Ok...what is the best way to go about doing this? We have the complete documents, we have the company, we have the team, we need funding. Has anybody here had to go through this painful step? I swear...the game making is the easy part compared to all of this "business" stuff. -Luxury

Make the game, then pitch it. Isn''t going to happen any other way.

I''ve heard that making a kick-a*s demo works well.

Reaches for the trusty "Game Developers Marketplace" book (bible). Lets see... Chapter 8 - Venture Capital and Other Financing Alternatives p199. (isbn: 1-57610-177-0).

Ok, what have we got here now. You''ve got Venture Capitalists, Strategic Investors, Private Investors, Debt Financing Alternatives, SBA or Small Business Administration Loans, Investment Bankers and Underwriters.

As you can probably tell, my first suggestion will be to go out and buy this book. It is very informative! But for now you might want to find out who all these people are. I''m not going to plagurize the book for you but if there is an area of interest i''ll summerise for you if you want?! The best bit of advice i can give you is to get a lawyer to be present when making any deals with any of the above. It''s better to shell out one or two thousand dollars for this now then get ripped off becuase you''ll find that later on down the track you''ll get a lot more respect from financers if you start like this. If you havn''t got the money then it''s time to crawl to you''re family and really sell the game to them or someone else who might have legal contacts.



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Interesting. Every time a thread starts about publishing a game, one of the steps is to get a lawyer.

Hmm. Game companies have their lawyers, I have my lawyers.

Hmm. My game may not make any money. I still have to pay the lawyer. So do the game companies.

Hmm. There are a lot of people who want to make games, and they will all need lawyers.

Hmm. The lawyers always make money and they are an indispensable part of the process.

I think I''m in the wrong career. I shoulda been a laywer.

I second the first Anonymous Poster... Nothing sells better than the product. When you go to buy a car, you don''t want to see a picture of what the car looks like - you want to touch it! You don''t really want to see specs - you want to drive it!

Same goes for a game. Showing someone story boards and pretty pictures and saying "this game is going to ROCK!" - aren''t going to cut it for most publishers.

Finish the game, then when it''s complete - get yourself into as many publishers faces as you can. If the game is good, you''ll get published... and having finished the game you''ll make more money.

I also agree with Paul (I seem to always agree with him), get the book he mentioned... uh... it ROCKS!


Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Check Out: GreatShot.com

I seemed to have jumped the gun, please note that in my previous post i was in the frame of mind that you (Luxury) had finished the game. On this note i back what Dak (Dave) and 1st anon said. Although some people go ok with just getting the basics done so they''ve got a playable demo and then write a doc and sell that to your potential investors... i guess it all comes down to your situation. If your in a position to get good financial backing now and this opportunity may disappear, then by all means grab it

Don''t forget that if you do go looking for finacial aid too far ahead of time that these potential investor''s will probably apply a lot of pressure to you to before you finish your game. THIS CAN BE A REAL BAD THING. This is really unwanted stress in my books unless you really need the money that bad, in which case it would probably be time to have a good hard think and many meetings with your fellow developers. But then again, some people love the stress. I guess this is where producers are meant to come in handy

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!