Tamatem CEO: “Never build something that you cannot launch in two to three months”

• Hussam Hammo says developers should start small and avoid overambitious projects.
• His previous gaming venture spent two years developing an Arabic shooter that ultimately failed.
• Hammo advises building projects that can launch within two to three months.
• He says gaming founders should think of themselves as building companies, not just studios.

Tamatem CEO and founder Hussam Hammo has urged aspiring game developers to start small, avoid overly ambitious projects and think of their businesses as companies rather than simply studios.

Speaking during an online panel organised by UAE Games, Hammo reflected on a gaming venture he ran around 2009 and 2010, where the team initially built simple Arabic versions of successful browser games.

The company later became ambitious, spending two years developing an Arabic shooter that Hammo said ultimately failed.

“Typically, at that time, there was not a lot of competition in the market,” said Hammo. “What we made a big mistake doing was becoming too ambitious and having ego come our way. We started thinking that we could build the ultimate shooter game.” 

Ambition became a burden

Hammo said the project's problems began when a developer convinced the team they could build an Arabic shooter set across multiple locations. The team initially viewed it as a passion project that would take around six months, while its existing games continued generating revenue.

“We got excited and we thought that this would become a passion project on the side and it could take maybe six months to develop,” Hammo said. “The six months became two years.”

Although Hammo said the game's quality was “top-notch”, the team eventually recognised the scale of the competition. With a core team of just three people, it was attempting to compete with titles such as Crossfire and companies with hundreds of employees.

The project also exposed the team's lack of experience in marketing and testing. With around $25,000 left from its investment, the team launched the Unity browser game without properly testing it with players. The Unity plugin failed, leaving players stuck and ultimately costing the company its remaining funds.

“That led to us losing all the money that we had left in the company and we stopped taking any salaries for nearly a year,” said Hammo. “I used to come to the office alone, turn on the lights, turn off the lights, and I didn't know what I was doing with my life. It was a disastrous decision to do a shooting game with a very small budget that you know you will not be able to pull off.”

He added: “I will never do a project that I cannot see the end of. Although 13, 14 years later, I still sometimes make these mistakes when we develop something internally. But we try as much as possible not to fall into the same trap. Never build something that you cannot launch in two to three months.”

Lessons learned

Hammo said his goal in speaking at panels is to educate young developers rather than preach to them. While he acknowledged that some developers may succeed with ambitious projects from the outset, he believes this is rare and difficult.

“My advice to everyone is to build something very small, copy things that were working, and once you have the luxury of revenue, then you will be able to raise money and you will be able to get a publisher and things will start moving,” said Hammo. 

The Tamatem CEO also cautioned game founders against describing their businesses as “studios”, arguing that the term can encourage them to focus on creating games while overlooking the broader responsibilities of building and running a company

“One problem that I see in the games industry that really gets on my nerves is that game founders call their thing a gaming studio. And why I don't like the word ‘game studio’ is that it's not a gaming studio, it's a company,” said Hussam.

He argued that, unlike founders in sectors such as fintech, SaaS or edtech, game founders often identify their businesses as studios. He said this can lead them to focus heavily on creating exciting game concepts while overlooking responsibilities such as HR, legal, hiring, firing and investor relations.

“Most people thinking about studios think about them not from a bad intention, but they want to build something fun, amazing concept ideas," Hussam said.

"They spend a month pulling all-nighters to build an amazing project, but they forget HR, legal, hiring and firing, they forget the sleepless nights that they would need talking to investors.

“I want people to start thinking about building companies, and within these companies, you can have units that are called studios, and these studios are developing stuff,” he added.

Also speaking during the online panel by UAE Games was Khosouf Studio CEO Ahmad Al-Natsheh, who discussed why the purpose of a developer's first game is to fail.