Okay I am going to start a buisness.
by Ian Broyles · in General Discussion · 03/13/2002 (9:41 am) · 1 replies
I want to start a video game development business. I have people willing to help, a decent informal business plan, and connections to a development kit. What now?
By the way, the company is based in cyberspace, I thought it would be easier that way.
By the way, the company is based in cyberspace, I thought it would be easier that way.
Torque Owner Matt W
If you're coming here asking for what to do next, I think you need the most help you can get... but you're better off learning it on your own. If you learn it on your own you'll learn where to find more information later on similar topics and possibly find unique resources most of us haven't seen here.
As for your team. Are they dedicated? Are they skilled? Do any of them have experience or at least knowledge on game development? If no to any of these three then you're going to need a major overhaul on the team or make this a learning experience for everyone.
As for your "business" design I think you're getting ahead of yourself. Do you have the time and money to pay for filing fees and hiring people to write legal documents such as contracts, ndas, or other official game company-related things? If you don't want to invest money in this project (which I have a feeling you don't) then you're going to not really worry about this. An NDA is useful to "trick" people into not giving away secrets. If they give em away they won't be sued or anything (unless you do have start-up cash) it's just a promise. As for a contract, it's another good "trick" for semi-official companies to use. It'll hold people in to work on a project and give them the feel that this is for real.
Most important for you to do now is to look at yourself. Are you leadership material? Do you have more time to invest than anyone on the project? DO you have good writing/talking skills? DO you have great organizational skills? Are you willing to be a "hard ass" when it is required?
There's no set guide, but if you're asking this I guess you'll be best looking over these questions I stated above and going around the 'net to find some more information on how to run a game development "company".
One note: Don't jerk around your team. If you're doing this *just* because you have an idea for a game but no knowledge on how to get a team running or a project going, then learn how to quickly... or give up.