love. New regions, new classes, new stories. Never a tax to keep playing what you already own. The base game always stays complete, whether it is free or carries a small, honest one-time price.
A Place in the World
If you choose to support us, we will write you into our worlds. Your name, or a name you pick, can live on as a character, a place, or a memorial inside the games you helped build. It is a thank-you and a piece of flavor. It is never an advantage.
Support, Always Optional
We will offer ways to back the studio directly, from a one-time tip to a membership for people who want to follow everything we make. Every cent of it is voluntary. Nothing you actually need is ever locked behind it.
Lines We Will Never Cross
These are not guidelines we might revisit. They are the point of the whole company.
We Will Never Sell Power
No pay-to-win, not now, not ever. Your skill and your choices decide your success, never the size of your wallet.
No Loot Boxes, No Gambling
We will never sell you a random chance at something. No mystery boxes, no slot-machine psychology, no gambling dressed up as gameplay.
No Manufactured FOMO
No countdown timers, no vanishing deals, no fear of missing out engineered to rush your wallet. Anything cosmetic we ever retire will find its way back.
We Will Never Force Ads on You
We will never interrupt your game with an ad or shove one in front of you. If we ever include ads at all, they will be entirely optional, something you choose to engage with, never something forced into your experience. And your privacy stays yours: we will never sell, rent, or trade your information.
We Will Never Paywall the Fun
No energy meters, no stamina bars, no paying extra just to keep playing once you already own the game. When you want to play, you play. The core experience is always whole, never artificially cut off to sell you a refill.
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How We Fund This
We are not building for a quick exit, and we will not let investors dictate predatory design. That line does not move.
Inside that line, we are open. We welcome community crowdfunding, direct player support, and mission-aligned capital that supports sustainable growth while preserving our player-first principles. Money that helps us make better games for longer is welcome here. Money that expects us to squeeze you is not, at any price.
If we ever take outside funding, we will say so plainly, right here. Every promise on this page travels with it, and anyone who backs us comes in knowing these promises are not negotiable.
What This Costs Us, and Why We Do It Anyway
Saying no to these tactics means leaving real money on the table. We know that. We are choosing the slower, harder road on purpose, because the alternative is becoming the kind of company we started this one to escape.
This manifesto is a promise on the record. If we ever break it, hold us to it. And if the day ever comes when we must change something here, we will tell you exactly what changed and why, out in the open, in the same plain words we used to write it.