And there''s nothing wrong with that
People come in all shapes and sizes, some like the success and recognition they receive at their job, they feed off it and it motivates them. Others get frustrated at corporate politics and the management overhead that is prevalent in larger companies.

Some prefer security; others are stimulated by taking risks.
There''s nothing wrong with having game dev be a hobby. I wasn''t trying to look down on anyone who doesn''t want to take their hobby full time.

I would defiantly recommend not attempting to take your hobby full time if your not 100% sure that''s what you want. For me I want to cut my own slice of pie. I want to see what I can accomplish on my own, carve out my little corner of the industry, and build something special (great?). I want to impact people’s lives personally with the products I create. I want to know my customers and cater to them. The only place I know of where I can do this is starting my own game dev business.

I''ve sank a year and £30,000 - yes, you read right - on learning and developing a technology demo with an old friend of mine - and a vast amount of effort. We''ve got a game design, fully complete; a reasonable business plan; a ton of graphics and a hefty chunk of code...

... and absolutely no interest whatsoever from venture capitalists to fund the development of the game proper, which will take about 2 years and require about £2,000,000.

Bugger.


I''ve just posted in here asking if there''s a friendly publisher about with a spare million or two...



Cas

Why does everyone overlook OEM partnerships?

For those who don''t know what this is, it''s the lil'' game packs that come with video cards and stuff. They generate a nice bit of revenue, can help you establish yourself (incase you ever want to go the full retail route), and have the "hidden" bonus of lower development costs...

How do you get lower development costs out of an OEM deal? Well, let''s say your game is going to dbe distrobuted with a video card. This means you only have to test your game with that video card, and if you''re really good, the OEM partner may provide the development hardware.

Nurgle

I'm a big fat troll, ignore everything I say.

Edited by - NUrgle on March 11, 2002 7:39:57 AM

Never ever work with Xing Interactive as an indie but go trough the self publishing model and publish otherwise with Dexterity software! Dexterity got very good referentions.

Xing Interactive will go down soon or later.

Alex is a lier. Jan isn''t paid and he make again a nice story.
Jan told me, email him if you doubt. You can check the email in the topic retailer publisher info.

references correction

references correction



Oh oh oh what important.......

I''ve been programming for a few years, but this is my first crack at actually writing games, as opposed to reading about writing games. I started out simple, writing a Pong clone in Delphi - the language I use at work. (Actually, I started out with draw-a-ball-on-screen, and then progressed to draw-a-moving-ball, then moving-ball-that-bounces, ad infinitum until I had written Pong.) I then moved on to Tetris, which I just finished. Next, I plan to upgrade Tetris to use DirectX w/ Delphi, and then port it over to C++ and decide which language to continue game development in.

The plan is then to continue building successively more difficult/polished games until I have something I''d feel comfortable accepting money for. Of course, the dream is to make games full time as my own boss, but I wouldn''t even consider ditching the "real" job until I''m making good money at it as a hobby. I don''t code well on an empty stomach.

---------------
Delphi 6 Personal Edition, free for non-commercial use.

Since publishing seems to be a main point flying around here, I just thought I'd say that I plan to publish my group's game personally... I mean, actually publish. You know, Box Sets and everything. I just need (some help) to look up on a few things, like how much CD Printers cost. (no, not sticky labelers... lol I have one of those, they are nice and simple, but they aren't professional...) The Boxes however are going to be a bit more complicated, I think... Maybe... Maybe not, I dunno... Maybe I'll find a good store that sells everything I need, and heck... Maybe I'll just sell the CD in a nice plastic wraping since I can already get those. :-)

Anyone got any advice? I know this isn't the road most indie developers take for their first time around, but if anyone has any advice (other than "don't do it, it stupid" because I ignore those comments, if you really want to talk me out of it, make a point ) on doing this by yourself? What are the chances that if I ask a retail chain such as Electronics Boutique to put my game on their shelves that they will?

Laterz

Alex Ford
PointSoft EA Co., Ltd.
http://www.pointsoftonline.com

Edited by - PointSoft on March 11, 2002 12:44:39 PM

quote: Original post by PointSoft
Since publishing seems to be a main point flying around here, I just thought I''d say that I plan to publish my group''s game personally... I mean, actually publish. You know, Box Sets and everything. I just need (some help) to look up on a few things, like how much CD Printers cost. (no, not sticky labelers... lol I have one of those, they are nice and simple, but they aren''t professional...)

About 600 - 1500 depending on how fast/accurate you want it. Much more if you want to include data duplication in there. But if you''re publishing, you just farm this out to your CD manufacturer. Mastering and stamping will be much cheaper than burning CDR''s and printing if your production run is more then a few hundred or so.

My company produces and sends out very small runs ourselves (on the order of 5-20 units, for customer specials or demos) anything larger we contract out.

quote:
The Boxes however are going to be a bit more complicated, I think... Maybe... Maybe not, I dunno... Maybe I''ll find a good store that sells everything I need, and heck... Maybe I''ll just sell the CD in a nice plastic wraping since I can already get those. :-)

Well, back in the day computer games were floppy disks sold in ziplock bags, and we bought ''em.

quote:
Anyone got any advice? I know this isn''t the road most indie developers take for their first time around, but if anyone has any advice (other than "don''t do it, it stupid" because I ignore those comments, if you really want to talk me out of it, make a point <img src="http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/icons/icon12.gif"> on doing this by yourself? What are the chances that if I ask a retail chain such as Electronics Boutique to put my game on their shelves that they will?

Well, some retail chains have exclusive relationships with certain distributors or wholesalers, so I''d target distributors first, not specific retail chains.

I think the real reason not to do this is cost. Sure, you can do all this yourself, but with a very small number of unproven products, you have very poor economy of scale. You''d probably end up making more money by doing a publishing deal with a completed game in hand than to try and tackle distribution yourself, at least until you have built a name for yourself. After all, you get great marketing benefit by even being in someone like EA''s catalog, even if they don''t actively push your game with magazine ads and tv spots.