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Original post by Tom Sloper Quote: Original post by wirya One thing to consider. If you can make your idea come true by yourself or your indie team, why should you knock a big company's door and offer it to them? Don't you think it'll be an overkill? Because publishing is MUCH harder than developing. It entails an entirely different set of skills and an entirely different business model.

Well, I thought the original poster was talking about "creating" and not "publishing" games.

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Original post by wirya Quote: Original post by Tom Sloper Quote: Original post by wirya One thing to consider. If you can make your idea come true by yourself or your indie team, why should you knock a big company's door and offer it to them? Don't you think it'll be an overkill? Because publishing is MUCH harder than developing. It entails an entirely different set of skills and an entirely different business model. Well, I thought the original poster was talking about "creating" and not "publishing" games.

The reason for knocking on a "big company's door" is that the big company is a publisher, they have the experience, capital, and channels for publishing your game. After you make your idea come true by yourself (if you're able), you still need to get your game published. You can try publishing it yourself if you want. But in my opinion, those who enjoy developing games are unlikely to find any joy in the publishing of them.

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Original post by Funkymunky The main problem with a company accepting ideas from outsiders is that it makes them liable for a lawsuit.

As much as several people here would deny it the main problem is that game ideas from people who have never even made a game prototype usually aren't as good as they think it is.

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Original post by Tom Sloper Quote: Original post by wirya One thing to consider. If you can make your idea come true by yourself or your indie team, why should you knock a big company's door and offer it to them? Don't you think it'll be an overkill? Because publishing is MUCH harder than developing. It entails an entirely different set of skills and an entirely different business model.

What about online distribution systems like iPhone apps?

@Tom Sloper:
True, a big company can make the publishing process easier. But I'm sure the company will not find publishing indie-level games (which means it could be developed by indie/small teams and no need for big ones) to be very interesting. I'm sure they'd rather publish really big games.

Of course, if you make a small indie game that cannot compete against a publisher's typical type of product, you'd likely be beating your head against a wall trying to get them to publish it.
And yes, of course, if you make a small iPhone app you don't have to "knock on a big company's door" -- or do you? I think iPhone apps have to go through the Apple Store?
In other words, if I was talking about Apples while you guys were talking about raisins, then I should have not bothered saying anything.

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Original post by Kaze As much as several people here would deny it the main problem is that game ideas from people who have never even made a game prototype usually aren't as good as they think it is.

Its also nearly impossible to tell whether a game idea is good, in general. Sure, bad game ideas are obviously bad after the fact, but at some point there was likely an entire team of people excited about that idea.

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Original post by Kaze What about online distribution systems like iPhone apps?

Yes, that allows you to get your app out there cheaply, but without marketing or anything else pushing it to success, your chances of making a lot of money, or even enough to live off of, is limited. Tom can correct me on this, since he has experience where I have none, but I'm pretty sure publishers bring more to the table than a DVD burner and pretty box art.

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Original post by Rycross without marketing or anything else pushing it to success, your chances of making a lot of money, or even enough to live off of, is limited. Tom can correct me on this, since he has experience where I have none, but I'm pretty sure publishers bring more to the table than a DVD burner and pretty box art.

Yes indeed. Mind you, I'm not talking about raisins (to continue my previous analogy) but rather apples.
In writing my first reply to Wirya's post, I was only addressing his comment about why you should knock a big company's door. It's unfortunate that my experience as a producer at big companies colored my thinking and that I therefore was not talking from the perspective of an indie gamer making a game too small to be worthy of said big company.
Anyone who's only interested in knowing about the benefits (or lack thereof) of knocking on the door of a "big company" with a small home-made game should therefore please not read any of the following. :p

An example of what publishers bring to the table is:
Halo 3 had a marketing budget of around $40 million, which surely had a lot to do with the game becoming one of the biggest entertainment debuts in history (per Wikipedia, FWIW). So even people who never heard of Halo 2 saw the advertising blitz, and knew that they could go to the big chain stores and buy this awesome new game.

@Tom :
The OP was asking about the ways to work with a big studio. But he didn't say why he shouldn't develop the game with a small/indie team. I had nothing whatsoever against working with a big company, but I just felt that trying to offer the game idea to a big company without first making sure that it's really better than developing it yourself or with a small team was like making an unnecessary "jump," you know what I mean?

[Edited by - wirya on October 29, 2009 3:26:39 PM]

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Original post by wirya @Tom : The OP was asking about the ways to work with a big studio. But he didn't say why he shouldn't develop the game with a small/indie team.

OK. The majority of posters who come here with ideas come here with [big]BIG[/big] ideas that are beyond the ability of small/indie teams.
In any case, we were apparently talking at cross purposes before, and hopefully we aren't anymore.

Take a step back and look at yourself through the developer's eyes.

I am a professional developer. You come to me with an idea. Regardless of how "good" you think your idea may be, I have many ideas of my own that I have worked hard to make a reality. Why would I do all this work just to build someone else's idea? You better have some good money for me up front. There is no way I am going to build someone else's idea without some serious compensation because it means putting all my own epic ideas on hold.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Sadly, you have to take the initiative and gain the necessary skills to make it reality. Otherwise, you better have some awesome connections inside the industry already.