🌟 Editor's Note
It’s the second FPC newsletter. This last week has been a bit bonkers - Right in time for spooky season, I (Dylan) got bit by a spider on my left elbow, and my arm went all Popeye for about a week. So that was fun! Outside of that, life’s just been busy with the day to day.
Remember, fund devs, not execs.
Enjoy!
📰 The Business Big News
We’re a company! An LLC to be precise.
So let’s talk about why we’re an LLC and not a nonprofit organization, or a public benefit corporation.
First and foremost - forming a limited liability company (LLC) was simply the easiest way to get this project off the ground. The filing is relatively simple, it grants us (the people involved) legal protections, and it’s flexible enough to allow us to grow.
Why not a nonprofit? - The Internal Revenue Service defines what a nonprofit can be.
A nonprofit is a non-governmental legal entity that operates for a collective, public, or social benefit, rather than to generate profit for private owners (from Wikipedia).
While we think that allowing developers the proper space to create games that they want to create is a public benefit, we had our doubts that the IRS would under their definition of public benefit.
What about a PBC? - A “public benefits corporation” is kind of the love child between a corporation and a nonprofit. The goal is to drive the company forward with a singular mission, with yearly oversight through auditing, but still capable of generating profit. Sounds good! So why not?
PBCs are not recognized in North Carolina yet (where we’re based). There are ways to incorporate in other states, but at the stage we’re at right now, that wasn’t really feasible.
C/S-Corp - Also known as a corporation.
This business structure is overkill for us at the moment. We’re six folks so far, all working on this with no pay, in our spare time. We have the flexibility to grow into a corporation someday, though, as FPC evolves.
What does this mean for you and your support of FPC?
While we’re not able to form a governmentally recognized mission-driven entity, we’re absolutely still mission-driven to benefit the gaming community overall. It’s right there in our manifesto, and we’ll always demonstrate it to you with transparency — the kind of transparency you’d get with a nonprofit that is accountable to the public. We fully intend on meeting the standards you’d expect out of a charitable organization.
What’s Next for the Business?
A bank account!
We should be opening a bank account this week that we’ll then be able to associate with a “Contribute” button on the various websites and social media - That will very much be its own announcement when it’s live but look forward to that soon.
The Logo
Our current logo is…well it’s made by me, which should tell you all you need to know.
OOF
We’ve had some fun with friends taking a stab at it, but it’s about time to pay an artist for something that really defines who we are.
With that in mind, I’ve reached out to two artists about commissioning a logo, both with very different styles, but whose art I admire greatly.
A logo will run us anywhere between $500-$1,000. As a company run on transparency, we’ll post the receipt and credit the artist.
Featured Dev
Every other week we’re going to feature a dev, highlight their work, and just overall boost them to our readers. This week we’ve got:
Josh Hughes & Team KAIZEN
This week I spoke with Josh Hughes, co-founder of Team KAIZEN, a Montana-based “teaching studio” blending fun, education, and inclusivity.
Who they are: A family-founded studio born out of hardship (medical bankruptcy) that now includes a diverse team of creators from across backgrounds. They focus on building games that are both engaging and empowering.
What they’re building:
Burst! on Steam – a rhythm game inspired by the Guitar Hero era, but without the mountain of plastic instruments. Players time fireworks to music, swapping elemental colors based on the real periodic table. Burst already features tracks from global artists and Native American rapper Supaman.
Shattered Soul – a 3D fighting game inspired by Power Stone and Bloody Roar, with a focus on using the environment itself as part of the fight. Think fast, fluid, and cinematic combat rooted in accessibility.
Philosophy: Team KAIZEN calls themselves a teaching studio—making games that can be enjoyed for their own sake while also carrying STEAM (science, tech, engineering, art, math) elements. They also work with schools to inspire kids through interactive design workshops.
What’s next: Burst is late alpha/early beta, with a Kickstarter planned for early 2026 to push through to launch.
Check out their Sony Road to Greatness feature video for a closer look at Team KAIZEN’s story.
Chatting with Anca
Anca Tutescu, a game developer and director (who deserves her own Dev Feature, so I won’t get into the nitty gritty here) from Symmetry Break Studio, invited me on her stream last week to talk about FPC and answer questions. While we went all over the map and got pretty distracted from time to time, it was a ton of fun, and some really phenomenal questions came out of it. Check out the VOD on Twitch while it’s up or check out the YouTube video below!
The Team
Every newsletter we’re going to show off and talk about one of our amazing found-team members!
Rachel Smith
Rachel (she/her), our Pro Bono Legal Counsel, is a transactional corporate attorney at a successful financial-services software company and an avid gamer.
She thrives in startup environments, wearing many hats across customer success, product design, corporate operations, and in-house legal services.
Her expertise spans start-up business operations, robust corporate compliance, and proactive risk management. She is passionate about games as vital artistic works that bring communities together.
Rachel supports the Fair Play Collective by helping the organization build responsibly while championing creators and their craft.
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Thats it! That’s the newsletter. What did you think? Was it up to your standards? There’s lots more to come next week, so stay tuned and share FPC out far and wide!