Yo, What steps do I need to take to start my own game dev. business? I would really appreciate some help, ANY help. Thanks "Of all the things I''''ve lost, I miss my mind the most" - Ozzy Osbourne

Don''t want to be Mr Negative but you have given us absolutely no useful information about your situation/plans.

1. Where are you based?
2. What size of company are you looking to set up?
3. What type of games?
4. What format?
5. What is your level of experience?
6. What is your financial situation?

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

Well,
I''m situated in India.
I''m trying to set up a company with about 20-25 employees.
Mainly first person shooter games.
PC format.
I''ve worked as a freelance programmer for two years.
I''ve got a spare ten thousand dollars in my hand.

Not to sound like a shit, but a spare $10k isn''t going to start up a game house. If you play your cards well and get a couple folks on the band-wagon, you *might* be able to crank out a proof of concept that *might* interest a publisher enough to seed your studio. This is a LOT of mights. You need to look at the fact that FPS games nowdays have dev schedules of 2+ years and budgets of several million dollars.

However, if you intend to do a garage studio, then you might have a chance. Do budget games, low end stuff. But in that case, there is no need for the manpower you are considering.

I''ve thought about it and decided that I won''t start a business yet. I''ll finish my degree in programming, then do it.
Thanks for you help.

"a spare $10k isn''t going to start up a game house."
that''s funny, because I started mine for about 10 times less than that.. you sh1t

Please do me a favor before you take the lives of any employee into your hands, read about employment laws and such. There's a level of dedication to making your business succeed that you need to get to before you ever extend an offer to an employee. Once you do that, there is no turning back as the employee is now looking to you to make sure his/her job is still there in the morning. If you're not ready to take a paycut so you can pay your employees or your not ready to put in the 100 hour weeks to ensure that you business keeps going, don't start a business.

Taxes need to be filed, insurance needs to be maintained. Aside from all of this, an employee, his/her kids and their spouses are all going to rely on you and you need to take that deadly serious. If none of this bothers you then begin putting together your business plan and demo with your 10k while finding a way to continue once it is spent.(which is very fast) You're best bet is to find some source of income first then think about hunkering down for the long road to seed money. EPI is three years and counting at this point. We think we're close, but its taken three years.

Kressilac


[edited by - Kressilac on December 29, 2003 2:27:21 PM]

To the AP: regardless of what you yourself might have done don''t take the comments out of context. $10k for a startup with expected employee count at 20-25? Won''t happen.

10k won''t even cover the technical expense for a staff that large - but let''s assume everyone has their own gear.

Let''s also assume you work out of someone''s garage since the 10k also won''t cover leasing the office space for a year.

Employee salary? 20 employees, working dirt cheap for 20K a year...that''s 400k just to start out, for one year.

So as has been said - for the criteria he''s outlined for the company he wants to start, $10k is not nearly enough.

$10k for a singler person, or a small group of friends working for free? Much more possible.

How much US$10K is worth in India?

At about 46rupees to the US dollar, and taking an estimate from a CNN article from October:

quote:

---

Software workers with two years of experience are paid about 25,000 rupees ($545) a month, roughly one sixth of what their U.S. counterparts earn but a princely wage in a country with an average per capita income of $480 a year.

---

For US$10k that means you can afford to pay TWO employees at just under par, for a year, without taking any income yourself.

Which probably means you can get inexperienced help for much less, and likely expand your staff to 4-5 employees - but given what they can make if they have the skills, the odds of you retaining them are minimal assuming you can even hire them.

This still isn''t taking into account equipment and office space, benefits, travel expense, etc.