Since I was 12 or 13 I wanted to create a business that would be base on the game industry. To make a long story short I am now 32 and have not made that dream into a reality yet. I learned about crowdfunding awhile ago and decided that I was going to go with my original plan and make games. My goal was to find a team put the project together and than make a campaign to rise the funds needed to start the studio and get the project launched. Now in my life experience I learned if you don't particularly have the skills and you got a lot of money being put into something. Than you need to find the people that do. While I was putting together the business plan and was working on the capital needed to start up and yearly experiences. I went to find someone to that offers their services to help ensure that the studio would have a better chance to succeed. I was fortunate enough to get some feedback for what I was doing from a professional. I came to realize
I was doing this the wrong way. I was setting this up to be a big disappointment. Not just for me but for everyone that would have came on board. Even if I were to be successful the studio would have burned through the capital raised so fast we would have been back to square one and the project or worst projects would have died with it. I was back to square one I am facing two problems. One is if I get this started now the chances of me failing are too high which can be crushing to many people not just the team. But those who back it up believing in it. The second is this business is my dream I have been wanting this happen for a long time and now I am being to stubborn to put it back on the shelf. I am going to make it happen no matter the question is how.
I went through some restless nights about this and than it came me. It is an answer to a old question that kept coming up in order for this business to happen. You see I was always told a good business solves a problem and the game industry is entertainment you are providing a person an outlet to be entertained. In others words now this is just my opinion you are giving them a want not a need which is why this industry is a though business. It can also be a tough industry to get into as well let for example. When I graduated from high school I wanted to learn computer programming to make games. At that time I lived in southern California so I went to some of the collages around me to find out what courses I would need to take to reach my goal. In the end I was told that it would be a waste of my time there is no career in games and computer programmers are going to be a dime a dozen in the next 5 yrs because every one was going that route. Even now there are a few schools that just recently offer a game degree programs. But these are non traditional schools and they are very expensive. If you are lucky enough to be able to afford it. Almost every development company want you to have a minimum of year developing a AAA title with another company. This is the problem
the way I would like to look at it is this. There are sparks of talent out there that never get a chance for what ever reason. For some they can't afford to build their portfolios or go to school and others there portfolio just gets discarded because their resume showed no experience.
So my vision is to create a structure base that would follow the principle on what I would like to call Project Doppelganger. People in certain positions will be mentors to others/Doppelganger and help them improve their skills to become one of them. So a game designer would help mentor someone else to become a game designer. Artist for artist, Programmers for Programmers and so on. Once that person achieves that goal they become a mentor themselves. The other part of this project is the company helps cover the cost of the Doppelgangers career growth Tuition for school, Training programs, Software and hardware to assure they would have what they need to succeed. Of course this would go for anyone in the company.
The list can go on and on but hopefully it makes some sense. The reason for me posting this is I don't want to just jump in and take the chance of seeing it fail . I want it to be successful and may be something that the industry has never seen before. So for now I am looking to get some feedback on three questions and maybe adivice on how to make it happen.
So for every certain position there would be this doppelganger. Should the company make the choice of who that mentor would have or should he be apart of the process and be able to make that final choice?
For people who were given this opportunity want to make sure they don't just run or to use the company for what they needed and go to another.
Would it be fair to set guidelines such as paying back tuition losing royalties until certain obligation are meet?
The company still has to games and bring in capital from it so these people still has to develop while being a mentor What would be a good approach to recruit such a person to be a this mentor should there be a schedule to just let them do what they have to do to get the job.
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. As for myself I know I will eventual need to find a mentor as well just need to figure out what my role will be in all of this.
