The developers of Future Trash recently announced that they acquired an impressive 5 million USD in their seed round of funding. The money will go towards its FOAD projects, which is their original IP set inside of the Fortnite Creative ecosystem. FOAD stands for “Friendly Explosive Device,” and it’s part of a collection of competitive party games within the Fortnite Creative world and beyond. Each FOAD is a fun, chaotic device with its own unique design, stats, and personality, making every game feel different and explosive.
The team plans to use Unreal Editor for Fortnite or UEFN to complete the project and the IP itself should be a cluster of party games. These are designed around the aesthetics and concept of the 1990s teen rebel trope, utilizing the rising popularity of this sort of nostalgia. Additionally, the game will use anthropomorphic explosives and explosive devices as its characters, giving it a new layer of uniqueness and recognizability.
Future Trash is likely hoping that both will allow its IP to gain instant brand awareness among Fortnite players, but also those who are new to the Fortnite Creative space. The backers are hoping for a good ROI, mainly due to the fact that Epic Games is presently very generous in its distribution of profits with UGC creators.
The FOAD concept found a lot of traction among investors. That’s why the development team managed to generate 5 million USD during the seed round, which is very impressive. Furthermore, the fact that the development will take place mainly in UEFN is another benefit for the team and its operations. Inside the UEFN, even if the team uses its own custom-made assets, the need for backend developers and programmers is significantly smaller than when it comes to developing standard, stand-alone releases for PC and consoles. So, Future Trash will be able to extend that money for a prolonged development, including a system of constant updates, tweaks, and additional content once FOAD comes out.
These are the reasons for the big appeal for both General Catalyst and TIRTA, which led the funding round. TIRTA managing partner, Ben Feder, said that the Future Trash team is passionate and creative, which allows them to make a big impact on the UEFN ecosystem. Feder noted that the space allows for a creation cycle lasting a matter of weeks or months, instead of years.
TIRTA and other funding partners of Future Trash recognize that the speed and effectiveness of UEFN development are big benefits for all involved. Future Trash is already a veteran team in this domain. Their games “Boom: Boss Fight” and “Bomb Tycoon” attracted over 20 million unique players. Together, they racked up over 1 billion playtime minutes.
According to current estimates, which put a rule of thumb value of around 1.7 USD for one thousand minutes of Fortnite playtime, Future Trash made 1.7 million USD from these two games alone. Besides this game, it plans to launch 15 new games through UEFN. These will try to branch out in terms of genres and all the while assess the popularity of gaming approaches in real time on Fortnite’s servers. For investors, this is a great signal. It means that their investment will quickly show its potential, even if the FOAD project doesn’t have a great start. In any case, the immediate results and possible corrections will be applicable very quickly.
The CEO of Future Trash, Kevin Marciano, believes that his team has what it takes to make FOAD into a very successful project. He also underlines the expedient nature of UGC space, where games benefit from the limited capacity in terms of tools and technology. This allows the Future Trash team to focus on the fun and engagement part of the development process, where the balance between player expectations and delivered results is easier to find.
However, Marciano and Future Trash are not betting on fun alone to propagate their new IP. Instead, the company will focus on community building and fostering a strong social media presence. This will include a FOAD Discord server, as well as a YouTube channel and a TikTok account. Together, they demonstrate that the company has a strong development plan in front of it, but it entirely rests on the game’s ability to attract and keep players. While in the UGC arena, getting initial players is not that difficult. It’s the capacity to keep them engaged that will make or break FOAD in the months after its release.
