Business Plan

#1 Only problem, theres only been a few published games and I am not sure they have really been all that profitable yet so you can't really come up with an average from 0.

#2 Someone mentioned before ta' email Jay Moore (jaym@garagegames.com) for more information of that nature. Not sure if he can help or not, but, worth a shot.

#3 Hello I emailed him. Havent heard back yet. This is very important. I have a demo and a 211 page book on the game.
I need to have a business plan, no self respecting investor or publisher is going to look at a company with no business plan.

There is thousands of games being sold, surely someone shares industry numbers.

Thank you for your time

Brice Johnson

#4 Give 'em a little time - in case ya' didn't know, they just moved to new offices. Not sure if you've been involved in that sort of process, but, it can be utter chaos ;-)

You might also try emailing Justin Mettel (justin@21-6.com) with 21-6 or the Think Tank's team directly (Can't remember any of thier name's directly offhand). You might also look at the released finacials for eGames Inc for some more information too.

One of the problems here, IMHO, is that there's very little long term historical data available for a proper business plan. Most of the titles have only been out for somethin' like 3 months for TT and Orbz, and little longer than that for the Monster Studio's releases. That doesn't give ya' much to show an investor or management company - they want to see a longer amount of historical data, so that you can show a solid exit strategy 1 year to 3 years down the line.

It's been really rare that I've seen much about solid sales and profit figures from much of anyone. I don't have the link anymore, but, David Michael pointed me to a thread on Dexterity where someonee showed their sales figures. Might hunt down that thread, and see if that helps ya a bit.

#5 You might try getting a hold of the annual report for some pubically traded games company. Electronic Arts or Take Two would probably be good bets.

#6 Alright, once I collect the data I'll post it up for everyone to use. Most indy game companies could use the same business plan. So keep the suggestions coming and I'll try to find us some solid numbers.

#7 One more thought Brice (if it wasn't already obvious to ya ;-) Be sure you are tryin' to use sales numbers from appropriate companies and products. If you aren't planning on doing a sports game being distributed by Electronic Arts, that's a huge difference from an FPS bein' distributed by Garage Games online and eGames. Inappropriate data could really bite you in the ass later when your sales figures don't match estimates at all :-)

#8 At this point in time I'll take any numbers I can get =)

#9 Found a great web site www.idsa.com Now I just need specifics on Indy games or Garage Game projects and I'll be rockin

#10 Still looking for more indy company information

#11 Have you been to IGDA? It's a useful site. (www.igda.com)

#12 Ya I have been, but garage games and game dev are the 2 major spots for Indy companies, I have all the market research I need for major titles. But not for Indy titles, I feel market value of the Torque Game engine should be public knowledge since we are all using it. Maybe the average garage game only makes 12 dollars. Not to sure what the secrecy would be if the companies are doing well.

#13 There's been another topic recently about that. It turned out pretty long, but in essence most online distributed games sell well under a thousand copies. Many under 200 copies. A lot of that has to do with not having the marketing support of a publisher. Hopefully GG can change all that over time.

#14 Still no answers from anyone... Just hoping some one lets me in on the secret =) How much do garage game companies make per title. On average

#15 The question is kind of impossible to answer.

On average I'd guess that it is frighteningly close to zero dollars.

Which isn't to say that you can't make money doing this, just that to have enough of a hit to make it seem worth it (financially) it will take a lot marketing (which most indie developers don't do well) and some luck... in addition to a great game.

#16 I responded to the last post on this subject. ThinkTanks has only been out a couple of months, and it feels like we are about halfway through the 'launch' phase with all the online distribution channels. Only time will tell how well it does. I don't feel we have enough data to let out numbers that mean anything to anyone as it would relate to a 3 year business plan..

Not trying to keep it a big secret, just don't even feel like we've even scratched the surface of what we might be able to do if we are smart about how we deal with this property (ThinkTanks). We could make a ton of money, we could totally bomb.

It should be noted that our development budget was $0 (we lived off savings) and our marketing budget was $0 (more marketing would definitely drive the sales numbers up)

edit:

Sorry, just realized that you were the same person asking this question in the other thread. Please ignore...

#17 @Brice, you seemed to have all the answers in the other thread you started? It would seem you are just looking for people to agree with you or something?

#18 My 3 year business plan as an indie:

1. Make a 3 yr business plan.
2. ????
3. Profit!

#19 One of my first titles had investors. They sunk $300k into the project, without having distribution lined up. The game rots in a vault to this day.

I betcha they had a 3 year business plan, a 5 year, and a 10 :)

#20 Hrm... duplicate post...