Advice for start-up

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7 comments, last by Orymus3 8 years, 6 months ago

I aspire to start a game studio and I am looking for potential partners that share my vision.

I have put together a PowerPoint to quickly communicate my vision for the company and give a broad idea of what I have in mind for the first project.
Here is the link to the PowerPoint: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3swkea8cvfsm9cb/Blazing%20Pi%C3%B1ata%20Games.pptx?dl=0

I would like to ask for feedback and for any advice on where I can best look for people to team up with.
Any feedback is appreciated!

Kind regards

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tl;dr.

What are you bringing to the table? You'll need one or more of;

  • Experience in the business side of gaming -- contacts with publishers and so on, with involvement in a couple of titles.
  • Experience as lead developer on a games project.
  • Several million dollars.
Vision is pretty cheap. Ideas similarly. Technical expertise, contacts and capital, as Katie mentioned, are what makes the difference between success and failure.

I don't mean to burst any bubbles here. Maybe you have all three and just haven't communicated that very clearly here.

Best of luck.

If you're trying to recruit here, post in the classifieds (sections for hiring, paying for results, or working for fun).

As for the presentation... the slides need some legibility improvements for starters smile.png

Just to exaggerate the issue by desaturating, this is the amount of contrast you've got going on:

ZtZd50G.png

As for the content... what do you have already and what do you need? Do you have developers (talent), money, plans (concrete designs, budgets, marketing plans, detailed analyses on markets, competitors, forecasts, etc...)? What's your role in the business besides vision? Are you looking to start a studio and hire full-time employees? Are you going to be bringing on expensive veterans, or cheap graduates?

If, after viewing the slides I decided that I like your vision, the next thing I want to know is -- who are you, and what you've actually got so far.

I imagine investors will have similar follow up questions too!

tl;dr.

What are you bringing to the table? You'll need one or more of;

  • Experience in the business side of gaming -- contacts with publishers and so on, with involvement in a couple of titles.
  • Experience as lead developer on a games project.
  • Several million dollars.

This, very much this.

I was trying to get funding for a simple 3D platformer, and there was evidence that people wanted it. But investors wanted me to kit out a "lite version", spend money on a landing page and maybe they would fund me (or not). I felt like I was chasing rainbows most of the time, so I decided to focus on something which can be done using only free royalty-free assets.

Had I not chased investors all this time, I would've released several short but great games and been able to convince investors that I'm serious by pointing to my track record.

Still, wouldn't hurt to try to get team members on board for a revenue share. Even though I couldn't get an artist on board, I did manage to get a professional music composer/sound designer on my team. :)

The truth of the matter is that I struggled with a simple collect-em-all platformer which didn't rely on servers. Your idea is a lot more complex and difficult to do right.

So I'd suggest to play to your strengths for your first game, and try to find someone who shares your vision. If you don't know or don't have a particular development task you're great at (i.e. you're just an idea guy), then I would suggest joining a mod team as a generalist and find one thing you can master (I can point to one mod team I'm on who is serious and definitely needs more people on board at this moment).

Then, apply that to your first game. Once you have a track record, you have a higher chance of convincing talented people and investors to contribute to your game. Otherwise, most of the time, it is chasing rainbows.

Trust me, OP, I've been through it and unnecessarily spent years chasing investors because I was a dreamer and not a do-er. It's too late for me to get back the lost time, but I hope that my experiences would be helpful to you. :)

First I'd like to thank you all for the feedback. I'm an international business graduate with a marketing specialization, so what I am looking to offer is product placement plans, attracting funding and general knowledge of all facets of running a company. The idea is that I make sure all the team's focus can be targeted towards production.


So far I have a concrete design for the game, a marketing plan, an analysis on the market, competitors and a forecast.
I did not include that information, mainly because I did not want to scare people of with 40 slides of PowerPoint.

First I'd like to thank you all for the feedback. I'm an international business graduate with a marketing specialization, so what I am looking to offer is product placement plans, attracting funding and general knowledge of all facets of running a company. The idea is that I make sure all the team's focus can be targeted towards production.


So far I have a concrete design for the game, a marketing plan, an analysis on the market, competitors and a forecast.
I did not include that information, mainly because I did not want to scare people of with 40 slides of PowerPoint.

Don't get me wrong, marketing skills is a bonus and could mean that more time and money could be spent developing a quality product. But a lot of founders of start-up indie studios have business/marketing skills, plus at least one skill in development. I have an economics degree and have experience in coding up mechanics before. Modders like Arthmoor know marketing and they can code, so they used those skills in their own indie studio.

But if despite this, you still want to go ahead...

You need to show effective demand for your game. Not just forum posts, but surveying customers who could pay for the microtransactions. Do a landing page with analytics to show to investors that people demand your product and are more than happy to pay for it. Ideally, they want to see you already have a track record in at least a few small games which would really help your case. But all that costs money and you need money to make money if you want to go through this route.

And as a start-up founder, I felt that the chances of winning roulette would be higher than spending money on proving there is demand and getting funding without a track record. I would just rather get a track record, and make the pitching process smoother for my future games.


And as a start-up founder, I felt that the chances of winning roulette would be higher than spending money on proving there is demand and getting funding without a track record. I would just rather get a track record, and make the pitching process smoother for my future games.

Thank you for the response =)

When looking this business doc what strikes me as a potential employee/investor/client is to consider whether you (your team) has any experience with F2P development.

Also, it appears english may not be your first language (some typos suggest that) so a good proofread certainly wouldn't hurt either.

I also think you should have some figures in mind and discuss the means through which you are getting financed (especially if this document's purpose is to put together a team).

Best of luck!

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