Black Salt Games co-founder Nadia Thorne reflects on its spectacular but unexpected success

Leaving her original game development company to start a new studio with a small team and limited funds initially terrified Christchurch's Black Salt Games co-founder Nadia Thorne. 

“The thing that I spent the most time umming and ahhing over was giving up what I already had and what I had already built to start again,” she told Caffeine. 

Its first title, Dredge, a horror-tinged fishing game, has since earned three Bafta nominations and a Global Game of the Year nomination. It has sold 1.5 million units so far and there’s even a film adaptation underway. 

So it’s probably safe to say Thorne made the right call spinning Black Salt out of her original game development company, Cerebral Fix. 

“I was absolutely traumatised by the idea because I was General Manager of Cerebral Fix at the time and it was my baby,” she told Caffeine. 

Whereas Cerebral Fix primarily assisted in the creation of games from other studios, Black Salt is a smaller, leaner unit working on its own IP and product. 

“We realised that pivoting what we had created, which was this really powerful services company, we’d basically be cannibalising what we had already built to take it in a new direction.”

So with a limited amount of startup capital, Thorne faced a familiar choice for any founder, how to maximise the initial investment and who to bring along.  

“You have to weigh up what’s going to give you the actual best opportunity to set yourself up. What does that look like? Do you pick six people for six months versus fewer people for two years?”

She decided to take a very small team of very senior people, initially just lead artist Alex Ritchie and programme writer Joel Mason. They then locked themselves in a room for two months hashing out the original concept for Dredge.

Thorne believes matching artistic inspirations with market realities was key to their success. 

“Each step was kind of validated by either market data play tests or other kinds of industry things like being offered a publishing agreement,” she said. 

“That’s a lot of prototyping, play testing and market research before you even decide on what game you’re going to try and build and take to market. It was very much a validation-driven model. Any decision that we made was based outside of our own egos.”

Thorne credits the collaborative nature of New Zealand’s startup ecosystem and the openness of the gaming industry in particular for helping Black Salt chart its course.  

“We have things like game developer conferences where indie developers will literally stand up and show you their data, saying, ‘Look, this was how many sales we got.’ It's great energy and attitude in this industry to share support and collaborate rather than keeping secrets.”

All that research, hard work and collaboration more than paid off for Black Salt when Dredge sold over a million units in 12 months of release. 

The unexpected bounty from their seafaring adventure even prompted the studio to donate $100,000 to the New Zealand Whale and Dolphin Trust.

But such immense and unexpected success came with its own challenges, as the studio was forced to pivot from starting new projects in order to service their enormous new customer base. 

“I never planned for Dredge to be as successful as it has been. Honestly, it hit us psychologically because we were mentally prepped and building ourselves up and excited about moving on to a new thing,” Thorne explained. 

“It had been our life for two years, and so we were excited to start exploring new worlds, and it was ripping us back for the next two years, too. It takes over your life. I know Alex doesn’t want to draw another fish either. He’s just so over fish.”

While grateful for the financial security Dredge provided, Thorne and her team weren’t interested in doubling down and creating a franchise in pursuit of profit. 

“Obviously, anyone that’s just interested in the money side was immediately talking about sequels. People always ask about ‘Dredge 2’. When we eventually return to do a second, it will be a much better product based on the wait and us being ready.”

As for what’s next, while Black Salt shipped a hefty update to Dredge last week, Thorne is already at work on a new project with a winning formula - founding another studio with two veterans from Cerebral Fix.    

When asked to reflect on her most important lesson learned as a founder, Thorne said it all comes down to trust. 

“Trusting the team that I had put together, including myself. Understanding what I was bringing to the equation. Knowing that I had put together an excellent team and if anyone could do it, it would be us.”