So after watching and waiting for about 4 years I have decided to make the plunge into game development. What I want to know is, am I starting off on the right foot? While I did well in the few CS classes that I took in school as electives, I am not a programmer. What I DO have going for me is that I am an excellent project planner, I have etertainment industry experience, and a masters degree in business. This is my tentative plan so far. 1. Secure concept - I have been looking for years and finally came up with a concept that relies on 'game' innovation as opposed to technical innovation. 2. Draw it out - I have decided that in order to give a better understanding of my concept and ideas to designers, I should probably have as many details included in my plan as is humanly possible. I realize that I can't move on until this step is complete. 3. Bring in the experts - I can not do this by myself. I will need to bring in people that can bring skills and ideas to the table to make the project twice as good as it already is. 4. Packaging 5. Marketing I have a busniess plan outline and take time to alternatively work on that and the game plan. Am I going in the right direction? Am I way off base? Thanks for any comments. Whiteston Ennalta

Well, I guess I must be on the right track since no one has replied. WEll if anyone has any advice, I would be happy to listen to it, but in the meantime I will keep on going.

Whiteston
Ennalta

Actually I think that your question is so vague and wide ranging that it is daunting to even start to answer it.

Are you on the right track? Yes. - but that answer doesn't tell you anything meaningful because your question is itself meaningless as it has no detail as to your actual situation, your level of experience and the type of games you are trying to make.

That was purposeful. No need for me to be precise at this point (and I likely won't be without anyone who hasn't signed an NDA) so therefore I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I have a pretty solid business plan, project plan, and game plan so I feel pretty comfortable with what I've done so far. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't way off base (in general).

I will likely post once I start running into obstacles that are game industry specific.

Whiteston
Ennalta

I wasn't expecting you to post the most secret parts of your game design, just your actual situation, your level of experience and the type of game you are trying to make.

i. I'm a fifteen year old boy with no game development experience. I love games and want to make a massivly multi-player online game bigger than EQ and SWG combined.
ii. I am a twenty five year old woman with five years game industry experience (two shipped games). I don't have much money so I intend to start out developing smaller indie games and then work my way up.
iii. I am a twenty eight year old man with extensive experience raising investment and a bunch of investors interested in putting money into a development venture.
iv. I am a 30 year old guy with five years game development experience. I just quit my job at developer X, I have a great concept and a business plan and I am going to show them to a publisher to get millions of dollars in funding.

Following your path would only be right for two of the above. There are countless other possible variations for which your plan would not be the right path to follow. Without knowing anything about you it is impossible to give you a meaningful answer to your original question - as I said, your question is meaningless without specific details.

The path you are following is one of the paths that lead where you want to go - but only if you are the right person to follow that particular path. There is no "one size fits all" solution in game dev. You need a plan that is specific to your actual situation.