Real venture - but who would work?

[Anarcho]

I'd really recommend reading that article by Ron Gilbert.  The risks are severe, and the cost of producing, distributing and advertising an adventure game are serious.  I personally think that it's possible to build interest in adventure games as a niche/retro market, but I also think it will take time.  I'd go with Chris and other people's advice---get a dedicated team together and make a commercial product.  If it sells...that's something you can show to investors. 

[big brother]

I think getting an office away from home is a step in the right direction. Sure it costs, but it benefits you in two ways:
1. Gives you motivation to produce (because of the impending rent)
2. Gives you a psychological edge by having a physical place where you only work on your games. As opposed to your home, where you eat, sleep, etc.

For a company to succed you need to offer (i) something of quality.
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, (ii) something original
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, (iii) lot's of internet trafic.

I would disagree. The most important thing you need is A CUSTOMER BASE. Without that, it doesn't matter how original or high-quality your product is if you don't have anyone who wants to buy it.

As far as originality goes, that's not what publishers are looking for. They want a low-risk, cliched but proven game concept. While these games don't make enormous profits, they are stable and that's what the accountants look for.

This article about creative genius and demigod Tim Schafer will give you a good idea about the climate of game making today.
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/585/585524p1.html

[voh]

The only amateur game I've ever paid for was the extended version of 5 days a stranger, and I would do it again. Twice over, even!

I can understand your longing for good office space and having your future team all together. But financially - it's quite possibly the worst route to take. It will eat up your resources, and will leave you with a loan you've already spent, and a product you still need to market and publish. That's assuming you had enough left to pay your crew enough to warrant full-time working.

I don't see that happening. We might all seem nay-sayers, but we've got a point

What would be the most sound option would be to just work your damn ass off at a project - get it done or at the very least mostly done, then officialize the whole deal with investments (ya need something to show before people will take risks).

The whole indie game development niche is small. Your customer base will be based on the people on these forums and those who know of you (probably through this site/forum) and the people who know those people. Word-of-mouth.

Learn from Fatman, dude. It's not all rosey.

[Vince Twelve]

I think you should consider the booming casual games market.  There's lots of money to be made, even in *shudder* shareware.

I'm not sure if you've heard of the new game developer's magazine The Escapist, but there is a really interesting article in the latest issue that makes me want to make a go at being a small games maker.

I'll post the article here and anyone who is interested in working together to test the waters here... let's start talking.

CASUAL FORTUNES: GETTING RICH SLOWLY WITH CASUAL GAMES

[m0ds]

Thank you for all the advice, which I will in turn reply to - but I'm in a very testing period at the moment and I just don't have the time to give all the feedback I'd like to.

I have figured out more costs.

The office would cost £6500 in the first year, and then £3100 per annum after that.
A game selling 1000 copies at 19.99, would earn £19,990. The cost of a game plus minimal marketting would deduct roughly £7000 from that, leaving a £12,990 profit (or, £6500 in the first year, £9970 in any following year. So three products at 19.99 with 1000 sales would make, £59,970. And then we'd be rich!!1

More to follow!

[InCreator]

I recommend test-firing everything with simply having some bigger project. With sponsors.

At least where I live, it's quite possible to start a - let's say - some kind of game for children (ages 3-6 or so) and get easily some toy/clothing/etc companies to support whole project. Hell, if it's edcuational and acceptable game, it would even be supported by government, more specifically - Education Department. Some guys here teamed up and made a Flash(!) game which introduced kids how to act in traffic and some traffic laws. They had lots of supporting groups/sponsors, even some at more official level, such as local fire/rescue brigades and police.

So it was semi-commercial, but useful and welcome in society.

Such project could boost finances and company name really quickly, and kid  games sell well, though they have less audience than other games.

I wouldn't recommend placing all bets on one card, though. Where's FOY?

[Anarcho]

Is that 19.99 pounds?  Considering the exchange rate in most other countries relative to the pound, you might consider other prices.  Wouldn't 20 pounds be about 40 US dollars?  That's quite a lot for a game...I mean, i foolishly bought Doom 3 for 30 US dollars.  That's the most I'm usually willing to spend on a in-store game.

[m0ds]

£19.99 for a recently released game in this country is quite reasonable. PS games are usually anything up to £39.99 when they're first released. Admitedly, it probably wouldn't be easy to stick a high price on an adventure game.

Any, my tides are turning again. My dad has burnt me out of this idea (he says I will need to put a substantial amount of money into it myself before a bank would consider a loan), so I'll probably just go back to college & do video & film.

m0ds

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I am very interested in working on commercial products, but not relocating to a new country.  Perhaps employing overseas people on a contractual basis is something you could consider.

[Pumaman]

I have figured out more costs.

The office would cost £6500 in the first year, and then £3100 per annum after that.
A game selling 1000 copies at 19.99, would earn £19,990. The cost of a game plus minimal marketting would deduct roughly £7000 from that, leaving a £12,990 profit (or, £6500 in the first year, £9970 in any following year. So three products at 19.99 with 1000 sales would make, £59,970. And then we'd be rich!!1

The thing is, you need to account for paying the wages of people working on the game. Even if you paid minimum wage that would cost almost £1000 per month per person.

But don't let us put you off. It's certainly a worthy idea and could be really successful -- but rushing into it probably wouldn't pay off. If you're serious about it but need work now, you could consider getting a boring office job for now, which would then give you time to properly work out the venture meanwhile.

[magintz]

I could do international relations and jet set aroud the world at the companies expense selling our fine products.

[Matt Goble]

Hey M0Ds,

Reading through everyone's posts, I think all the relevant stuff has been said.  But here are my thoughts as mentioned by everyone else already 

The company I work for now, started in a flat, so the first place you can save money is to scrap the office idea, at least for the time being (we're not working out of a flat now BTW  )

Consider paid freelance work to start filling the company coffers - set up a seperate bank account, and do some sort of accounting records so that when you do go for a loan, the bank can see that you're serious.

Accept the fact that for the first couple of years, until things start to pick up, you will / should pay yourself the lowest possible wage so that you can invest as much as possible in the company - early days are not about ego-stroking wage packets (dotcom bust and all that).

Look at other ways to invest money in 'the company' - fulfilment (sp?) for example.

Here's an idea:

So, you're thinking of going back to uni?  While at uni, you could look into the possibility of selling adevnture games either online, or to the other students (People on film courses may be more interested in the narrative and art direction of adventure games than mindless FPS shooters.)

You turn around to the developer of a competed game - Chrille, GeoffKhan etc and offer to sell their game in return for  a slice of the cash.  You handle the disc duplication, printed parts, packaging etc.  You sell the game for £x - the developer gets half, you get the other half.  You could use E-Bay to set up the shop, or you could set up your own shop with a paypal account and use that to advertise your web design skills.  You could manage other freelance people, set them up with clients in return for a fee.

As they said in "Layer Cake" - the smart business man is the middle man who puts people together.

CJ is of course right - don't let us put you off.  Take baby steps, have a game plan and best of luck.

[esper]

While it has already been said, I think this idea would be doomed to failure. However, I think it would be doomed to mad excellent success if you would just take the obvious step of forgetting the entire "real" portion of "real venture" and just work completely on the internet. Alot of people do it. I understand the whole "motivational" thing to having an office, but wht on earth would you want to detract from your final income on the project with rent ANYWAY??? Why would you pay someone to walk into a building, sit down and write or draw or compose music for a little while and then get up and skiddle-dee-doo? Possibly, one might need to drop a deuce at some point during the day, and the much-necessary lunch break, after which may follow more dropping of deuces...  Really, having a physical place to work is no big deal, and since you might be missing out entirely on some awesome opportunities to have some really good artists and musicians and writers work for you (I'm sure Anarcho and grundislav, who in my opinion have made some of the best AGS games ever) are going to up and move across the country... or, if it were me... to an entirely different country, just so they can make games in an office...

I think this idea could be 157% successful if you just got together a core group of people who wanted to seriously make games. Instead of one feeb gong into the "Help me make a friggin' game" thread and saying "Hllo I is teh r0xx0rz h3lp m3 make a gayme about a DoggE that needs 2 find fud" get a group of people together who will commit to make not one game together but to make games together until they decide it sucks or becomes very popular and they all go on to work for Sierra... IMHO, much success would be had in such a scenario... And I would definitely lend my assistance, as this is something I've always wanted to do...

[Andail]

I think this idea could be 157% successful if you just got together a core group of people who wanted to seriously make games.

Some five years of experience from game-creating underground forums like this one would probably make you wanna subtract some of those 157 percent. Projects are not bound to succeed just because you work with talented people who also happen to be kind and mature people, and who also happen to be your best friends. It's just not enough.

The majority of the "great" games in this community weren't made by famous alliances of the top-notch veterans, in fact they were probably not even team efforts (save from external musicians and beta-testers, etc).

Everybody with experience from team projects will vouch for how delicate and difficult it is, close to impossible.

Mods has a huge point; something more than just team-spirit and friendliness must be added to this recipee. A formality, an obligation, a commitment that makes you work even though your fingers bleed and your eyes ache, the knowledge that your next paycheck, your next meal and the shelter for tonight depend on the outcome of the project.

This venture is unlikely to succeed, sure, but if you're willing to spend enough time, money, blood sweat and tears it's at least worth a shot. And I'll always believe in Mods

Tell you what; after my education is finished (next christmas (in three semesters)) I'll come over to England, and I'll work with you for almost nothing for some half a year. That is if nothing unexpected happens, and if you want my help.
I just wanna finish my studies, then I'm willing to try on all kinds of crazy stuff for at least a few years.

[magintz]

Seriously I would be up for contribution to this, I have read a lot of the posts and agree to some extent with Esper (online could work just fine in early days).

I remember me and Miez discussing something like this at Brittens. Plan out the game idea all online, meet for a week in some rented building ro even someone's garage / house and just make the game. Obviously if there where people who live relitvley close together it would make things easier as working solo and meeting up on the occasion.

[Lordhoban]

"Hllo I is teh r0xx0rz h3lp m3 make a gayme about a DoggE that needs 2 find fud"

Please, never type that again.

On a brighter note, or maybe not, I will attest to how delicate a team game can be. Especially if you aren't on the same page. But with the right team leader, and the right vision, and enough people to back it up, it can be a rewarding experience. I had a game project a couple years or so back, and it started out headlong... but I saw it crumble and slip through my fingers until I was left with only two people over a disagreement of opinion (and the fact that some people will always be loners and have a hard time being led). And that eventually faded further, since the programmers we might have had left in the first wave. You need a team leader that can make the tough calls and the rest of the team needs to follow it and believe in that leader.

On the other hand, I managed to get a low budget feature film production together and shot, with a crew of 2 and a half (including me), and 18+ speaking roles. The two people I paid were the two very people that made it possible to finish principle photography on time. It's all about the right people. And it all starts with a great concept/story that's as fleshed out as possible. Don't start with a company, start with a great story, and let the company form to make that story a reality. Once that happens, and you have established yourself, then you can branch out.

Without the right leadership, you end up like the Romero company (the guy who worked on Doom, I think the company was called Ion Storm). He put together a bunch of people. But out of those, only one project was any good (Deus Ex). Every other one was lousy and a failure. From what I hear, the cockiness of Romero was his undoing. He let everyone have free reign, nothing was focused, and only by the sheer talent of one of his people did they produce a good product at all. But even doing everything right is difficult. Look at BlackIsle Studios (Fallout 1/2, Balder's Gate 1/2, Planescape: Torment). They had a puppet master that were their undoing by the name of Interplay. Be careful who you put in charge of you and your creations.

[jaz]

Well, I would say go for it once you have your businessplan set and once you consult it with someone knowledgeable in area of financial market and accounting.

I can be considered "proffesional gamemaker" but my field are mobile games where the market is quite different.

I started as a freelance graphics artist working for bigger companies. It is my hobby and relaxation after my real life job. I was charging them around 500 Euros per project. Nice enough money considering it was just few hours in the evening and it mostly didn't take more than a month to finish.

But then I teamed up with a programmer and in two people we made three games and right now we are in process to get the best deal on publishing them. It looks good since these are above average products. I did design and GFX in my free time and cooperated with my programmer over the internet. Now we decided to sell one game at a flat rate and go for profit share on other two. This week we are going to cash cca 6000,- Euros for our first piece (and even now we know it's too little) and we will see how our other games will do on tne market. We are expecting to cash multiple times more (hopefully - but projected sales indicate that it is likely to happen).

If it happens, we will probably rent an office and progammer will work on games full time. And if our expectations are right and if I can get more tallented people together,  I'm going to drop my boring office job completely and live on my hobby

[2ma2]

Someone said it earlier, and I agree. A film production company is a bigger chance of getting the cash rolling than gaming. Now, not that this isn't the future, it has been mentioned as the biggest new entertainment business ever, and people are making a buckload of money on electronic fun, but to establish your company, I still think you should focus on simply being a production company and make films. No advertising company shoots their own work. You can always expand the company to include other things later on.