Hi, Who (you the member of gamedev), is legal a game company. Legal is that you are registered at the Chamber of Commerce. Who earned much money by self publishing (via website / telephone number) or retail publishing (using a publisher). With much money I mean you can live from it and you don''t have a day job. So not that you are rich. How many hours do you spend a week in developing your game. What is your current project you are busy with. Do you work alone or with someone else. How much commercial games do you have released and are published. What is your experience with retail publisher for so far. Do you have possibilities to find an investor for your company, like a bank. Do you give up with your games company and build up a portofolio to search for a job in the games industry. Why do you give up. Thanks for your reply. This is important for everyone to share our experience and possible frustrations.

quote: Original post by spikey
Who (you the member of gamedev), is legal a game company.
Legal is that you are registered at the Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber of Commerce doesnt make anyone legal. Theyre just a bunch of local yokels who get together and bitch about things. People like to sign up and put plaques on their wall, but it doesnt really mean anything about your legality as a business entity. Additionally neither does being an S-Corp or an LLC/LLP, as being a sole proprietorship with a fictious business name is just as legal.

you are for a part wrong, there are countries where you do need to have to be registred.

I understand your point, however

but you are completely wrong, think about the word TAX.

Hi Spikey,


I''m going to answer this mail to try and give a little insight into our experiance with this:

"Who (you the member of gamedev), is legal a game company.
Legal is that you are registered at the Chamber of Commerce."

I am a partner in Darkhex, we are not legally registered (in the UK where we are based), but that doesn''t mean a great deal until we start trading full-time and then need to worry about tax and employment issues. However, we are able to send/recieve and sign NDA''s as Darkhex and are legally able to claim copyrights and such on all our work as an entity.
We are also a ''satellite'' developer for an established and legal company called CW-i.

"Who earned much money by self publishing (via website / telephone number) or retail publishing (using a publisher).
With much money I mean you can live from it and you don''t have a day job. So not that you are rich."

Yes you can, but you''ll have to be prepared to work hard and accept that it will take time to break into the industry. I myself work a full-time job that is very flexible and allows me plenty of time to look after affairs.

"How many hours do you spend a week in developing your game."

Combined we have spent thousands of man-hours on the four demos we have done/are working on.

"What is your current project you are busy with."

We have two demo''s completed and two more being worked on, one is JBP (on the website) the other is a brand new game which we are soon to announce.

"Do you work alone or with someone else."

There are three of us as partners and we have around 6 other who are working/will be working with us and plenty more are available when we can offer the work.

"How much commercial games do you have released and are published."

We currently have three of the demos with many publishers and are hopefully lining up sponserships and licenses.

"What is your experience with retail publisher for so far."

Very mixed. The main guys you deal with are usually very helpful, these guys are the ones who love games so are the first nut to crack. However, it''s the money-men who talk and we have found these to be very hard to deal with.
Always try to get some feedback, however unhelpful. We have had a big-publisher say something like "I love your game, but our marketing men don''t think the genre is marketable at this stage", i.e it usually means that because your game is not a 3D blast-fest, they don''t want to know.

"Do you have possibilities to find an investor for your company, like a bank."

Yes, although we have not yet explored that route, since we are still working with publishers on our current work.

"Do you give up with your games company and build up a portofolio to search for a job in the games industry. Why do you give up."

Anyone of us could easily walk into a programming job, we are all very experianced with the PS1 and are knowledgeable on PS2/X-Box and such, however we would much rather make our company work and continue to make games we want.

"Thanks for your reply. This is important for everyone to share our experience and possible frustrations."

I''m always willing to help as much as possible, anyone can feel free to mail me and ask me questions directly, I will always try and help if at all possible.


Check out our site at www.darkhex.com, and CW-i''s at www.cw-i.com. Our site has two games there, the CWi site has three of our games, also look out for our newest game to be announced shortly, I''ve got a feeling that most people on these boards (i.e game lovers) will take particular interest in what we are trying to do with it :-)

Cheers!




Marc Lambert

marc@darkhex.com

Marc, thanks for the reply! It''s always nice to see something like this after wading through countless "I have a great idea for a game, who wants to program it?" messages.

Good luck with the publisher hunt!

I''ve earned $200 on a promogame
www.cyrstal-interactive.com -> Santa in Trouble

/MindWipe


"If it doesn''t fit, force it; if it breaks, it needed replacement anyway."

I´m not really one of those who could answer your questions but here´s my story:

I now work project based for a (registered) game company. The time i invest is manageable (part-time, varies a lot), the cash return is enough if considered a bit on the side, but definitely not enough to make a living. Team size is 3, for design only, the final team will be much bigger of course.

Before that i worked on two demos, spent about a year on each of them.
Sure, it´s a large investment of time and energy (with no money made from it), but without either a track record or some demos (or a portfolio) to show for yourself its near impossible to get a paying job.

About the company: I think it´s probably easier to get a job first, and then found you own company. I´ve been playing with the idea, but to run a company you need a lot more than just programming skills, a graphic artist and a good idea.