I am working on an online game. There's no animation, no sounds, free to play, and can win cash for playing. it's no kind of gambling or bingo or spinning a wheel or anything.... I feel like I'm giving you a riddle, but I just don't want to give to much information about exactly what it is yet.

That leads directly to my question. I pretty much have everything already figured out. (Rules, Game play, Documentation, Disclaimers, etc...)

How do I find the right person that can make this idea a reality? I'm afraid of talking to the wrong person and the idea being stolen. Is there any way I can protect myself from this? This could really make a lot of money and I have a feeling it will become quite viral.

I have some knowledge of programming (C++ and VB), but this game will be hugely reliant on databases, Tracking stats in real time based on user activity and "payments" (not real payments) to other players. (which I don't feel comfortable delving in to) Any help would be appreciated. If you can't help, perhaps you could point me in the right direction.

My goal here is to find someone that can code this thing, come in as a permanent partner and collect dividends for as long as it lasts. I plan on taking the legal route and having all documents in place.

Thank you so much for your time.

Also to define precisely which jurisdictions agree that it is not gambling and why, which jurisdictions are no way going to agree with you on that point and how to exclude players from such jurisdictions and so on.

If people are coming away with money, either they are being paid for something or there is a contest of some kind going on (and laws about contests can be just as complicated awkward inconvenient and arbitrary as laws about gambling) or gambling is happening.

I have even encountered various articles making weird claims about what kind of virtual items, or field values in database fields, in other words bits bytes fields aggregates of bits, letters words descriptions images etc you can and cannot charge money for, again varying drastically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

As soon as players have a possibility of coming away with more money (or maybe more anything legally thought to be of value) then they put in, everything gets very hairy very fast.

Which is a horrible problem, horrible horrible horrible.

Part of it goes back to various funnymoney rules and the general lack of enthusiasm issuers of fiat currency have about other issuers of equally arbitrary or more-arbitrary fiat currencies...

(What is the difference between a virtual sword and a fiat sword? A virtual coin and a fiat coin? Etc...)

All of that is a whole huge can of worms that I want in any case to try to dredge, because of course it hideously complicates the whole problem of how to make money in around and using games and/or gaming.

(Can I pay people to playtest a game based on their successfully discovering and thereby testing the outcomes of quests combats and so on? How is that different from gambling? Indeed IS it different from gambling? Etc...)


OH AND RE VIRAL: see chain letter and pyramid scheme... ;)

"I'm afraid of talking to the wrong person and the idea being stolen."

Your idea is unlikely to be novel. Very few of them. Ideas are 2 a penny. Execution is what matters.

So go and execute. For which you'll HAVE to tell people what this idea is. No-one's going to sign up for it without being told it. Sorry. Doesn't happen.

Your options are limited to; 1) pitch the idea until someone gets it, 2) do all the work yourself.

> How do I find the right person that can make this idea a reality?

One person? You're kidding, right?

Contract developers can fetch around US$12K per man-month. Just making a demo could take 10 people for a good 4 months. That's half a million dollars. And it's not a full game yet. BTW, 1/2 million US is about right for making a good 3D game on the iPhone nowadays, give or take a hundred grand or two. So it's not as if I'm plucking out numbers from a magic hat.

You can go cheaper with doing the hiring by yourself. You would still need to pay for a good producer and those - the really good ones that deliver games after games on time and on budget - are worth their weight in gold.

Hope this helps.

-cb

Okay, enough with the doom and gloom already.

No sound and no animations should cut costs a lot.

Can you also do without pretty graphics?

You said one magic thing about this game of yours:

PEOPLE CAN WIN MONEY.

For many years now there has been steady business
simply paying people a quarter of a cent, half a
cent or a whole cent to visit a web page.

Imagine what a fun game that is!

It is made even more fun by the fact that the vast
majority of them end up failing to pay out.

Especially those that claim they will pay more
than a cent per visit-to-a-page.

So here is a question I consider very important
in evaluating your idea:

HOW CERTAIN is it that I will "win" money?

Can it offer me at least the illusion of a
"reliable" income of two cents or more per day
if I play it every day for oh lets say five
or ten minutes or so?

Another important question is for how many
levels of "referrals" will I get a percentage
of my "referrals"' income if I "refer" people
to this game of yours?

For example a "game" I just recently signed up
for that is still in early launch gives me
a cent per visit for visiting web pages, and
had four such pages available for me to visit
yesterday. I haven't checked today so I do not
know yet whether another four cents is in the
offing today. It offers me additionally 20%
of the earnings of five layers deep of
"referrals" to encourage me to tell people
about it.

How does the income potential of your game
compare to that? And how much work would
I have to put in playing your game to earn
a similar income?

Money is magical. In some places a cent can
go a long way. Unfortunately the people who
live in such places are typically not wanted
as paid visitors to web pages, gee I wonder
why...

If you can take services from freelancers, it will be solved easily. They will get it done.

Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with anyone you tell the idea to will help.

As said before you have to tell some people before you can move ahead, but an NDA protects you.

Probably the best way would be to speak to a programmer and use limited art until the framework is there, then if it seems good get an artist to do some good artwork for you. If planned properly this would be the quickest and easiest option.