Hi everyone! I''m wondering what the strategy would be to get a game published. We are a couple of guys who are quite good at what we do and have some great ideas but don''t quite know how to get the whole show started. - Should we get a demo together and then knock on the bigger gamehouses doors to get funds? - Or go to other investors to get financial backing and if so who? - Or should we try to fund it ourselves and then try to get it published and if this is the way by whom? (we are currently working as consultants but don''t have that much money throw into the new company) - Are there any good articles on how to get started with a new business in the game dev industry?

All the possibilities are equally valid and only you can actually decide which is best for you. I hope the following narrows it down a bit. If you post more details of what you want to do, then I am sure we can give some more detailed help.

- Budget or full price.
If you are talking about doing a budget game then your only option is to self fund. Budget publishers wont pay up front development fees. If you are looking at full price then you will need more than "a couple of guys....... " and the cost of development will be much higher. You will need to get finance from somewhere.

- Self funding
Games cost a lot to develop. If you have the money and the guts to risk it then the rewards can be much greater. If your product really is good then publishers will queue up to sign it and the financial returns will be greater because you took all the risk. Of course if the game isn''t great then you may end up with a finished product that no one will sign.

- Publisher funding
If you can''t (or wont) fund it yourself then publisher funding is an option. If you have a good demo, good team and a good presentation in place there is a chance that a publisher may sign you. That chance is dramatically reduced if you do not have industry experience. Publisher''s hate to take any risks so they often only sign people with an industry track record.

The pros of publisher funding are that they take the financial risk. The cons are that they almost certainly own your game and maybe even part of your company in return for the cash. They will also take the lions share of the profits. That funding will most likely depend on you meeting agreed milestones and failure to do so may result in them witholding payment and your company going bust.

- VC funding
Very difficult to come by. This is basically a more professionally arranged and more time consumming version of publisher funding.

The pros are that you have agreed funding up front (or possibly just funding to get to an agreed demo stage). This allows you to keep greater creative control of the game and get a better deal when you sign with a publisher. The cons are that it is even more time consumming to get VC funding agreed than publisher funding. They may also take a large slice of the company, may retain the rights to kick you out of your company if things go wrong, will require you to pay them interest (so you have to borrow more money from them to pay back to them as interest), you have to pay their legal fees and a host of other possible restrictions and conditions.

- In either of the last two cases you will need a really good demo and a fair amount of paperwork before you even start talking to them. You will need (or must have someone in your team that has) industry experience and in the case of VCs will need to show proven company/management skills. You will need to fund the development of the demo and the preparation of paper work because you wont even be able to start talking to a publisher or VC without them. Once these items are complete you will then need to survive and keep working for anything from three months to whenever while they decide.

If you are considering the publisher funding route check out the following.....

http://www.obscure.co.uk/the_pitch.shtml

http://www.obscure.co.uk/max_it.shtml

Oh and good luck with whichever route you follow.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Please don't forget about government grants!!!!


There is literally millions of dollars out there for business of all sizes and fields( In the US at least, there might be somehting similar to this in your country or area). You just have to have your plans together and go out there and get them. What do you think the economic stimulus package last year was about? That's money that goes down into the communities for business and other foundations to create jobs etc.
Also, subsidies are available , so if you need expensive computers, the salary to hire professionals, and marketing, the government's obligation is to give that money out.

Look into it. You can lay your own foundations with money such as this, most of the grants are simply free money. The catch is that they are difficult to apply for because the applicaitons must be FILLED OUT PERFECTLY! Not even one typo or it's trashed. So if you can take the time to do a perfect grant application ( or even hire a grant writer to do it) it's well worth the time.

peace

-Sage13

[edited by - Sage13 on April 12, 2002 12:45:15 PM]

Hmm... I''ve heard of government funding for small businesses in the past, but haven''t had much luck find info about it. If anyone has some links to some good info on that then I''m sure I''m not the only one who would appreciate it your posting!

Charles Galyon

Thanks for a great Forum FAQ post, Dan!


DavidRM
Samu Games

Thanks for the replys everybody and especially Dan, great answer!
I will look into the different options shortly, unfortunately I''m pretty busy at the moment with my "normal" job... ;-)