Hi, I am a game designer. Recently, I designed a game which I pitched to a development company after signing an NDA. They loved my idea very much. The problem is: since I don't have the money to fund this game I can only present it to companies who can. Though, in order to present it to them, I must have a detailed business plan. In order to make a detailed business plan I must present to the company the money that this game needs in order to be developed, beta tested, marketed etc. And here comes the dead-end... In order for the development company to give a cost of development and beta-testing they need to be paid for that research because the game is a big production and there are a lot of variables that must be taken into consideration. So, I can't pay the developers to do the game nor their part of the business plan so I can't have a fully detailed business plan to present to a publisher/investor. What should I do? GamerGamer

You are attempting to do something you don't have the necessary resources for. Therefore you need to take a step backwards and work out how to get the necessary resources. This may take a considerable length of time (years) depending on your current position and level of experience.

The games business is just that, a business. Having a great idea is worthless unless you have the resources to turn it into a saleable product or the experience and contacts necessary to get the resources. That means getting a job to save up the necessary money to fund the demo, borrowing it from friends, family & bank - or raising investment. Unfortunately the latter will require that you know people interested in investing and that you have a proven track record developing successful games, which is necessary to convince investors to invest. - I am going to go out on a limb here and say you probably don't have these qualifications, because if you did you probably wouldn't be here asking what to do.

Quote: Original post by gamergamer
I am a game designer. ...
What should I do?

If you have a job as a game designer, you should only be pitching ideas to your employer.
If you don't have a job as a game designer (then you are an "amateur game designer"), you ought to get a job in the game industry and build up contacts and a reputation in the industry.
Maybe you can start by forming an indie team to make a demo, but if you try to do that you need to make sure everyone's on board with the same expectations for the effort.
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson11.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson21.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson14.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson16.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/jobapp.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson54.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson64.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/finances.htm
Those articles should get you started, anyway.

Extending Tom Slopers point, if you are an amateur / indie game designer and you have an idea for a game design then use that design as part of your portfolio in order to try to get a serious job as a game designer.

That way you have a chance of pitching the design to your employer, as many studios promote the idea of internal design pitches.

Thank you all for your replies.

hello,

my experience about this process tells me that you can find smaller studios that would be willing to work on a prototype for free with the condition that once the game is sold they get to develop it and to share on royalties.

It is not very different to develop inhouse prototypes and to pitch them to publishers, so for a small developer without probably good game designers, it could represent a good opportunity for them in participating in good projects that can open doors as well for them.

So if I was you, I would try to get a list of small studios from your home country, analyze them to see if they have the right set of skills to develop a good prototype ( a developer with the wrong skills and quality can kill your idea forever). Contact a couple of them, and sell them the idea and the potential of the game. Sell aswell your credentials/track record ( if you don´t have a track record forget about it, as in game developers, publisers looks not only at the company track record but as well into individuals members of the team), close an agreement and define a schedule to be fullfilled.

Start to pitch publishers about the idea as to identify the ones that will want to see the prototype and use the information to motivate the developer who is helping you with the prototype as to keep him incentivated to work for the project.
Keep a good communication line open between you and the developer and you should have not problems with the prototype.

I have myself done this twice and the results were very interesting.

Regards,

http://www.game-developers.org