Ridge Graduate Turns Gaming Into Successful Company

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — What started off as an interest in video games has turned into a full-blown career for one Ridge High School graduate.

Raghav Mathur loved playing video games and during the summer of his junior year of high school in 2013 he came across an advertisement for a job in the same field. He started working with Daniel Doan to promote a game called “SanctuaryRPG: Black Edition.” It was a retro-style game reminiscent of the early 90s and late 80s games.

“I helped with public relations and marketing, the game took off and we were able to move half a million units of the game,” Mathur told Patch.

By spring when Mathur’s senior year in high school in 2015 rolled around, the pair had already created another game called “Overture.” They created a Kickstarter campaign to fund the game in January 2015 and raised $5,000 to finish development and launch it. Within the first week they sold tens of thousands of units.

With such success, Mathur and Doan realized that their knowledge and experience could help other developers — students, small-medium sized companies and families — who are making games.

They started a games publishing and marketing studio called Black Shell Media. Since their inception they've published more than 50 games and have almost 2 million copies of their games shipped. They have a full-time team hired who support their operations, and their games and company have been featured in numerous articles across the web.

“At 20 years old, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that 1 to 2 million people are playing games that I worked on,” Mathur said.

Since then Mathur has been quoted in The Guardian and has given several talks around the country, most recently at SXSW Gaming in Austin, Texas (with more than 200,000 attendees).

Mathur continues to work on his constantly expanding company while studying as an undergrad at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I have been playing video games all my life and gaming is $100 billion industry,” Mathur said. “I now have the opportunity to have a good potential outlook for myself in a career path that I love.”

For more information on Black Shell Media visit blackshellmedia.com or call 908-758-3230 or email contact@blackshellmedia.com or Facebook or Twitter.

(Images provided)

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