Im just wondering me and a couple buds (3 of us plus a professional artist)have come up with a pretty good game concept. We are ready to start development, but we are pretty young and dont have access to mcuh money. We want to sell our game, we only want to make enough money to pay back our game artists.T he total comes to about 400$. We are young and concerned about being screwed because of our age. One of them wants credits in the game, I feel like im setting him up he thinks the game is gunna be big! big! big! I dont want to disappoint him and loose him as an artist due to not only our age but also how well the game does (PS he doesn''t know that we are all 15). How should I go about selling the game and what should I tell the artist? Who on earth should I approach to sell this game? Is there anyway we can get like 5-10 copies in the bargin bin at futureshop? Keep in mind we are not wanting to make it big, we just want to pay back this great artist guy. BTW, I would rather you not comment on our age in a negitive fasion, dont point out the obvious. I would not be here looking for answers if we sucked at making games. I am looking for ideas on how to get around the age and financial barrier. Thx for the help!

Corrections:

There is only one artist. Please ignore any refrences to 2 artists.

Also ignore all the spacing, grammer, and spelling errors. I typed this really late at night.

Thx.

If you guys can program, and this artist knows anything about games, then you should be able to work this out just fine. The first thing you''ve got to do is get the game built, at least the engine and some demo levels. Use MS Paint art for place holders, just stick men and stuff you can make. Then send that demo to the artist. If he believe that the game is good enough to eventually make some sales, he''ll probably hold off on demanding payment until you do make some money. So he does the work because he believes that its a quality product, and you pay him only after you do get those first sales.

It worked for me. I got an artist to do several weeks worth of work for free, on the condition that he gets his share when its published. I finished the game, he finished the artwork, and we''re anxiously waiting for publishers to respond. If no money ever comes of it, then we release it as freeware or self publish, and consider it a learning experience.

If you don''t want to worry about finding artists, paying them, etc., you could always learn how to make your own art (that''s what I''m doing right now). There are some pretty good tutorials and message boards out there that are for beginners (example - http://tsugumo.swoo.net/tutorial/, http://pixelation.swoo.net/ - they focus on tiles and sprites).
It just takes some dedication and time (practice). Anybody can make art.

Also, from what I''ve seen so far, shareware games don''t normally have to be visually stunning to be successful.

First off, be honest with people you work with. Don''t promise things you can''t deliver and don''t mislead people. I''m not saying advertise that you are 15, but don''t lie about it.

As far as paying the artist goes, if he is going to do all of your game art for $400, he is either a kid as well or someone not too concerned with the cash and is doing it mainly for fun. I say this because game art is a huge time and talent investment.

borngamer