Nathaniel Green (BS ’13) is not your typical accountant. After graduating from the Judd Leighton School of Business and Economics with an accounting degree, Green and his childhood friend, Auston Montville, co-founded the Seattle-based indie video games studio TOO DX. “I’ve always been something of an entrepreneur,” he explained. “While I was at IU South Bend, I had some amazing professors who championed the work I was doing and provided opportunities for me to see I could take charge of a project and build it from the ground up.”
TOO DX developed Sportsball, a fast-paced video game, designed to be played with multiple players of any age. The object of the game is to take control of a giant bird and outscore the opposing team with quick maneuvers and aerial prowess. A core principle of the developers’ design was to make Sportsball as much fun to watch as it was to play. With an announcer feature built into the Wii U’s game pad, a fifth player can provide a running color commentary or the play-by-play, making the matches even more exhilarating.
Green raised awareness for Sportsball through a partnership with Nintendo, social media, cross marketing, and event marketing. Nintendo showcased the game in several public announcements and at IndieCade and the EMP Museum’s Independent Games Exhibit Gala Premiere. At these events and others throughout the country, including RTX and PAX, they demonstrated the game and gave gamers attending the event a taste of the excitement inherent with the multiple player format. At several events, they ran tournaments between teams to declare the best Sportsball team at the convention.
“One of the best marketing experiences I had with Sportsball was during RTX,” said Green. “I convinced a gamer’s mother to grab a controller, so she and her son could play the game with me. Not only did the mother catch on quickly, but they continued to play with other opponents. When they left, both the son and his mom had big smiles on their faces. That was always the goal---to make people happy and excited because they just played an awesome game.”
As for the future, Green has a lot of interests. “I see an open road,” he explained. “I have a backlog of cool thoughts and concepts for projects.” Spoken like a true entrepreneur.