Funding for Games

#1 Why would you need funding?

You're going to have to stop thinking of what you know the big-names in gaming are doing, and start thinking independent.

#2 the party line here is that you need a working demo to have a chance in hell of getting funding.

#3 not just a demo, a solid piece of work. One that catches the eye of a publisher etc..

#4 Stop thinking about money, do it for the love.

If torque is too much money just mod games. There is nothing more fun than ripping someone elses game apart, and making yours lol

www.dungeonseige.com looks fun to break :)

#5 yeah, but the tools arent out for a month or more =(

#6 Looks like it will be worth the weight, seeing as I hold little hope for the modding of NWN. DS is the best modding engine to come out since Vampire the masquarade Redemption (VTMR).

Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun

can you feel it, its the love man.

#7 This is a little offtopic, but what don't you like about NWN's modding? (I mean, what have you heard, that was going to be bad?)

#8 ive checked out NWN and prowled its forum quite a bit, and i agree there are some concerns modding. just limitations that are hard to work around. i cant recall but if you read some of the planet nwn forums, youll find them. i do think a lot of modders are going to have a lot of fun with it though.

#9 I'm the owner of Orbital Design Studios Inc. A game development company.

If I'm going to be required to publish any games I make on the Torque engine through garage games, I would expect they will fund the project once the proper documents and tech demo are submitted.

#10 well, your expectation is unrealistic.

#11 Why should GG fund your project, haven't they given us enough. See think about it you buy a $100 game engine, you buy all the tools, then GG publishes it for you. GG should not and doesn't fund games. Remember we want GG to stay along forever and if they kept funding games then that would be suicide.

#12 Charles - think of it this way. You are licensing an engine that powered a AAA title for $100, plus 50% royalties on sales. At first, that might sound bad. Now lets compair to Unreal Tournament or QA3 engine - you'll fork out between $250,000 and $500,000 for those engines, plus depending on which you may also owe 2% - 8% royalties (I haven't talked to Mark Reign in a while, so I'm not sure what the exact numbers for both are right now.)

But that's not all - it's excessively rare that Epic or Id fund a project. They just provide the engine, plus support. They also don't provide any publishing or marketing support - you've got to do that on your own.

With GG, they hand you the engine, and an online publishing channel. They don't fund projects, and they don't do marketing (except for any marketing of GG as a whole, which helps to push all the titles at once.) So normally you'd have to come up with $250k up front for funding the project, pay a small royalty fee, and still handle the rest of the problems. GG eliminates the high entry fee, and handles one of the problems for you (and helps a little with another indirectly).

And if you think it's unfair - well, go shop around for an highly ranked 3D engine for a while. You'll suffer from some serious sticker shock. Then try and get someone to GIVE you the money to buy the license, fund development, get a publisher, etc. You'll be hard pressed to pull it off either way.

Self fund your games. It's better in the long term anyway.

#13 I HAVE done my shopping around. I know the current sticker and royalties for most of the major engines out there, which is why Torque is so attractive to us, but the problem we have, is the only way we know to fund a project, is to cut a budget deal with the publisher. It's what we've been attempting to accomplish for the last 6 months.

I'm well aware Epic or Id do not fund projects, as they are only game developers themselves, but isn't Garage Games a publisher? If I were to use the UT or Doom3 engines, the cost would probably be negated once under a budget from the company you publish with.

How the heck do you "self-fund" a project when you don't have the money to begin with? Banks don't want to touch us, the answer is always that game development is too unsecure to invest in. Venture Capitalists want a huge % of ownership in the company, a friggin seat on the board and 150% payback in 3 years. I don't know any rich people, I'm already married, so I can't marry for money...not that I would. What do you suggest? Rob the nearest Citibank?

All Orbital has to put foward is to give a publisher a larger cut out of the profits in return for an advance in the form of a budget.

#14 Unless there arent any profits, which there probalby wont be. Sorry, but statistically speaking, you are going to fail.

Get something playable and amazing, then present it to publishers and see if you can find one.

#15 Credit cards, mortage the house, sell your car and drive a POS, lots of ways.

I hear the same crap all the time . . .

"I can't start my business because no one will give me money and have no track record and no collateral . . ."

blah blah blah blah.

My wife and I both started our businesses with money from our own pockets! We worked for someone else, saved our pennies and then quit or day jobs.

It is not easy, it is not fun, it is lots of work, but it is definately worth it.

I had a great teacher, my father started his own company in 1974 and risked everything, his house, cars, etc. And if he had failed he would have just had to go back to work for someone else and pay off some debt, he never got "rich" but made a decent living doing something he loved and kept us fed and clothed, all with only a 5th grade education! He is still working and trying to retire.

Entrepreneurship is about RISK MANAGEMENT not risk taking.

Manage your risk by starting with something that you can prove to an investor you are worth investing in. There are crap loads of people with great ideas, very few actually have the work ethic to complete them.

There is a great series on PBSU if you have DirectTV or have it on Cable, is it is called Introduction to Entrepreneurship

Schedule on PBSU
Summer 2002
Saturdays and Sundays
May 25 - June 30, 2002
9 pm - 10 pm ET
*(one episode each
Saturday and Sunday)

Fall 2002 TBA

It will start over proabably the same time in August.

We saw it back in 1999 when it was first released. It was a great inspiration for me and my wife both, most of it is common sense and obvious, but it is good to watch and get affirmation that you can do it yourself.

They have lots of people explain how they raised money or did not raise money and still succeded.

If you think you are going to get someone to "budget" you and let you keep the product and take a small cut you are crazy, would you give someone the same "deal"?

It takes lots of creativity to make a game, they don't call it "creative funding" for nothing.

Quit whining about all the obstacles and how everyone is keeping you from making your game or wants to take advantage of you and go out and make your game.

If you approach people with the same comtemptous attitude you display above, it is no wonder no one wants to give you millions of dollars to "budget" your game developement.

You assume this profit thing, it seems that the people you have approached don't assume the profit thing, so maybe you need to re-educate yourself on the BUSINESS side of the software business.

I have worked on proposals for millions of dollars in venture capital over the last 5 years, most investors I know would not be interested in a company that lists its president and ceo by his "in game screen handle".

The guys at Combat Mission did not have a "budget" to produce a game that has sold tens of thousands of copies and is regarded as the standard in its genre, they just needed the desire and will to create their game.

If you have to have a "budget" before you begin, you might as well go back to work for the man because you don't have an "enterpeneural spirit". Which means that you wil find a way to grow your business without having someone hand it to you on a silver platter.

Good luck, I hope you research the links above, it can be done without any "external" funding.

#16 Just find some dedicated folks who are willing to work in their free time, and you have yourself a project that won't cost anything beyond the Torque license.

There are many talented individuals who are willing to work on promising projects with no payment required at the start, but you are going to have to provide a solid backbone of design and planning before those type of people will start contacting you.

Again, if such an obvious mistake is occuring this early on you might reconsider if you're even up to the task. This kind of stuff should be researched before even stating one awkward demand or claim.

There are two types of indie developer. One which is a company, and seeking funding and financial support and the other being hobbyists who want to make something from nothing. If you are making these mistakes so early on, imagine what might happen if you had $200,000 of someone else's money. Not going to be a pretty sight!

Just one question. Is your company a real company, as acknnowledged by the state you live in, or is this a company by the internet faux-defintion of "we are a group who wants money"?

#17 Charles: I agree with Matt and Jerod on this.

I started Midnight Ryder Technologies on a free servers website originally, and released my first game. A couple of months later, I updated the POS game, and bought a domain and hosting space.

I continue to hack out games in my 'spare' time. I release them online, and move to the next project. (Notice a missing crucial step to my strategy - no 'marketing' step. That one is important, unless small income is good for you ;-) Each project allows me to buy more tools for more professional looking results, and the continued revenue stream allows me more personal financial flexibility too.

Come this Dec, if everything goes as planned, I quit my day job and support myself strictly from the income from Midnight Ryder Technologies.

That is the type of self-funding that some smaller developers have already gone through, and finally got themselves in a position that is what they were looking for in the first place. It can work, but you have to pick your projects accordingly (Midnight Ryder Technologies mainly does Puzzle Games because of the broad appeal (this less marketing work, instead of hitting a nitch market) and the short development cycle (since I'm working in my spare time, I can't pick on something that would normally have a 18 month development cycle!))

Build your company up, one step at a time, then pick on the project you REALLY want to do once you've gotten to the point that you can support yourself, your team, and your technological needs.

Otherwise, unless you've already got a demo, have been published before, or can self fund thanks to an Angel investor, or something else, you might want to just chuck the idea out the window. It's not that you stand ZERO chance - you just don't have MUCH of a chance.

NOTE: I didn't go into the other ways to self-fund. 2nd mortages, selling vehicles, using nothing but credit cards, etc. I personally try and avoid building more debt load if possible. Why? Because, if the game doesn't go as you plan, or if the publisher cancles, or if the publisher fails to market it properly, etc. you aren't stuck with no way to pay off that second mortgage, creditcard debt, etc. Oh, and if you are married - be sure your wife is a very supportive person like mine. A typical day now starts a 6AM, and I shut down programming at 11 PM. She fully understands what I'm doing, and fully supports and helps where she can. It's been this way for a year now. Any lesser of a woman would tell my to go %$#) myself, and get a divorce ;-)

#18 Yes, ODS Inc. IS legally incorporated in Delaware, the process was started about 2 months ago, and the articles state that ODS Inc. came into being on June 4th, 2002.

I appreciate all the input, and apologize for my outburst. In the year that Orbital has existed, I've found that the ratio of naysayers to helpful people is something like 500,000:1, and I'm rather used to having to defend myself a lot.

#19 Also it's important to note (sorry if someone has already said this) that GarageGames is just 4 guys. They probably wouldn't be capable of funding your project even if they wanted to.

#20 Besides the fact they are running GG self funded themselves.