Shares are not just for Big Biz. In fact, with an S-Corp (not sure if you have those in Canada), if you wanted, you can be the sole shareholder, sole board of director, sole officer and sole employee.

Where an S-Corp comes into good play is when it's successful. There are LLCs, which will give you the liability protection of a corp while having less paperwork and being treated as a Sole Proprietorship, and which also have the pass-through taxation. However, with an LLC, the startup capital is from the members, and unless there's some kind of operation agreement, you will not be able to transfer ownership of the business easily. With an S-Corp, you just sell your shares. Definitely do research. The info on this stuff is on your government websites.

So, with all the ways we could fail, as listed by Obscure, why bother setting up a company? I'm less worried about failing than succeeding. Failing is easier, and unless you've embezzeled money, it's not going to have huge ramifications beyond the failing. I had to look at some extremes, since we're going to be charging a subscription fee in order to be able to keep the game going.

Scenario 1: Our game sucks. We fail. There went $25,000 down the tubes. Fill out the dissolution forms, sell the assets, pay any tax due. Claim the loss on tax return for that business year. Join the millions of others in the Didn't Make It Club.

Scenario 2: Game's ok, but very niche. We get the exact 1,000 players we need, no more, no less. We are honky dory. Not going to be featured in any sort of gaming magazine, but we're cozy and happy, and making enough to run the game. (This is the one I'm actually hoping to get.)

Scenario 3: The inventive features we set out to make, we actually manage to do. The cheaper price attracts 100,000 players, and they love the game. We find ourselves scrambling, unprepared for the popularity. Luckily, we had thought to open a business account and line of credit, so we manage to buy the new servers and we wind up having to hire Rightnowtech.com to handle all the customer service. Word spreads, and we wind up being a runaway success. The profit for the first year, even after all the expenses, winds up being near 1 million dollars.

While Scenario 3 is quite unlikely, just the possibility that it could happen is enough to make me prepare as if it were going to happen. It's enough to make me incorporate so I can't be liable personally, in case anyone from Marvel tries to make The Hulk on my game, to have it all ready set up so I can hire more people, buy more hardware, and to already have an established business identity that can pay taxes. That I'm insured for all eventualities.

But back to the idea of how to raise funds: With the S-Corp it's private shares. Your parents could buy some shares, maybe some friends. Maybe you own them all. But they're still there. Definitely research while you're in school. Spend the time learning. I'm 40 and kicking myself for having glossed over it as a kid, because "It won't apply to me, ever." You can never know too much, only too little. :)

Now on to motivation. You either need to be a manager or will need to have one if you have people working with you. I'm very lucky. The people working on our game, for free, are willing to let me whip them into shape. I have to keep on top of them. I assign them each a task, based on their strengths. I made it a point to learn a little of what they do, so I can help out in rough spots with debugging. Maybe I can't do the programming, but I can help with diagnostics. You have to be part parent, boss, and cheerleader. It's extremely hard, which is why you see more Dilbert-style pointy-haired bosses than you do really good managers. There are courses you can take in management, as well, and books to read. Heck, there's tons more information available on managing people and motivating them than there are on how to create a game company and develop a game. :)

Quote: Original post by dmikesell
Stop making excuses. So far you've blamed your lack of time, your lazy friends, and the fact that people aren't lining up to hand you cash to develop something you haven't begun to plan. If you can really get grants in Canada that way, perhaps I'll consider moving there.

IMO, vgsmart had the soundest advice: go solo and simple. It takes a lot of work to develop even a simple game, and the only person you can count on being as passionate about it as you is, well, you.

Good luck.

Note: I'm still in high school and trying to learn. I have all the right to have excuses and as do early developers in the game industry have when I interviewed them. It's not "THAT EASY" to get grants here, but it's how many businesses get them. Or loans, usually loans, but I don't accept loans yet. I'm a young adult, my friends are also young adults/teenagers. How many of these people do you expect - no matter how passionate or interested - to continue something? Only a select handful of students at my school actually succeed if they try to do something out of around 1,000 students. That's how lazy most people are around this age. That's why it cannot be helped and I assume that my college experience this coming winter will prove to be much better. Also, "the fact that people aren't lining up to hand you cash to develop something you haven't begun to plan"? I didn't even mention anything along those lines. You must have misinterpreted. Mind you, I have done years of planning. It's only within the more recent months that the planning has proven to be a lot more successful yet still with gaps to be filled.

I'm taking the advice given to me by game industry professionals and the people who have posted in this thread to work with people and not trying to make an idea and have people do it. I don't do that anyway. People have told me that I'm "one of the most successful project managers to-be in the world" because of how I handle my teams. It's moreso how they handle themselves. I'm a successful leader, but I can't motivate such youth to accomplish such tasks. Besides, many of them are extremely busy and I understand that.

So, what I have gotten out of this thread so far are the points:

-Start small.
-Let the teams work with you and not for you.
-Invest.

Some people ask questions such as: "Why spend so much money in making a game that might not even succeed instead of investing that money in the stock market?" - The fun of it. To me, making games is an explosion of creativity from teams. I couldn't really give a rat's ass about the money, just as long as I can get enough to keep projects going as well as pay my bills. I don't care about riches, I don't care about fame, I just care about sharing ideas with people, getting those ideas recycled, and having the ideas of myself and my team merged into one big game.

You can't just jump out of a door and say "I want to create a game company!", but that's what I did when I was little. To be honest, I played games before I could learn to talk. So, it's one of my lifelong dreams to make games. I also want to build a great team so others can experience the fun of it.

Some of the biggest developers brought up the point that most of their workers just sit around without doing very much so they can suck the money out of their pockets. Why? Why be in the game industry if you can't apply your skills and ideas? If you wanted money, go be a teacher or accountant or something.

I don't want to be big. I just want to be able to making a living, at least just a little money, and be able to keep a stable project. Even that's very expensive. But, as long as I stay dedicated to it, I can do it. My main wonder was how can someone make a big company out of so little? One of my examples not pertaining to the game industry was a boy in high school who invested $700 and an old beat-up truck who went to DROP university, over a matter of a few years, got over $32 million dollars for picking up people's garbage after turning it into a large corporation. How can you start small with a videogame company? You can't make a game with $700. You can't make a game with $5,000. You probably can't make a game with $10,000. I'm talking about games that will actually make you profit. These days I never see people making small games that'll make them more than $10. Not around here, anyway. All I hear is "loan, loan, loan", everywhere. Some people take a student loan for college and turn it into business money and hope for their sake they succeed.

I expect a lot of good stuff happening from college. High school students don't know up from down. Even I have learned quite a lot over the past couple of years and I'm still learning, though I still have my dedication and my friends/team workers who actually STAY dedicated. Ironically, it's those who are the best at what they do who get bored after saying they're the dedicated ones.

I'll see what happens.

You have some great expectations for college. I hope you are going somewhere very challenging, you fail to realize that for the most part your peers are the people in these colleges. The rigor can change from school to school and major to major, drastically. I hope you're not dissappointed by what you find.

You can develop a game for free. If you do everything yourself or with a close couple of friends, expenses are minimum. Its the publishing and marketing, not developing, that can cost a ton of money for an indy game, as I understand it. Anyways, there are plenty people here that can give you a better response about the industry than I can.

Quote: My main wonder was how can someone make a big company out of so little? One of my examples not pertaining to the game industry was a boy in high school who invested $700 and an old beat-up truck who went to DROP university, over a matter of a few years, got over $32 million dollars for picking up people's garbage after turning it into a large corporation. How can you start small with a videogame company? You can't make a game with $700. You can't make a game with $5,000. You probably can't make a game with $10,000. I'm talking about games that will actually make you profit. These days I never see people making small games that'll make them more than $10. Not around here, anyway. All I hear is "loan, loan, loan", everywhere. Some people take a student loan for college and turn it into business money and hope for their sake they succeed.

You don't come across in text as high school, which is probably where everyone, including me, got confused. You sound like you're about 21 or so. This is actually very, very good, because you're in an absolute perfect place to set things in motion. Your ability to actually listen to folks and to pick out the good advice will come in very handy.

So how do people create a big business out of little? Lots of hard work. Persistence. Drive to do so. I'm not 100 percent sure someone can't make a game with $700. Maybe John Carmack could. As for "Can you make a profitable game when you start with $25,000?".. I'll let you know in two years. :)

Quote: Original post by Falkon Valkyrie
Note: I'm still in high school and trying to learn. I have all the right to have excuses and as do early developers in the game industry have when I interviewed them. It's not "THAT EASY" to get grants here, but it's how many businesses get them. Or loans, usually loans, but I don't accept loans yet. I'm a young adult, my friends are also young adults/teenagers. How many of these people do you expect - no matter how passionate or interested - to continue something? Only a select handful of students at my school actually succeed if they try to do something out of around 1,000 students. That's how lazy most people are around this age.

Because people don't want to work for free to help you realize your dreams does not make them "lazy". You're very passionate about games, which is great, but that doesn't mean others who are not are "lazy" or "unmotivated". Perhaps they have different passions. Or perhaps they share that perverted notion that it's good to get compensated for work so they can eat :-).

Quote: Also, "the fact that people aren't lining up to hand you cash to develop something you haven't begun to plan"? I didn't even mention anything along those lines. You must have misinterpreted. Mind you, I have done years of planning.

I was talking about a formal business plan. If you want money from a bank or venture capitalist, you'll need a very good one of these (along with proven success in the industry, most likely).

Quote: How can you start small with a videogame company? You can't make a game with $700. You can't make a game with $5,000. You probably can't make a game with $10,000. I'm talking about games that will actually make you profit. These days I never see people making small games that'll make them more than $10.

You can make a quality game for virtually nothing, but you'll likely have to do it yourself. You can find free 3D modeling tools, programming environments, graphics/game libraries, etc. You can find relatively cheap musicians and artists online if music and art are not strengths. Look in the "Help Wanted" or "Announcements" forums here and on indiegamer.com. Matt MacFarland did some fantastic music for me for a very reasonable fee.

My advice is to start small, count on doing it all yourself, and contract out what you can't do. You can make money on a creative, innovative match 3/tetris/breakout/etc. clone, even if it isn't the next World of Warcraft. Id software started small - Doom was their 3rd or 4th game.

Actually I'm only 17 years old, ellis, not 21. I don't know if I should take that for a compliment. I guess I will, haha.

I see. Thanks again to everyone for your suggestions and replies. Mike, I understand you now.

I'll do some research on these kinds of games and see if, in a few years, I'll be able to develop a game for "virtually nothing" that can actually get me going somewhere, if only just a little.

If you`re really just 17, then hats off ! Such an enterpreneurial spirit is hard to spot in a crowd of 17s. So don`t be surprised that your mates don`t share your goals and vision. College won`t change much (maybe except if you went to college in economical field), but generally people will usually mind just their business (i.e. school) and that`s it. You`ll be on your own too. The difference is that the college will get you a new pool of people to choose from, and thus a new chance to find someone whoe shares your vision. This is critical if the project has to see it through the end.

I don`t know if you are a programmer (haven`t read whole thread carefully), but if you`re not, become one. Then you`ll be able to program whole game alone using only your own programmer`s art (or free art which is all over the net) and when the game nears completion, ask for help on forums with demo and screenshots.
Small online games can be programmed by a single programmer within 3-6 months. The biggest problem is the art barrier which is getting harder to cross every year. But the Art assets for those 2D games cost just in thousands (USD), which as you said is within your reach. Popcap released their framework, so take a look at that since it`s tested on a myriad of different computers (which takes a lot of time t achieve after the game is complete - speaking from my own experience). This will give you an engine and the rest is just the gameplay and endless polishing. These days you need to polish the typical online game (by online here I mean the games that can be bought on various online portals for $20) much longer compared to what it took to develop the basic gameplay.

Pick some simple genre, like Top-Down shooter (easy from programming, expensive from art standpoint) or Arkanoid (the same here) or just look at top-ten games over portals (RealArcade,BigFish,Reflexive,Oberon,Yahoo games). Yes, the competition is tough here but if your Art assets give the game a different yet beautiful look, portals will get the game. In worst case you could self-publish the game (and use the marketing services of vgsmart) and earn some money this way.
Did you know that if your game is in top-ten at realarcade, you can get tens of thousands just in royalties within first few months ? That could get you money for a bigger PC project. I know, getting there is a matter of luck too, but if you`re prepared, it could happen.

However, if you want to get to retail space, things are getting harder every month. Forget about the full-price AAA league, since this needs a team of people and $Ms just for marketing. The budget section is getting better and nicer games each year. These days you can get Chronicles of Riddick (Doom3-quality engine) or Far Cry at budget. You can`t compete with these games, since they had 50 people teams and $Ms. So you`ve got find budget distributors that are looking for fresh new games and submit games to them. Most of them won`t give you royalties, just single flat-fee per territorry. But depending on quality of the game, this fee could give you opportunity to start bigger project.

Just don`t get discouraged at your first failure (so typical for game industry).

I may not have the experience at my age but I do have the spirit, I can tell you. It's even be noticed by many. Though, your advice has helped me now. Now I have a vision to what I should do.

For simple games like Tetris, Arkanoid, stuff like that, I'm the artist. I can do simple 2D graphics pathetically easily. I'm greatly experienced in Photoshop as a graphic enhancement artist (example: I take lineart of peoples' art and color/shade/background/enhance and apply effects to create detailed art). However, RPGs and such are harder because I can't do character sprites or environments or anything.

Right now I'm studying binary, octal, and hexadecimal then I'm slowly getting into visual basic so I can get a boost on programming. Then, I'm going to take a few studies with C++.

If you have any spare time look at Blender - a free 3D modeling tool. I only use it to draw and animate 3D looking sprites for my game, but you can do a lot more with it than that.

17? Yeah, you've definitely got a leg up, then. It will pay off in the long run, much more than partying will. :)

Learn some business basics, too, not just game-specific programming. Like I said, I'm kicking myself now, at 40. It's way harder to learn things now than it was when I was younger (like Blender, which is good, but I seem to be having trouble with it.) Take some electives in college to fill out your degree, look stuff up on the internet about the various company structures.

Very few people have the sort of drive you have, and I suspect it's even fewer in your generation, so you're going to be mostly alone. You'll need to learn some management skills, in order to get people to work. I'm not a programmer, but learning the basics about it was not that bad, and it gives me an idea of how to tell programmers to do things, rather than just a vague idea. Programming is good for being a programmer, but running a whole business takes more than just the technical. A bit of psychology, a bit of finance, a bit of shrewdness. Any degree you go for probably needs electives, so take advantage of that. Heck, I think in high school, you can take some night courses at community colleges for credit, too.