Introduction

Alright, you've got a game company up and running and you've got a good number of investors and resources at your disposal. What are you going to do now? Well, there are many possibilities but all of them share common mistakes that startup companies make in their first year. I will discuss in this article the 7 things a company should consider and work on, from personal experience working at a startup company for nearly 2 years.

Know your Limits.

I think that the number one issue we had was a team of 5 (well paid) employees with a solid game idea that was unfortunately way too costly and lengthy. I think it is a common thing to see start ups always wanting to jump on the big MMORPG bandwagon because they have played games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, and found flaws and mistakes that they think they can fix or make better. This is admirable, but unless you have a huge team and a huge budget it's not very feasible. Just a side note on this issue: World of Warcraft took $200 Million to create, and if you have that kind of capital to spend on one single game, go for it. But the fact of the matter is, World of Warcraft worked off an already pre-existing IP, with a huge fan base, and a strong reputation for making top-quality games. What does your company offer?

So you might ask me: well, why did you join a company that didn’t know its limits? I will be brutally honest when I say I was a naïve, recent graduate with a bachelor’s in game design, a twinkle in my eye, and a huge desire to get a job, any job, in any company. I was promised more employees would be hired and I thought, that’s wonderful, that means I’d be senior over them. Unfortunately as the months waned on and the bottlenecks began to appear, it became more and more unlikely that we would ever finish the game we started.

If you are a startup, you have no games under your belt as a team. Start with something small, something you can easily distribute, and begin a cash flow. A flash game is a very good way to start. Try to create a goal, such as finish the game from start to finish by 6 months. If you can do that, you can potentially get a revenue stream after 6 months of expenditure.

Buy That Engine!

Probably one of the more annoying things was that our programmers were working on an engine from scratch, because in their college days they found they could make one in a few months. The engine was in development for roughly two and a half years and there was very little to show for it. Not to mention the backup idea was to sell the engine if the game didn’t work out; no one ever mentioned that they had to compete with a huge array of other professionally-built engines. I believe, to this day, we could have actually finished something if we had a pre-made engine that they invested some of their money into, and used that to build on top of. Believe it or not, for the year and a half that we sat there working on the artwork, on the animation, and on all the artistic creative aspects of the game, our programmers sat working on an engine. They didn’t even touch the basic mechanics of the game. Our character can be imported, it can run, and it can move, but it can’t attack, it couldn’t interact with anything; it was an empty, void world.

I admit though, we had some really great and innovative ideas, and actual things built which I think would have made our engine stand out a bit more, but the truth is spending a month to try to apply depth into your speed trees isn’t worth it. Especially if you have a tight budget and no game or IP under your belt.

And if for some reason you do not heed this warning and decide to build your engine from scratch then I will give you one last bit of advice on this particular subject: Please, please, get the basic components in first, and THEN perfect them. When all was said and done, we didn’t have much in the engine, but what we did have was very well crafted to its final stage. But this made us lose a lot of things in the process as well. For example, although we had a great bloom affect, we lacked any way of making water…Though we had a great shader, we couldn’t even make basic particles until way down the line.

Design Document: Without It You’re a Blind Man Hunting.

Ours was not finished. Ever. There was only one paragraph in it when we started, and we had to take time from all the teammates just to sit down and concept out the general game play. Though eventually we learned from our mistake and tried to fix it for the second title, it was still one of the bigger draw backs to work with. I remember sitting in a meeting room for 5 hours straight, while everyone debated over the smallest little details at how the town progression would develop, and in the end it was entirely scrapped.

The Design Document is one of the first and most important documents you should have. It should be 80% finished by the time you begin your actual artwork and production stage. The 20% head room should be for any changes or sudden limitation you receive through the production progress. On this note, make the design document concrete, easily read and understood. Include a section of what must be in the game, and what is optional.

The design document is also a great way to speed up production and lift morale. There was many a time where I finished an asset and wasn’t sure what I needed to work on next. I was always encouraged to take initiative and work on assets without always needing to consult the art director. But this was virtually impossible when you don’t really know what is going to be in the game and what is not going to be in the game. And there is nothing more annoying or painful than seeing something you put 10-15 hours worth of work into being thrown away because it didn’t fit.

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