I have been mulling over this idea for a multi-platform game for close to 3 years now but have not had a realistic idea of where to begin. I have no idea how to design a game, and have slim to no experience in programming. Basically, all I have is an idea and the desire to succeed. Here is what I need: -Where to start? Do I form the business/company first? Or do I develop first? -Where can I find someone who can develop what I'm looking for? -Where do I go to inquire about licensing issues? I can go on all day but these are the most important factors that are holding me back so far. Can someone please help me out or point me in the right direction?

Hello Black, you wrote:

>I have been mulling over this idea for a multi-platform game for close to 3 years now but have not had a realistic idea of where to begin. I have no idea how to design a game, and have slim to no experience in programming. Basically, all I have is an idea and the desire to succeed.

Have you got a degree? Can you get a job in the game industry? Do you live near any game companies?

>-Where to start? Do I form the business/company first? Or do I develop first?

Neither. Write your idea down, get experience in the game business.

>-Where can I find someone who can develop what I'm looking for?

It depends. Read these:
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson27.htm (how to get into the game biz)
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson27.htm (how to to bypass the job route and start an indy project)

>-Where do I go to inquire about licensing issues?

To the owner of the license. Or did you mean you want to license YOUR IP? If the latter, read http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson21.htm (how to try to sell your game concept despite the odds)

>I can go on all day but these are the most important factors that are holding me back so far. Can someone please help me out or point me in the right direction?

The FAQs are out there. Read'em.

Quote: Where to start?

1.) Research 2.) Plan 3.) [Repeat steps 1 through 3]

Quote: Do I form the business/company first? Or do I develop first?

You have to ask yourself this question. Is your goal to establish a company or is it to develop a product? Does developing the product require that you first establish the company?

Quote: Where can I find someone who can develop what I'm looking for?

Classifieds, job listing sites, newsletters, web-sites, forums. Just about anywhere on the internet. The better question is: how do I get that person to join my project?

Quote: Where do I go to inquire about licensing issues?

A licensing issue should be addressed with the licensor. If not, then a lawyer would be the next logical step.

I am assuming you plan to make a career out of this and I am also assuming you have limited funds for the project. Licensing and labor costs are VERY expensive. Let me just introduce to you the indie route.

If you plan to take the indie route you will need to start small. This does not mean abandon your ideas, write every idea you get down. Trust me when working on projects you will have idea's come to you that are not relevant to the project at all and may be able to use in future projects.

If you are starting out with no experience and plan to create a company you will probably need to do a lot if not most the work yourself. This means you need to study books and read articles and practice the skills in the industry. Programming is probably a good place to start. Anything you are willing to learn about the jobs in the industry will benefit you and make you a better designer. Where to start?

Start by checking some of the books listed here on the site. I say learn programming since it is one of the biggest jobs in any project. So buy some books on design, programming, business related books for the game industry. Also Check out
Sloperama tutorials by Tom Sloper. Start with his first article here and work your way down.

http://www.sloperama.com/advice/idea.htm

Once you start getting some skills down and started designing some simple game idea's perhaps you can get others who are interested in your area or on gamedev to lend their hand in helping with the project. Remember learning to understand the jobs in the industry won’t just help you complete your project successfully by giving you some more skills to help out the team with. It will allow you to create realistic goals and narrow down problems before they start because you will understand everybody’s job in the team. You can't just go and say;

"Create the most state of the art 3d engine and allow each player to destroy buildings realistically with their rocket launchers. I need it done in four months!"

My strongest suggestions are to focus on learning some skills in the industry and always be writing down your creative ideas. This way you can help out the team keep labor costs a down a bit. Also in case things are not looking so good for your company then you may have enough skill to get yourself in the industry as a back up solution. You then get industry experience to see how other companies work and make some money then possibly try again.

Hope some of the info helped and if you have anymore questions let me know! Good Luck!

I really like cars and I have a great idea for a new car. I have no idea how cars are actually designed or how they are built but I want to start a car making company. Does this really sound like a good basis on which to start a company? The vast majority of new company start-ups fail due to lack of experience on the part of the founder.

Quote: Original post by BlackIce9
Here is what I need:
-Where to start? Do I form the business/company first? Or do I develop first?

If you have several hundreds of thousands of dollars you can go to an accountant to set up the company If you don't have that money then forget starting a company.

Quote: -Where can I find someone who can develop what I'm looking for?

A games recruiter to find you staff.

Quote: -Where do I go to inquire about licensing issues?

What licensing issues are you talking about?

Given that you have no experience of game development do you at least have experience running a business?

Do you have the hundreds of thousands of dollars that starting a video game business costs?

Why would you want to complicate an already difficult process by deciding it has to be a multi-format game, when you haven't even attempted a single format game?

Conclusion
There are two paths to follow
1. If you have the money you can pay people to make your idea but that will cost hundreds of thousands just to get started and potentially millions of dollars to get a game made.
2. You follow the Indie/Hobby route - you forget setting up a company and start by learning how to make/design games. There are lots of great tutorials dotted around the net on how to program or do game art or build levels in one of the current game engines.

Thanks for the many replies everyone, and also, thanks for the links. The game I'm thinking of developing is not going to be something that requires a ton of graphics, if any. I'm not trying to developing a fps, rpg, or mmorpg. What I'm creating is a simple simulation of sorts.

Either way, I have started by penning everything I want the game to eventually accomplish. Once I have gotten down just about everything I can think of I will brainstorm with someone to find out exactly what I'm looking for.