About

Games should be fun and business shouldn’t be bad. We work very hard to make sure our games are as fun as possible and that our business practices are good for the world and not just us!

Et Games started life as Pucket Enterprises, named after our first game. It was founded by David Harvey in 2009, with help and encouragement from our friends at Swerve Concepts. Ben Lewis joined when we started trading at Christmas ’09, bringing the team to two. The funds to get the company going were initially Dave’s redundancy pay from his credit crunched former employment (wind farm analyst), followed by some generous investment from old friends (a BIG thank you to Mr Hanton and Mrs Evans).

The first order of 200 Pucket games sold out quicker than we’d dared hope, and so we ploughed the money back in for a larger second order. Since then we have been on Dragons’ Den, got investment from Streetbank founder Sam Stephens, and launched four more games. Ben moved on to a new job in spring 2014, and I (Dave) relocated the business to Hampshire.

There are two ideas that motivate our work: First, we think our games are fun. Second, we believe that business can make the world a little bit better, if done in the right way. We have to admit that the second bit wasn’t our own idea – our efforts to do business ethically (and aesthetically) are inspired by our Christian faith.

The Right Thing

Et Games may not transform the world, but we do want it to play its part. We are always looking to adapt our business to benefit people and the planet. So far we have focused on ethical sourcing, carbon emissions and advertising:

Ethical Sourcing

We want to uphold the dignity of everyone who makes our games. We’ve done this by using a reputable fair trade supplier in India. We sometimes do finishing or repairing work in-house in the UK, where we pay at least a living wage of £15 per hour.

The wood used to make our games (Sheesham, latin name Dalbergia Sissoo) is not endangered, and comes from Indian government managed plantations. Sustainable sourcing is assured through “Vriksh” certification.

Transport

Having our games made in India enables us to support economically weak artisans – but it also increases our carbon footprint compared to having the games made in the UK. To minimise this we use sea transport rather than air freight, and we offset the shipping emissions via a company called Climate Care (https://climatecare.org).

Advertising

We believe that constant spin and spam are bad for the soul, so we want our marketing efforts to be as unobtrusive as possible. For example we promise not to fill your inboxes with vacuous “news” and “offers”. We depend instead on our games catching on because they’re fun and people will want to play them with their friends.

Enter the Den

Having faced the Dragons with our first game, Pucket, but failing to convince them to invest, we accepted an offer from Streetbank founder Sam Stephens for the full amount and on the same terms as we were asking for in the Den.

We had practised our pitch to Sam prior to filming, but the practice turned out to be the real thing when he turned round and made us an offer - for a moment we thought he was just staying in character! As a result of Sam’s investment, we were able to stock up for Christmas and the games have been selling faster than we can have them made! Going on Dragons' Den was a bit like a speed dating event at the end of which you must marry or forever part. It was helpful to be forced to do lots of detailed business planning, and the filming day itself was great fun. However, it is very odd to be in potentially the most important business meeting of your career and not be allowed to bring or take notes, let alone a calculator.

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