Meet Michael Hudson, CEO and co-founder of the global games distribution platform: GameBake

GameBake is a fast-growing technology company that brings video games to global app stores and social media platforms. In short, we help mobile game developers and publishers reach audiences outside of Google Play and the Apple App Store and provide them with the tools to scale their games.

Not many game developers and publishers are aware of the power of app stores like the Huawei App Gallery and Samsung Galaxy Store — let alone how to access, monetize, and scale them. Admittedly, before GameBake, this was relatively challenging. We simplify the process with our own SDK-free technology that takes care of the tedious integrations and reaches multiple global platforms with a few clicks.

We also build in the monetization mix required to scale games on these platforms, whether they are app stores, social media platforms like Snap, or browser or blockchain gaming platforms.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

Most of us at GameBake are originally game developers ourselves, so we’re passionate about the industry and really understand our partner developers and games. In my case, I started developing Flash-based browser games in my bedroom as a kid, figured out how to make some money from it, and eventually founded and ran my own game studios for more than a decade.

The GameBake co-founders and I actually ran a game studio together, and that’s where we found that the existing distribution and monetization models (Google, iOS, or Bust) were too limited. That was the trigger for GameBake – we wanted to disrupt the market. Some of us are still trying our hand at a little game development too!

How has the company performed during the pandemic?

GameBake launched just before the pandemic and we exited stealth mode in May 2021, so the realities of running a business in tough times is all we really know.

In a way it wasn’t ideal as we obviously had to work remotely from the start if we wanted to be out and about meeting partners and yelling about what we’re doing. But mobile gaming is one of the few industries that has been completely immune to the pandemic and has, if anything, grown at a faster pace as a result.

So we’ve seen pretty rapid growth, integrating 50 games, securing funding from Innovate UK and winning various awards including Red Herring Top 100 Europe. A big development we did was that we started with an SDK, but we quickly realized that game developers were tired of having to integrate dozens of them. So we reacted quickly and worked tirelessly to become SDK-free, which was important to us.

What can we expect from GameBake in the future?

We started going live on different platforms in Q4 2021 and in Q1 2022 we expanded this to include some new and very popular partner games. Excitingly, we are currently working to secure our seed funding round and we are in the process of further developing our website and visual identity to reflect the progress we have made in 2021.

If we’re successful over the long term, you’ll read about Google and Apple losing market share to other platforms (though obviously they’re going nowhere!). You’ll see more of your favorite games on apps like Snap and TikTok, as well as app stores beyond the big two, so more people around the world can enjoy the best mobile games.