Why Fateless Games Didn’t Follow the Rules—And How It Paid Off
29In an era where discovery is harder than ever, community isn’t just important—it’s the deciding factor of your game's success. The usual approach? Build the game first, then work to attract the right audience. But Fateless Games followed a different path. They started as HH Gaming—a gaming content creation and community focused on mobile hero collector RPGs, particularly Raid: Shadow Legends—Simon Lockerby, which grew to 11M+ page views and 400K+ members before deciding to create their own game, Godforge.
Raising $6M in just 10 weeks, the team partnered with ex-Riot, Microsoft, and EA talent to bring their vision to life—and the beta waitlist is already open.
In this episode of the PocketGamer.biz Podcast, Peggy Anne Salz sits down with Co-Founder Simon Lockerby, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Dan Francis, and Co-Founder & Game Director Hisham Saleh to discuss how they leveraged their community, turned engagement into momentum, and built a studio where players are part of the journey from day one.
Simon Lockerby - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-lockerby/
Dan Francis - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-francis/
Hisham Saleh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hishamsaleh/
Fateless Games - https://www.fateless.gg/
HH Gaming - https://hellhades.com/
CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:40 - How Fateless started
10:41 - The year of the true fan
15:00 - Gearing up for the launch
17:37 - Supporting content creators
22:42 - Cashing in on the k factor
26:45 - Cultivating culture and talent
33:55 - Creating the next HH Gaming group
Correction:
0:33 Typo - Dan Borth should be Dan Francis
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