Slashdot Mirror
How To Sell a Video Game Idea?
fobsta writes "Do any Slashdotters have experience of selling video game ideas? I'm an artist who has programmed a rough-as-nails demo and animated a trailer to explain my concept. Obviously I think it's fun, it shows promise, and my friends think it's cool. Who should I pitch the idea to? Existing video games companies, venture capitalists, or what about those dentists who financed the Amiga? Are they still around? I've had a previous idea hijacked, and received no reward for it whatsoever; how can I prevent this happening again?"
"Who should I pitch the idea to?"
Everybody. Put the trailer online, put up a download link for your demo. Make sure it says somewhere on the page that you want to make money from it, though.
"Having had a previous idea hijacked and received no reward for it whatsoever, how can I prevent this happening again?"
Don't show your idea to anybody. Just tell them you've got it and make sure they know that you want to make money from it.
Really ideas are a dime a dozen. Get a good bit demo code done. Shop it around to some venture capitalists and see what happens.
As to protection. NDAs are about it but if you are not prepared to sue then they are just paper.
The old saying is "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door"
Have an idea about better mousetrap well that is nice.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You could make your own free open source software (FOSS) indie game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_video_game_development
Isn't there some sort of process where the people you show your idea to Agree to Non-Disclosure of it?
Videogames are an interactive medium. A trailer is not a convincing means of portraying working gameplay mechanics. I'm sorry to say, but ideas are a dime a dozen, even if you can make a video out of them. Unless you can make a convincing video of a continuous chunk of mock-up gameplay, that proves without the shadow of a doubt that your "original" gameplay mechanics actually work, it's kind of a crapshoot.
I've got this great idea for a movie. It's called "Vampirates 2: Vampirates in Space!" With the tag line "In space, everything sucks!" and it would be a continuation of the Vampirates vs Ninja Mutants saga that started in Vampirates 1. So if ya find anyone with resources to throw around, point them over my way when you're done with 'em, I want to see some hot Vampirate vs cat-man ninja action on the big screen!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Armin Heinrich
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
Make something playable then try to sell it to a publisher. If they don't bite, make it better until they do.
Put a talking point in it for McCaine, and at the very least you might win a toaster
--- What?
You could try to get reincarnated as one of Shigeru Miyamoto's kids... otherwise I think you are pretty much SOL.
You have no chance of making it big. Bring the idea as far as you can on your own and just use it for resume fodder.
You need something innovative on the business side to catch anyone's attention. Yet another "innovative" game concept is not going to attract any investment. You're about 10 years too late for that.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
In this industry, you will NOT be able to sell an idea with what you have.
Time, money, resources, staff, all of these are in short supply...but ideas are in abundance in the industry. Everyone in the industry has an idea, but only a rare few will get the opportunities to make their ideas into products.
If you want your idea to come to life, make a prototype and a proof of concept like you've already done, and then polish it to a shine. Make what is called a "vertical slice."
Once you have the vertical slice, create NDA's to cover your idea and work from there.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
I was in a similar situation so if I were you I would hire an intellectual property rights attorney. This person would also probably have helpful advice.
Four ways to turn your concept into a video game:
4. Create a polished game and approach (or be approached by) an established studio. Also known as the Portal approach. Also the flOw approach. "Sony Computer Entertainment approached some future members of thatgamecompany after seeing Cloud and asked them to form a company and signed them on to make three downloadable games for the PlayStation 3. Cloud ended up being a game that wouldn't be possible for a company as small as thatgamecompany to make, so they made flOw instead. thatgamecompany was created on May 15th, 2006."
3. Work your way up in one or more established studios towards the role of game designer. The American McGee approach. "McGee began his career at id Software. He worked on such games as DOOM, Doom II, Quake, and Quake II in the areas of level design, music production, sound effects development, and program coding. In 1998, he moved to Electronic Arts, where he worked as a consultant on many projects and also created his own game, American McGee's Alice." Mind you, that can be the long route, assuming you're even successful.
2. Work with an independent group of hobbyists and promise to split the profits once you make money. This is difficult to pull off, because contributors lose interest when things become difficult. This is enough of a problem that I'd rather have one paid contractor with modest abilities than a dozen unpaid contributors with spectacular abilities. Blech.
1. Establish your own company and finance development as a third party. Many small developers bootstrap with smaller projects in niche or new markets, eventually working their way up towards larger ones. The iPhone is potentially an awesome way to get your title out there. Start by developing a finished game that's small in scope, and demonstrates the very core concepts of your idea. Rinse. Repeat.
My favorite is, of course, to take #1 and run with it. Tighten your belt, and pay a contractor with good references to help you bring your idea to light on the platform where the competition is still pretty weak, and the barrier to entry is low. That was the Palm Pilot during late '90s, and is probably something like WiiWare or the iPhone now.
Good luck!
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
It was back in the 80's. And I was pitching a "mat," that you use to "Jump" to "conclusions." Nintendo blew me off. A few months later, they released the power pad, and I still haven't seen a dime.
and maybe i'll finance it.
Ideas are crap, everybody has ideas.
In this case, it sounds like you've gone beyond an idea and prototyped the game. Now what?
Non-Disclosure Agreements are your friend.
Got some money? Hire a programmer (or two) to write it.
Write it yourself.
Promote the demo to everybody and get the game re-written as open source. Everybody gets to play to game, you get some street cred, and you have a better chance of finding someone to listen for the next game idea.
This question often comes up on forums like Gamedev.net, and the answer is always the same. Nobody wants to buy game ideas, from you or anyone else. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and there is too much legal difficulty involved in even looking at someones idea. Developers would much rather work on their own ideas (of which they have many) than take on someone else's.
Thats terrible advice, I'd think you would want to be first when selling an idea, what with the whole copyright thing.
Isn't this the classic post on rec.games.programmer?
As a veteran of the game industry I can tell you - you need to complete the game first. Ideas are a dime a dozen. No one will give you money for development. You need to show them the finished product and ask for them to fund the publishing of it. That's the only way you will be able to acquire money from a publisher, unless you self-publish online or through various indie-channels (XBox Live, Wii Ware, Greenhouse, etc), but of course those still require a completed product as well.
I'm not speaking from any real experience or anything, but it might be a good idea to leave room in your pitch for flexibilities and possibilities. Or at least imply that you're willing to accept suggestions or criticisms. Producer-types like to feel like they've made some sort of impact on a project other than funding it. The main thing is getting them to actively think about the possibilities, which will force them to take it a little more seriously.
The tricky part is to not let them get too involved, because then they might start to suggest some silly ideas.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Independent that is
If they see your demo, and anything they are already working on is similar or has similar elements, they're opening themselves up to a suit (from you) when they release their product.
About the only way anybody I know in the industry will look at anyone else's concepts is if:
A) The concept is being given away, for free, to be used in any way, without any limitations
and
B) The originator of said concept signs legal papers stating the material is theirs to give away and A) applies.
Even then, most companies still won't touch it and will refuse to see it, as the person providing it may be wrong in stating the material isn't already encumbered (whether the originator knew it or not).
Some examples of how material (like a trailer) can be encumbered without the originator really being aware:
- trailer was made using originator's employer's software/hardware/time
- trailer was made by somebody with a strict employer agreement on original works (anything I author that isn't "for the company" I need to register the material with my employer ... or my employer owns it)
- trailer includes characters based on somebody else's trademarked images
- trailer was made using pirated software (believe it or not - this can cause very weird legal problems)
So, sorry, but you'll have a very tough time getting anybody to view it, even just to say "that's neat, but we aren't interested."
Instead it'll be, "I'm sorry, but we can't look at it."
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Disclaimer: I am not a developer, but I've read a lot of horror stories. If you try to pitch it to an established publisher or developer, the legitimate ones will turn you away because it leaves them wide open to a messy lawsuit if they do anything remotely similar in the future, even by coincidence. The unscrupulous ones will just rip you off. You really need to turn it into a legally-protectable game, or a total conversion mod, or something, and then get it published small-scale to demonstrate popularity. If you don't have the know-how, try to get together a team of amateurs, friends, sufficiently motivated guys online, whatever. Give it away, shareware, however you distribute it make sure that it gets out there and people know it's yours. Enter it in indie game contests. Whatever you can.
Then when you have an actual game to speak of, and some indication that it could sell, see about getting a publisher interested in buying the idea from you. What happens next will depend on the type of game we're talking about.
What I've read about game development in the past suggests that your project may well vanish into development hell at this stage, or be pushed out as a diabolical mess which means nobody will ever want to touch your game ever again. And you'll be unable to make amends because you've sold away the "big version" rights. You may make some money back for your time and effort though. The alternative would be to keep it small-scale, on mobile phones or whatever. This would suit many kinds of games. Only if you can manage to turn that small game into your own personal development empire, could you crank out a large-scale game like Halo or whatever.
Moral: the odds are against you ever being able to produce a Halo-style blockbuster, unless you want to get into career game design or are willing to give the idea to someone who is. And even if you're just trying to create one fun little puzzler, it's going to take a lot of time, effort, and cooperation.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Although, you might have fight some gladiator style games and destroy the MCP before you get credit for you work.
It depends a lot.
If your idea is very very good and original, and you've explored fully (having written quality content for it), then you *may* pitch it to a gaming studio and hopping you are special enough for them to hire you as a writer or artistic consultant or something like that.
If it's just another idea for a shooter, then just forget about it. Everybody got ideas. They are mostly worthless, and a developer won't invest in you because you happened to have one and you coded a prototype around it.
I hear Bill Gates and Steve Jobs value ideas. I bet if you let them in on your design idea they would pay you lots later.
There are no shortage of good ideas in this world. The same goes for good video game ideas. It's all about who has the means and the skill to execute on an idea.
Also, NDA's don't mean shit when it comes to protecting yourself. You take a calculated risk every time you show someone your idea no matter what you make them sign before hand. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to have enough development work in that they would be better off buying you out than stealing. Make it worth their while to go the legit route.
- Toby
Print out all material for your idea, organize it neatly, stick it in a box, tape the box up and put postage on it, now light the box on fire. Don't know if this works for Ideas but it sure works on my bills.
For $50... comes with a free blowjob
Unfortunately, video game ideas are about as rare as fiction plotlines. Every major series on TV is deluged by hundreds of story ideas that they are not allowed to read because they fear that if they read them, they'll be sued for using an idea that they already had on their own.
Writers of all types suffer from this on a continual basis. The writers themselves usually have far more ideas than they have writing time. The desire to turn those ideas into reality is usually what pushed them to learn the skill in the first place. As a result, recommendations by other people that the writer should develop THEIR idea usually just winds up being annoying.
Video game ideas are the same. People with the resources to develop video games are perpetually surrounded by people who say "wouldn't it be cool if...". Unless you have the development skill (or can find a friend with such) to actually create the game yourself and put it out on the internet, it'll never happen.
Sorry, but that's the harsh reality of things.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Just email me all your materials and I'll show them to my contacts at EA, Microsoft, and Blizzard... really.
I'd hunt down a programmer, or hit the books, put something playable together, TEST IT, and try to pitch it to be published on Steam, XBLA, or the like. There are a couple of un-boxed distribution channels these days, and it couldn't hurt to look into them.
In the meantime ... ideas are a dime a dozen, we keep hearing, and it's when everything gets put together and runs that you have a sellable product with value.
Tell me what your idea is and I'll tell you how to keep people from stealing it.
No-one in this industry is interested in ideas. Ideas are anathema to the people in control. A project that is based on "an idea" is a project that could fail. Better to base a project on a film tie-in, or a mechanic from a previous game, or preferably both. That way you can be sure it will sell.
Sadly, Ideas are cheap - although ironically they are truly the most precious things we can posses.
I have zero experience in the game industry and I have no success in getting any idea of mine going big-time. Still, I have had ideas which later have been implemented by someone else (often because they were obvious due to some recent event).
I have come to the conclusion that the best ideas are the ones which you don't actually mind if someone else creates, because it means you get to use the creation.
My idea is for a video game called "Freeway Crash" or "Freeway Pileup" or something.
The game starts up with you getting on a freeway in random traffic. There is a countdown timer and at some random time in the countdown there will be an accident and you have to avoid it somehow - or avoid being caught-up in it.
The game would hinge on two things - one, it would need to be freely downloadable. two, it would need to have very good car models and crash physics.
The freeness would allow for mass download and play and the great graphics and physics would push for the pay (cheap 10$) version which would have the ability to playback the crash in slow motion and to create youtube-like vids a'la spore style and perhaps some other features like different cars and freeways or even an online component.
There. Free idea for the world.
Anybody want me as a game designer? I have 10 more concepts.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Thank you for asking this! I have been wondering the same kind of thing, I'll be bookmarking this page for future reference. I design learning environments and would love to make educational video games but have absolutely no clue how to go from idea to game that you can buy in the store.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Maybe she'll do some pancakes for you!
'who has' or 'who's' not 'whose'.
I, and my colleagues, each have our own pet ideas we'd like to get made. So does everyone else in the office... I bet even the HR person has a pet design doc.
There is no way that some guy off the street is going to sell his design into this environment. I think that generally you will find that anyone who is capable of making your game isn't interested in your ideas... we have our own. I have worked at big companies and small companies and I have never heard of this happening.
I can't imagine anyone stealing a design, either, but I guess anything is possible.
I'm sure it is possible to sell an idea too, but... Your best chance is to start your own company, so find some VCs or rich dentists.
Unless you are Shigeru Miyamoto posting under an alias. In that case, sumimasen, sensei.
Honestly, the best and most practical path forward in today's game market is to create and market the game yourself. Though the indie space is constantly changing (for instance, the casual-game portal market that thrived as little as two years ago has now turned stagnant), there are still many opportunities for independent creative thinkers.
Indie designer Jonathan Blow, whose inventive puzzle platformer Braid just launched on Xbox Live Arcade, speaks eloquently about the indie viewpoint in his keynote speech at the Free Play 2007 conference in Melbourne. The video of his speech is compelling and inspirational. Look up his many interviews and then go on from there to learn about other indie designers. It's a tricky path but exciting and potentially rewarding.
In addition to WiiWare and the iPhone, Steam, and Xbox/Windows Live (when XNA 3.0 is out) are good places to start.
Lots of folks have ideas. Some are brilliant. Most are unworkable. It's awfully hard to be sure at the front end that yours won't be among the unworkable ones.
That's why VC's don't buy ideas. They buy teams instead: a group of apparently well qualified people who have subscribed to the consensus that a particular set of ideas is good and have already spent a considerable amount of effort building the idea to a point where they need capital to take it further.
You're the artist. When you, a composer, a developer and salesman (at least one of you with prior entrepreneurial experience) have each put 200 hours into the project, that's when the VC's will start to become interested in talking.
Until you can convince 3 other people with the right set of talents to jump on your bandwagon and put their time and reputation on the line, well, no offense but the VC's time is too valuable to waste on you.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Every well known writer has had someone come to them and tell them about their idea. "It's about this guy called Bob. He builds a spaceship and visits lots of planets where exciting adventures happen. Can you write this story for me? I'll split the profits 50/50".
The same applies to studios. Everyone has an idea for a game. Here's an example. It just doesn't work like that.
What actually happens is that someone in the company comes up with a game concept, and producers and designers talk about it. In many cases (especially party games), there's some discussion about whether it's technically possible. It's possible that the technology isn't up to it, so some development effort is spent in making a tech demo to check that the concept works. If that works then the developer will submit a pitch to a publisher. The pitch is, at the very least, a detailed description of the game and how it will work. Ideally the developer will have some idea of the market for this as well.
It's possible that none of the publishers will be interested. In this case, unless the developer is sure enough about it to develop a demo, they just come up with a new idea.
Ideas are cheap. Developed polished realised ideas are wherethe difficulty is.
Any studio with an ounce of creativity already has more ideas than they can reasonably implement. They get tons of guys coming through their doors with great ideas, and they just shoo them back out.
If you want proof, look at any indie gaming forum. There are tons of people with ideas for games I'd probably love to play, but only a handful make a finished product.
Now, if you can create and release something (even if it's yet another Tetris clone), you are far more likely to be taken seriously.
Not a typewriter
That is pretty funny..
Nobody buys ideas, and I think you'll be hard pressed finding anybody to invest their money in yours, regardless of what the idea is.
The only way to get around this is to have a proven track record of earning money for past investors.
It's one of those annoying catch-22s we're all so familiar with.
The circular logic of needing to already have what you're trying to get.
Make something playable then try to sell it to a publisher.
On which platform should one develop the prototype? The consoles have lockout chips. Would you recommend SDL+OpenGL, XNA, Java, or something else?
Oh wait, someone might have already answered that question.
Just gather everything you have regarding "The game" and send it to me at biglouie@i-trust-this-guy-with-my-game.com and I will make sure it gets into the right hands... really... trust me, I'm not trying to rip you off or anything. Honestly.
I give no guarantees this will work.
1. Make a demo of the game extremely violent, sexual, or something that would really offend Jack.
2. Send him a copy of the demo.
3. Profit as he advertises it to the whole of the US.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
As I see other people have already mentioned, until/unless you have something in spitting distance of publishable territory to acquire, no publisher and vanishingly few development houses are going to be interested in allocating a single second to reviewing whatever it is you have in mind; they are constrained by resources, not by good ideas.
However, if your idea is on a scale that can be implemented -- at least to acquisition candidate stage -- by a single programmer, then your probably not insurmountable task is to find a programmer who's interested in investing their time in hopes of some eventual payout. Like, for instance, myself; I happen to be an iPhone developer just finishing up my first project (a brainteaser type game port) and I'm flexible as to what I take on next. If your idea is appropriate for implementation on an iPhone, and it looks like it would be not too big of a job to do the programming side of things, I'd be quite interested in doing that, publishing the result through the App Store, and splitting the take.
This was an "ask slashdot," AKA "please give me terrible advice." He was just doing what he was supposed to.
Whether you're programming games or selling shoes, if your intent is to make money, you're going to need a few things first:
1. A lot of money. If you save up for 10 years and use that money as your seed money, if you make it big, you'll enjoy all the rewards, if you fail. You lose it all. You could also find a VC willing to fund your project, and your risk is minimized. However, you'll have to constantly deal with the VC's restrictions and requirements, and if you end up with a blockbuster, they'll end up with 90% of the profits.
2. A lot of time. And by time, I mean time spent working 80+ hour weeks at minimum wage for the next few years. This might not be a problem if you're in your early 20's and don't have a family to support.. or more importantly... interact with.
This will probably mean you keep your day job and spend every other waking moment working on your project... unpaid... either way, you'll need a source of income while your project is being developed. You had better enjoy what you're doing, because that's going to be the only source of entertainment you'll have for a while.
3. A good idea. Yeah, you said you had that already. Now think of your great idea in context with regards to #1 and #2. Is it STILL a great idea? Would you be willing to risk $100,000 of your OWN money and three years of your own time on it? Is it worth paying off loans for the next 20 years if it fails? Really think about it. Be absolutely sure that your idea is SO great that it will overcome every obstacle you have.
Ultimately, you need a finished product. And you'll need to prove that it's a product that will make money... and you do that by actually making money from it. Once you're earning a decent income through your own products, have a few programmers employed and several new products in production.... THEN you'll start getting calls from companies wanting to purchase your company. Either because they think they can make money from it, or because you're competition they want to be rid of. THAT is how you sell your idea.
Good luck!
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
See here: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.games.development.design/browse_thread/thread/6c477f749c82d74c/8c8de47a5c65fe3f
In short: an idea is worth nothing without a working implementation, since the implementation is where the weaknesses of the idea show up.
You should post it here and us ./ers will tell you what you need to know...
My opinion is that you just don't hold the cards to effectively sell your idea. I think it's all in the execution of the demo. Rough-as-nails demo probably won't cut it because I think investors want to know how well you can actually execute the real thing. They aren't just investing in the idea, they are investing in your abilities. Either you have most of the talent baked in (plus the great idea), or you have the resume that gives them confidence that you'd pull the right team together to make it happen.
That said, I might suggest moving to Naples, FL and pitching your idea to some of the many rich, bored doctors that live there. Avoid the rich, bored lawyers that live there, however.
I was pitching a "mat," that you use to "Jump" to "conclusions." Nintendo blew me off. A few months later, they released the power pad, and I still haven't seen a dime.
You should have approached the patent office. Then you'd have made a killing as a patent troll when Konami started to sell Dance Dance Revolution.
I'm a programmer. I have experience writing games for several different platforms.
A good friend of mine is a 3d artist. He came to me a few months ago with an idea for a game. We pooled our cash, bought the necessary equipment and are making a go of it.
I can tell you that it's not an easy road, but, if you really want to see your game get built, and potentially make some money from it, you'll have to build it yourself.
On the bright side though, there are many opportunities once you have a viable product. We're still a while from release, but our playable proof of concept was good enough to negotiate a publishing contract. Once we had that, raising money was easy.
Show your idea to a friend of yours. Select somebody who you can trust and then show the demo or paper drawings and make sure that the witness signs off. Then show the same to a lawyer who can come up with some legal document showing that the idea is yours. Only then talk to a company.
If you do not protect it, people will rip it off and you'll be left with zero $$$. While most of us do work because we like it, there is no reason not to get paid for cool ideas.
Its like what everyone else says. Use NDAs and finish the game. I find that this website gives good advice about being a game designer and the business behind it. Your question sounds exactly like one on the website's Q&A page.
And it seems that you've worked in the industry. Why don't you ask some of the people you've worked with, it seems like they'd have better answers for you.
These guys created "Alien Hominid". They started out by making a full, polished Flash game, and because of it's roaring popularity, they were approached by industry developers to port it to the PS2 and Gamecube.
Your best bet is to rely on your own skills. Don't know how to program a full game? Teach yourself. Use free tutorials and resources. Publish on free websites like Newgrounds. Save as much overhead as possible. It'll take time, but like anything else, dedication is the key.
Like they say in the film industry, "If you wanna get into the movie business, start making movies." The same is true for games.
What is that supposed to demonstrate? That's why they're called *friends*, doh! Friends are the people who tell you you're not fat, you're not ugly, you're not stupid, and that your ideas are cool. Come back when your enemies are worried because your idea is cool.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Before you can do anything like this, you need to understand that world of business is not mutually compatible with the world of art and creativity. Many times, the ones who make the decisions will have little to no experience in creating the products they decide to sell.
As such, it's next to impossible to walk into a meeting with a powerful executive and get them to fully understand your concept with nothing more than a few bar napkin sketches of your ideas. What they do understand, however, is results. If you bring in a decent proof of concept prototype (preferable playable) and narrate about certain aspects of the game, you will significantly improve the odds of getting someone to back your project. Remember, this is not just a demonstration of the game itself, it's also a demonstration about your ability to get the job done... which is something that can't be demonstrated with cute drawings alone.
As for prototyping, there are a number of tools available for creating working game titles within the budget of the average consumer, such as Flash, Torque or Unity. As long as you're willing to take the time to learn how to use such software, you should at least be able to put some type of demo together that is adequate enough to illustrate your concept reliably.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Required reading for everybody (and their brother) who has a great idea for a game:
"I have a Great Idea for a video game... how do I sell it and get rich and famous?"
Fnord.
The best way to game "your game" published is by making the most unoriginal over done piece of insipid piece of shit gear towards the 12 to 18 year old age group.
Hi,
I work in the game industry and even though I have never myself tried to pitch or 'sell' a game idea I can tell you that you are more than likely wasting you time.
But I do have some advice.
Complete you game, and do it with distributing it yourself in mind.
Currently there are several platforms that you could distribute on that have waiting audiences. Two notable ones are:
1. iPhone
2. xBox 360 (via XNA club)
Both of these platforms are accessible to the 'small guy' and 'big guys' are on there two. Both of these platforms have large customer bases. Both of the platforms offer digital distribution and allow you to charge money for your app.
That being said there is always the PC and Mac desktops you can develop for at anytime. However, getting our game noticed and distributed is a bit tougher.
You can either create a highly polished finished game and charge money for it.
Or release a demo for free to peak interest.
Either way you would be in a better position when it came to pitching your idea, but that would I would still think that would be a waste of time. But you would be in a good position to possibly apply for a job at a game company.
Like most have said in this thread. Ideas are cheap. Even demos are cheap. Hell look at Kongregate and all the other flash portals. We have more games than we can shake a stick at.
Everyone at my work has literally hundreds of great ideas, and a few more of us programmers are always making little demos.
So again my advice is to plan on making it yourself and distributing it. Maybe even for free and get your eye on obtaining a job.
Now I've seen Everything
Game ideas are ten a penny. When I worked at a game company we got three of four "ideas" sent to us every day of the week. We threw all of them in the bin, fancy artwork and all.
If you want to design games you need to start applying for jobs as a game tester. If your feedback/ideas are good you'll work your way up.
Beware though ... if there's one thing which outnumbers game ideas it's people who want to be game testers. There's millions of people who think getting paid for playing video games would be the coolest job ever, though the reality is that testing games is nothing like playing them.
No sig today...
Dude, I can come up with a dozen ideas a minute... where's my dimes at? Seems like going solo, or preparing to not get paid are really your only options. Which is more important? Seeing the game made out of love, or getting paid? If it's getting paid, then the only way you'll make it in the industry is by heading your own company, apparently...
Much like Hollywood, If you can get a basic concept together and get in front of the right eyes, you're in. Brush off your social skills, practice hobnobbing, chatting people up, and getting into networks. Go to GDC at very least, if not other industry events. Find the companies most likely to publish a game like yours, find out who the producers, CEOs, art directors, etc etc are and ... uh ... stalk them. Not really, but know what they look like and make and effort to meet them. Avoid the big names like Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, John Carmack, etc. They have tons of groupies to fight through. But there are plenty of influential people at game companies who are anonymous and would be happy to talk shop for a bit at an open bar at a convention, especially of they are flattered by being recognized.
Subscribe to Game Developer magazine and become visible on their forums. I'm only peripherally involved with game development these days, but I still read it cover to cover. It's one of the few industry mags that has useful insightful information from the front lines.
Though it's still a one in a million chance. Frankly, self publish or forget it. There are lots of venues right now (competitions and the like) for a self published game to get exposure. And put the effort into the art and sound. There are tons and tons of shitty looking games in this space, so do everything you can to stand out. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and the first impression is visuals and sound, not gameplay. Not everyone who could help you out is going to have a chance to play it, so a compelling screen shot goes a long way. I've seen a games sold on a video mocked up in Premiere and on concept art alone without having a line of code.
Yes, I have given some contradictory advice. But it is a crowded business, getting more crowded every day. There is no one path to success. You need to shotgun it, turn yourself into a blunderbuss loaded with your game. Make it your daily passion and put yourself out there to get noticed. If you don't believe in your idea enough to do that, then file it under "dreams" and move on.
Disclosure: For several years I had the job title "Game Designer" for a small company of industry veterans.
Won't work, never has.
The only way is to give a copy to a lawyer, get them to sign/date every page and keep a copy in their office. You can do the NDA thing as well if you want but in both cases you still won't have much because the company could claim they were already working on something very similar and you won't be able to prove otherwise.
Even better, just trust people. They're most likely not interested in your ideas but if you impress them enough with your enthusiasm and/or artwork you might get a job as a games tester/artist.
No sig today...
I'm a game developer with 19 years in the business. I second what everyone else has said about the fact that the industry doesn't buy ideas. Let me also add that you can't protect an idea.
You can copyright a specific expression of the idea, such as a design document, but only that particular text is protected, not the idea itself.
You could try to patent the idea, if it meets the standards for being a patent, but that would make you an evil scumbag. Game ideas should not be patentable.
The one thing you CAN do is treat the idea like a trade secret. Then you can sue your employees if they reveal the idea, and you can sue your competitors if you can prove that they spied on you to get hold of it. But for this to count, you have to actually act as if it IS a secret, i.e., don't tell anyone about it, and keep anything written down in a safe!
Bottom line: if you don't want to be "ripped off," keep your mouth shut. But that won't prevent independent invention. Chances are very good that someone else has had a similar idea, and there's not a thing in the world you can do to prevent them exploiting it... nor should there be.
I piss off bigots.
In addition to the above, I'd point out that XNA creator's club (link) is a great place to make turn your concept into reality -- assuming you're also planning on doing the actual implementation.
Most importantly: AFAIK, the creators club also provides a network where you can find other people interested in making the game, so for example, if you need another couple of coders, or an artist or somebody capable of doing sounds etc., creators club is probably the best place to find them.
If you are really serious about this, you have to be committed. I see a lot of people with a good idea, waving it around at other people, expecting them to commit more money, time and soul, than they are themselves. I was one of those people, always talking up my latest idea. Then one day I just saw how stupid that was. I quit my job and told my family and in laws that I was going to make this thing happen (picture shouting matches). Turned my prototype into a product, spent my own money flying around the country trying to market it and to find partners. And the result was that people saw how committed I was to the idea, and wanted to get on board. I did get investors and partners. (Later it all bombed, but that is another story.) If you think about the reverse situation. Somebody who has so little committment to their idea that they want to sell it outright. Nobody wants to throw money at that person. Most people want to join forces with a winner. So if you are serious. Borrow money, hire programmers, form a company and get going. If the risk is too great for you, it will certainly be too great for VCs, investors etc.
Have a lawyer present to witness presentation of the idea, in person.
If a company agrees to hear and possibly fund/produce your idea, then rips you off, they owe you compensation. See pulse wipers.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
He'll try to steal it and then he'll have to play your grandma to prove you really wrote it.
I was involved in starting a small game development company. While we were unsuccessful, here are the most important things:
1) Get a demo - the closer it is to production quality the better. When it is closer to production quality, there is less cost (and therefore less risk) to the publisher, who you are asking to put down cash on.
2) Come up with a business plan. How expensive is it going to be to finish the game? You need to know this before you go asking for cash.
3) You will probably need to get some legal assistance if you're serious about this (and it won't be cheap!)
4) If you're on a shoestring budget, you may look at doing a flash game and using advertising revenue.
5) I don't know enough about digital distribution to give you a plan - but it may be the right way to go. We might have done this if we were willing to continue to invest time in the game, but we decided to call it since we're college students and about to start looking for real jobs.
Specifically on keeping your idea from being highjacked, you will need legal assistance, and if you need legal assistance, be willing to put down some non-trivial amount of money.
Everyone knows that Ninjas become vampires and Pirates become Zombies.
a) industry connections
b) a totally kickass prototype
My friend is in cahoots with a former developer that worked for one of Nintendo's American studios, who used his connections to schedule a presentation to some Ninty higher-ups in the hopes of scoring a dev license. They spent a good two months building a PC prototype for the pitch. It was basically a finished game (the pitch was for a puzzler, so making a fully functional game is pretty feasible compared to an RPG), and it worked with the Wiimote to show how the control would work as well. The guys at NOA said it was the most polished prototype they'd seen, and that went a long way in convincing them it would work.
So my advice would be to do the same: if you're new and unproven, show them not just the core concept, but a prototype so clean that they can't help but be impressed with your skills along with your ideas. This is especially true if you don't have the personal connections to get you a little starting cred... Good luck to you!
Ideas are cheap and easy to come up with. You're not actually as brilliant as you think. The real work of any concept, games included, is implementation.
I'm not saying you can't succeed at it--but just that it's vanishingly unlikely.
Unless you're well connected.
expandfairuse.org
First, learn the difference between "whose" and "who's". Hint: you used it incorrectly on the front page of /.
Love that attention to detail you got going there. Makes me want to invest.
1. Do your research. Your question is a good one, but is asked and answered constantly in the games industry. Check the industry sites for relevant info.
http://www.gamasutra.com/
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/
etc etc
Yeah, the games industry doesn't buy ideas. I'd recommend befriending a programmer in the industry and just making the game together, then enter it in a couple of competitions (e.g. the Indie Games Festival one), and start selling it. If it's genuinely a great game it'll rise to the top and publishers will take notice.
Easier to find a programmer who's keen to work on an indie game if you're already in the industry, but there are also "matchmaking" sites for this sort of thing, everyone needs artists too!
If your idea is worthy of being produced, then you should produce it yourself. Raise money, quit your job, mortgage your house and run with it.
If you don't think it's good enough for that, then why should they buy it from you?
I'm not trying to be mean, but a single flop for a small game company could put it completely out of business. No owner in their right mind would buy something from someone who hasn't proven the idea has legs beforehand and is just looking for a way to polish it and distribute it.
If you can't build it, get a partner. If you can't get a partner or 3 as excited as you are, eat ramen for 6 months and make it work. If you can't pull that off, then your idea probably isn't worth investing in.
Does that scare you?
Don't tell them it's "kinda like a cross between Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever"
"And then I visited Wikipedia
Visibly the poster has an idea for a game but cannot implement it.
Why do you think the poster came to /.? Yes, people with loads of free time on their hands, and technical skills.
Any volunteers now?
If you really have shiny new game mechanic ideas and not just worthless stuff like "a MMORPG with robots that you build and upgrade out of 100+ parts Spore Labor-style or "a Lucas Arts style point-and-click adventure with lolcats based around internet memes" then code a demo.
Forget graphics, music, sound or any artistic approach whatsoever - just make the mechanics work. If you are not the best coder or can't code or even script at all, so you could use an existing game engine, then do it on paper.
Seriously, even if your game is realtime, you can certainly simplify it and test if it would work. Try to do it with some other games like maybe Lemmings or Zuma Deluxe to get familiar with the process. If it works, then find someone to code it for you. That way it will look more like you imagined it. If you just have an idea and give it to 100 coders, you will get 100 different games. Oh, and it shopuld take between 1 day and 2 weeks to finish it. If it's still fun playing it for the same timespan it took to develop it, then go on.
With the game mechanics demo ready, you should try to recrute a very small team, perhaps just 1 coder and 1 gfx-artist. Preferably, you are already one of them and just need another guy. Even if you could cover both, get another person to work on it with you to exchange ideas and be more productive. Don't bother with music+sound yet, take existing stuff out of other games, do it for unimportat gfx like trees etc. as well.
What you now want to do is a demo that should almost look+feel like the finished product. This should take 2 weeks to 2 month. Then you could try to show it to publishers or VCs but I still wouldn't hold my breath. Unless your game is almost finished (and therefore already paid), you wil lstill have a hard time finding someone to give you money to build a team. What you need is a track-record, so make the first games shareware or even freeware. The best way would be to sell it over a big casual games portal like real arcade or similar sites. If you made a well selling shareware game that people know of, you will have less problems dealing with everyone you have to deal with, including finding decent people for your team.
Good luck.
If you are interested in doing it that way, then you should goolge for a Gamasutra article named rapid game development written by the guys that mad those World of Goo games.
If you want any piece of the pie from your idea, you must make the game yourself. Sounds like you are lacking the programming and related skills, but that is what team members are for... find or form a team and take the idea further... form a company and take the game to a working demo, approach publishers and see if they'll bite. If they do, the publisher will take 85% and leave your team 15%, but they'll finance the game. If they don't bite, hey you have a game company... work on another idea while doing ports of other games to your platform of choice.
You can actually develop and launch your own game for next-to-nothing. This year's most talked about title took that approach and has earned it quite a reputation. While it falls somewhat short of Portal in playability, Limbo of the Lost provides an excellent model for bootstrapping your own game concepts.
http://www.gameplasma.com/limbo_of_the_lost_or_oblivion/
0% employment and six figure salaries.
If it doesn't pan out but you still think that the idea would be fun to play if you could just find people to help build it by growing a community around it. Sure it won't pay but it might be the thing in your portfolio that will lead to the job that does.
I just can't be bothered.
You grok the Singularity? Does that give you the right to tell others that they are not as brilliant as you (in a lame font)? If you really do grok the Singularity, you'll realize it's no damn game.
Ideas are a dime a dozen true, but really great ideas are rare, anyone who plays a lot of games knows that 98% of the stuff that comes out is just recycled crap and american schwarzenegger movie style mindless action.
Also rare are people who can distinguish a really good idea from an average one.
I think indie is the way to go as most of the best NEW ideas I have seen recently are indie games and with the breakdown of IP law and the massive drop in profitability of all software and media that I personally hope is coming the question is going to be 'do you really want people to play your game or do you just want money'
That's your only hope of success. If you can make a demo in something like say Flash and post it online for people to play and validate then maybe, just maybe you'll generate some publisher interest. A good example of this is Alien Hominid, started as a simple flash game and ended up being on every console and XBLA. You're never going to walk into EA, Activision or THQ and just show your game concept off. But if you make a demo and get people excited about it, then maybe someone will take interest.
A few years back, one company I worked at had developed a playable demo of a game. We had an engine that worked very well, and was even being shown at the Nvidia booth at E3 (it showcased their latest tech very well). When other companies saw it, they asked how we had managed to license the Doom 3 engine (this is before Doom 3 had shipped, mind you) - it looked that good.
We had the playable engine you could walk around a sample level and interact with, a story with storyboards, and plenty of concept art. We had an established company, founded by a well known game developer (who went back quite a ways in the industry), and all of our people had experience on at least one previous big budget commercial title. We had self funded a lot of the development to this point. All we needed was a company to pick it up and give us funding to go wide with development.
We showed the game to a variety of publishers, and only a few were interested. But even then there was a catch. Those few who were interested, wanted to see a lot more before they bit. It became quickly apparent that the only way we'd ship the title was if we self funded most of the game's development. That was the nail in the coffin - we didn't have that money lying around, and our attempts at venture capital funding failed miserably.
Another example - an independent developer not too far from us had developed their own game to completion, and went to a publisher. The publisher looked at it, liked what they saw, and then said "Well... can you turn it into a Star Trek game?" So they did, and the Star Trek game got published. However, I believe they ended up having to self-publish their original game.
Publishers don't want to publish your game. They want to publish their game. They don't want to fund you to develop your game, but they will gladly fund you to develop their game.
Your best bet - develop it up on your own, and try to sell it on Steam or the like.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Rather than an individual game idea - I've been working on something a little more powerful:
A (flexible/modular/scalable - (width and depth) - etc.) computer-based RPG 'system'.
Well - I say 'system' because it's not just one complete system, like, say, the D20 system or anything like that - I.e. 1 set system that gets used over again - though it can certainly be used as one, or 10, or a hundred - it's more like a framework which you can use to create the RPG system you need for the specific game you are creating - without having to create an entire system - (having to work out all the relationships between all the numbers etc.) - from scratch.
I began thinking about this after playing Diablo 2 and Everquest one after the other and seeing so many problems repeat themselves - from then on I started analysing all the RPG's I could and figuring out why/how/what the problems were and how to fix them - my 'system' is the result.
To really see how far it could go, and what could be done with it, though, I knew I needed specific game idea to tie it to - of course, the bigger the better in this case, so an MMORPG went without saying. Even my game idea is pretty interesting - (as-in, it doesn't currently exist in any way shape or form - (A co-operative only MMORPG)) - but TBH, it doesn't really matter so much next to the system itself.
To give you some idea of what it could allow a game to do - I had a long chat with some people after I played World of Warcraft, about the system as I had it then, (which was a pretty heavy hard-core RPG system), and was talking about a specific combat system I'd though of implementing - (for the game-idea I had) - and the first thing they complained about was no auto-combat. Then they complained about the fact that my system sounded too complicated to play and the 'discussion' went from there...
After I sat down and had another look at my system, though, I realised something important:
It could be HIGHLY, (almost totally), automated. Without changing any figures or anything else about the system - or anything to do with the game, I realised that it would be possible to use my system to create a game where you could give the player as little or as much choice about the RPG elements as they'd like:
Want it all on rails/auto combat etc. - (adventure mode)? Can do. Want to have full total control over how all the figures, (attributes/skills etc.) are manipulated/improved as-well as a (optional!) more involved combat system - (hard-core/full RPG mode)? Can do. Want a half-way house between the two? Can do. WANT A BALANCED/COMPATIBLE CHOICE BETWEEN ALL THREE IN THE SAME GAME? Can do!!!
The thing is, is that I KNOW that this is what the industry is after - so many games seem to be trying to aim for something like this - but they take it SO slowly - most of the ideas I've had to solve a lot of the problems I've seen are, really, only just starting to appear - unfortunately, they are very sporadic throughout the number of games, whereas my system is about incorporating it all, (and more), into a single game - but I haven't a clue how to go about doing that...
That's the point - what can I do with my 'system' - it cannot be used for a Pen and Paper based RPG - (it's too automated for that) - so that's out, but I'm not sure where to start.
Well - I know what I'd like - I'd like to get a small group of people together and do a little action/hack-and-slash RPG, just to prove the basic system works, but I'm not sure how to even go about doing that. Unfortunately I'm not a programmer - I'm a (poor/broke etc.) musician/composer - (with a strong logical/analytical side).
Also, it hasn't helped that a lot of people I've spoken to, don't quite 'get' it. I've had quite a few 'discussions' with other people about why my system works the way it does, and it appears that either a) people don't seem to understand RPG's the way I do, or b) they don't understand the philosophy I have that underpins my system.
It's because of THIS, tha
'Stupidity is an often fatal disease' - R. A. Heinlein
I have a lot of respect for good ideas, but I tend to agree with Derek Sivers take on ideas vs. execution. (You'll have to scroll down to the part where it says "be an executioner").
So as specific advice I'd say: make the game yourself. If it's beyond your skills, get people to go in on it with you as a team. Hire them if you must. If the idea is really good, it should be worth executing, right? Take your idea as far as you can. Go beyond a "rough as nails" demo and into the space of a great indie game. Get it on Steam or some other distribution network.
Eventually, if you make a company that executes things well, or if you find your way to the top of such a company, then your ideas will be worth a lot more because you'll have the ability to execute them. For starters I think that the only way to see if your ideas are truly worth something is to execute them yourself. Be your own first believer.
Best of luck.
hmm I think its great that your putting together a demo trailer or whatever, but in the end you need the game. In other words you need an engine to drive the game maybe you can build all the models code the animation, build the levels, create the sound etc. But without an engine you have nothing. I believe the quake 3 engine is now open source and has been for sometime. It's free to use obviously you can't use any of their textures, models etc. Hopefully the doom 3 engine will be released in the next couple of years. John Carmack in his last keynote address at Quakecon stated a year or two until release. Id built Doom 3 with 27 people. It can be done. I'm just thinking a trailor or demo might as well be a sketch pad and paper. It's a long road to develop a game, but certainly not impossible. "Got Cash?" You'll need some. Good Luck have fun.
What about tapping into the market of free online games? Of course not all games can work this way, but if it can, you have a great opportunity to gain attention.
:)
Through viral marketing and word of mouth you can earn a lot of money with advertising. Once you have your own 'fan base' you should have enough weight behind you to take it further if that's what you desire.
At least that's my hope, as that's what I'm planning on doing
"If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good." Dr. Seuss
and nobody has reminded the OP about the importance of booth babes?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
If the idea is so unique that nobody else has thought about it then it's most likely quite awful. Usually ideas are not unique, many people get them around same time and develop them further to their own directions. Odds are good that there has been similar idea pitched for the game publisher internally already.
Ideas are cheap. Execution is hard. Publishers don't care to hear your game ideas. They are nearly worthless. A seasoned development team that has a proven track record is worth its weight in iridium, or something; because they will come up with (nearly worthless) ideas and shape them into worthwhile games.
I am not an expert in patents, but I would assume that you should patent the core mechanic(s) of your game as you would with any other invention.
That + NDAs = easier to sue people who steal your idea
Seriously, go rent Grandma's Boy. Clearly one person can write an entire video game in a couple of weeks while high on weed and living with his grandma. All your questions are answered in this movie!
Read a book - http://tinyurl.com/27fd8m It's written by two guys that Variety magazine put in the Top Power Players in the video game business. I put the book together, sold it to the publisher, and edited it. It went to #1 in its category on Amazon.com for a reason - these guys know the business inside and out and you will learn what you need to know about how to break in with a game.
Look at the VG market. Few companies want to spend money on a creative idea. Those that do, simply aren't interested in your idea. If they can just change a few textures and now market their WW2 shooter as a Vietnam shooter, their gonna make more profit than buying and developing your idea.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Very interesting!! Keep working on it! :-)
Perhaps someone can make a stab at implementing it one day!!
You have to be really really lucky to be able to sell a game idea alone. Ideas equate to zilch if you can't materialise them. And doing that is many, many times harder than conjuring up a brilliant idea. You may try pitching your idea to publishers, VCs, or anywhere else you may like, and see where that gets you. But if you can produce something tangible as a proof of concept of that idea, and back up your pitch with that, you may have a running chance of making your odds considerably better. And if you have money to invest in people with expertise who can act on that idea, then, in my opinion, that is definitely the way to go.
From what I've seen from my own experiences in the game industry, you work as a grunt for years before you get a shot at a product manager job for a specific game and have control over what ideas get published or produced. (and don't piss off your workers too much like in SIMCOPTER, lol)
If you have a good game idea the companies come to you just like in the film industry (I worked on the original treatment for DIARY OF THE DEAD, they came to me)... and if you are lucky you will get some small unrelated credit or... they will give you a crappy temp job as an IN to the industry for your game ideas to date.
*BE CAREFUL NOT TO SELL ALL YOUR IDEAS FOR LIFE!*
You bring up some excellent history and titles.
For some further support of #1 I'd suggest looking at the Indie games conferences. Small group, Indie games may be the future of 'real games'. Game Developer Magazine just had an article about the potential demise of 'real gaming'. Compared to the financial success to non-games like Audition live, Habbo hotel, second life it may be hard to keep plopping down 20 million to create a triple A game if you could get a larger audience base doing something far less 'traditional'.
As an aside, one of the more fun 'what can one guy accomplish alone' would be Minions of Mirth. A complete MMORPG - albiet older style gameplay and graphics it's actually impressive.
Whoever suggests that this user even 'thinks' about developing his game for the iPhone is either working at Apple or just giving horrible advice.
Developing for iPhone, you give up all rights to the product in any technical terms. This means that Apple can shut off your application on everyone's phone at anytime and ban you from further development. Also if you have a killer hit, they can shut you down and make a carbon copy of the idea themselves and sell theirs, as you have given them rights to do so.
In fact ANYONE developing for the iPhone knowing this is a freaking idiot that is doing nothing but helping Apple sell a phone with a HORRID UI concept for a phone.
MP3 player, Touch iPods are grand for what they are, phones are for dialing without having to read the screen either feeling the keys or using voice commands - both which the iPhone fail to provide. - God only help the people driving near iPhone users.
(Apple has the biggest DRMing of Software in history, even with remote disable.)
Why do Slashdoters love Apple and iPhones again, I thought we fought DRM and evil?
but truly greats ideas are one in a million. When someone tells you that "everyone has great ideas," ask him what his ideas are. His ideas are probably terrible, and he probably assumes that everyone is as unoriginal as him.
www.gamasutra.com is an excellent business video game website. You'll find everything you need here.
Truth is a matter of perspective. Wear the other guy's shoes before you dismiss him.
You do NOT need to work your way up from game tester to game designer. Forget the "game industry" and the folklore about career paths in that mythology.
If you think you have a good idea, find a programmer to be an early partner, and develop a prototype.
Ideally, don't deal with any established companies, and try to publish the game yourself. People buy games online now, and the concept of a publisher is laughable. Marketing and advance money are the only possible benefits of dealing with a publisher, but if you believe in your game idea, and you are confident that you can implement the game well, then do it yourself.
If you enter the game industry, you're likely to become a mere employee, and you won't get any financial benefit from your innovative ideas. Moreover, your ideas are likely to be modified or distorted by many different pressures within the management of your employer's company or by pressures imposed by the publishers.
Now maybe the advice that some people are giving here applies to most people, because most people might start with more ambition than talent, and most people might not have a good enough view of the overall picture to realize all of the elements that go in to making a successful game. But I think that people with talent should reject the "paying dues" concept. If a game company won't hire you as an entry game designer, and you think you are already a game designer, then say "no" to the "game industry", and figure out some other path to getting your game created.
If you can't find a programmer who likes your game idea enough to join you, as a partner with equity in the project, then your idea isn't any good. You need to develop a prototype, and determine if it is as fun as you both think it will be.
Bottom line: Do whatever you can to avoid the "game industry". The "game industry" is largely a cult of managers, where imagination dies and talent is unrewarded. Really all you want is money to finance development and marketing -- and I think you should probably just work at a non-gaming job to pay your bills while you continue developing your game. It's an unconventional path, but what you create will be your property and under your full creative control, and you will benefit fully from the success of the game. If you fail, you failed while doing exactly what you wanted, and you can learn from the experience. If you can't tolerate the uncertainty or the possibility of failure, then, yeah, maybe the "paying your dues" idea is the safe path...
I worked on a few commercial video games, and I learned a lot about all aspects of developing video games. It can be a fun profession. However, if you divide your salary by the number of hours worked each week, you might determine that you're making money at the same hourly rate as someone working a normal work week at 60% of the salary! That's a big premium for the "privilege" of working in the "video game industry". Also, a video game of any scale is subjected to the creative input of lots of managers -- who think only of maximizing profit. Managers will set parameters on the game according to what *they believe* will maximize profit, but, in fact, their imposed parameters and constraints will, more likely than not, *reduce* the perceived value of the game in the market. I'm sure, as a consumer of video games, you will agree that most video games are the products of the risk-averse instinct to copy the success of others. How many games in the store aren't based on franchises (movies, cartoon characters, professional sporting leagues, television shows, popular books, popular music, etc)? Any innovative game that becomes successful becomes a franchise of its own, like "Tomb Raider", "Duke Nukem", "Half-Life", "Quake", "Doom", "GTA", "*Craft", "Sims", "Civilization", etc. Some of those game franchises have turned out well -- not lazily exploiting customer loyalty to continue making money on each successive release, but actually offering new value. But, the fact is, most franchise games make gam
You should horry up, usually it is 2-3 years when the idea what you got and you tought you were smart to innovate it, it's on markets and in use.
There is companies what allows you to write game ideas etc, and game companies then look them trought there, if they find something intresting, you get profit from it.
You should find those companies site via google, I heard two years ago such companies exist.
First do a mockups from your game, write a short document what it is about (about a5 size letter, so not long) and then longer document how it's ideas works as complete game.
Look how movie industry does this kind things, ask about script writers how they protect their ideas and how they offer them to movie studios etc.
How to pitch a video game idea.
write about it on forum
Company steals idea from forum
Profit! (for the company)
Either that or just become a jnaitor and write about a plumber kicking a giant turtles ass to save a princess, but then again, who the hell would believe that sh|t?
Good luck. Ideas in the games industry are cheap. I've worked in this business for almost 9 years now and there is no shortage of ideas. Your idea without a team or experience is pretty well worthless. No game company wants external ideas, believe me they have enough of their own. Want to sell the idea? Get a team together, do a proof of concept and try getting funding to do it yourself.
The sad thing is 4, 3, and 1 will leave you burned out before you ever start anything and 2 is off the whims of someones free time, which means it will more then likely never manifest itself.
Most people on here are saying ideas are a dime a dozen and while true, good ideas are worth a heck of a lot more then that and they are out there. Such is the reason why Call of Duty 52 is one of the best sellers as is age old games like World of Warcraft.
The industry is starving due to a lack of original content and at the same time they're smothering the very people who can help revitalize it, which are the gamers. Heck, if you want evidence that gamers are starved, the $10 purchasable version of the Spore Creature Creator topped US game sales. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53387 (sorry for a lack of a embeded link)
I have a few very good ideas as well and a decent amount of time playing any game and I come up with revisements and changes for various parts of the game ranging from gameplay mechanics, to restructuring the GUI, to a TC. I'm sure most hardcore gamers are like this, yet there is no way to actually get these ideas to the developers or to a big company. You can post in a suggestion forum, but that almost always fails completely as they're usually just there as a ornament to make the gamers feel like they have some sort of power over what they're playing. Occasionally game developers listen, but it's only to whoever screams the loudest and the longest - reads majority rule.
This is sad in my opinion. People with great ideas shouldn't need to make tech demos, draw up fancy concept art, and then dance infront of people in order for big companies to profit off of them. Ideally speaking good ideas are very easy to recognize just by discussing the concept, no dressing up is needed. Companies should be paying you for your ideas, especially those from the people they're selling the product to! That's why customer feedback is so important for developing new products, looking at sales is only part of the bigger picture.
I'm suprised big companies like EA or Blizzard haven't introduced some sort of pitch your idea to the big whigs, where you submit your ideas to them in whatever form it takes on, with the oportunity to help co-develop a title with a experienced lead designer. Of course this gives them all the rights to the IP and there would have to be all sorts of legal work in the background, but the general idea is there.
Employing a small force of people to screen through all the crap in the drop box is a small sum compared to almost all the rights on a brand new IP. It isn't that hard to turn a ear to the people buying your products, other parts of the industry (automotive?) have been doing it for decades now.
Chances are if one gamer likes it, if his friends, who are also gamers like it, a good majority of other gamers will also like it.
Who best to know what they want besides the people who are buyng the product?
Yes, but getting financing from them is like pulling teeth.
Table-ized A.I.
And those take a lot more time to make.
Ideas are cheap.
A coherent set of ideas that create a whole more than the sum of their parts, that ebb and flow as technical issues come up and are dealt with, that might be worth something.
A game idea is worth nothing. Execution is everything.
Game development is a series of events, where the people who make the money are in it for the duration.
sig fault
agh too much reading... =P
I didn't read the links that you posted, but the most abstracted version of what you talk about makes me think of progress quest, if progress quest had ability for a coop game and you could jump into any parts of the interface to interact with it when you want. Anyway, what you describe as a system sounds like what in programmer speak would be a rpg framework that implements certain rpg design patterns.
; and don't ask the average.
Things have changed a lot since the old Amiga days. The video game business has become a field where billions are being earned, and that's no longer a secret to investors. Things were different in the eighties when investing in video games was considered taking a high risk. (It still is, but not to the degree it was back then.) To learn a bit about how thing work today, follow these hints: 1.) Try to trace the path the Yerli brothers of Crytek went with their X-Isle demo. I think they made just about 100% right in getting the support they needed. But keep in mind that they were very clever from the beginning, which was essential to their success. 2.) To learn more about publishers and their evil ways, read the following interview with legendary game developer Archer Maclean: http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/MACLEAN.HTM Furthermore, the case of Maclean and his brilliant game Mercury may also serve as an illustration of how the definition of what a good idea is may change a lot with a change of perspective. Mercury was the perfect game for all purists (like me), but it didn't sell very well. After Maclean had left, Ignition (his publisher) released a follow-up 'Mercury Meltdown', which was a commercial exploit of Maclean's ideas. And it worked. (I still like the original better, but the masses don't agree with me.)
Everyone else has said that it's not worth going to a game company, and getting VC would be incredibly difficult.
So that limits the game idea to yourself and maybe your friends (testing, level design, maybe even graphics, etc).
Can your game be implemented on the iPhone, or does it require half a keyboard? If it will run on the iPhone, then write it for the iPhone, because you don't need to worry about distribution, and there is a centralised App Store. If it's a good game then you have a market in the millions (tens of millions with the iPod Touch) even if you have to sell the game for $4.99 to get attention. The iPhone's meant to be a simple development platform as well, so that will help you.
If you have to write a desktop game, then it will be difficult on your own. Can you make it into an online game or MMORPRPOGHGRP? Runescape had success with that idea, using Java. Maybe just getting some good basic game demos done online is best, and then demonstrating them to companies if you just want a job...
Since when is /. encouraging 'Intelectual Property'?
Aren't we pro FLOSS?
Here be signatures
Most people pointed out that ideas are pretty much worthless. Many of those people also claimed that in the studios people already have plenty of ideas.
If that is so, would anyone explain to me why those numerous ideas don't make it into the final products? Because after 20 years of gaming experience starting with C64, I fail to recognize the great ideas in the final games. It is in fact not easy to see even a grain of creativity in the majority of recent gaming titles and especially their story-telling sucks. What happens to those great ideas when the end product is just dull, repetitive monster-shooting?
By the way, I have some general game engine idea that is completely novel, technically realizable, and guarantees long-term commercial success while being reusable and not tied to a particular genre. No joke, I mean that seriously. But since I can't sell it and also don't want to be ripped-off, I prefer not to tell it to anyone and instead wait until some professional game developers figure it out by themselves.
Ideas are worth money. The only reason why they can't be sold is because nobody has created the market infrastructure yet. So here is another idea of mine from the early 90ies. I give it away for free, since I have a regular daytime job now and figure that I will never realize it myself anyway: Set up a web site on which you can sell descriptions of ideas, which are in turn described by little teasers. People don't buy the actual idea, they buy a description. Of course, sellers and buyers have a reputation (karma) and scammers can also be kicked out. The price varies with the level of detail (from a short paragraph to 150 pages technical documentary including sample implementation). Also, when an idea description is offered exclusively (optionally plus NDA), it's much more expensive than when it is offered to anyone. If you do this the right way (ask me if you'r ein doubt), it will be a huge success.
Anyway my impression is that business environments destroy most creativity and suppress good ideas, so large companies or game studios should better listen to the ideas of their customers.
You have three options:
1) Get working in the games industry and hold on to the idea. Once you are an established team member and have honed your skills you might get a chance to take your idea and run with it. Be prepared to wait a long long time with no guarantee of success.
2) Start your own company. The game will probably have to be unambitious technically to get it out the door. If you are lucky and it succeeds you might get a chance to make the game you really wanted to make as a sequel.
3) Become a pig-headed self-obsessed git with no inter-personal skills, technical knowledge, artistic sensibilities or management skills. Develop your fawning and butt-kissing techniques to a high level. You are then in the perfect position to take on a project lead role in a games company from where you can marshal a group of highly-skilled but lowly paid workers to do your every insane bidding.
I'd go for option 3. As a side benefit you get good parties, chicks and drugs.
Joe
Cheap metaphorical cliches, that's what. Dime a fucking dozen.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
To quote Jeff Tunnell (this guy here: http://www.makeitbigingames.com/blog/) - "If you are experienced, then you already know that ideas are worthless and demos or nearly completed products are everything."
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.
If you can give them a demo, then they might believe you can turn it into a game, otherwise it's pie-in-the-sky imagination, all risk and no idea of what the reward could be.
Take a small level, make 1 minute section of game, just enough done to make 1 minute of game work. It could be a cardboard cutout world that is only finished enough to function for that 1 minute experience. Make the 1 minute as complete as you can. This is how the guys making Deadspace made their pitch to Capcom, they made a small but complete and playable demo level on their own.
Then when its over, present a plan. Not a plan of what the game will be like, but a plan of how to make the game itself. Number and type of employees needed, budget plan, development schedule, organization flows. The people holding the capital want a return on that capital, they want a profitable product, they don't care about making games happen for the sake of making them. They simply want you to convince them you can create a polished product with their money. What idea that product is created on is just a tiny aspect of the pitch(because ideas are cheap and they've already shot down a ton that were probably better than yours).
Everybody's got game ideas, and there's a ton of good game ideas. But without a good execution they'll never turn into a product, and even boring or plain ideas turn into a good products after good execution.
I haven't sorted through all the comments, so sorry if this has been mentioned.
A somewhat unofficial way of copyrighting work is by taking the original (after copies have been made) and put it in an envelope, shoot up to the post office, and mail it to yourself. The letter gets post marked for that day, and as long as you never open it, it remains proof of date.
Granted this is unofficial, but it is certainly proof.
Something witty.
As a programmer in the biz for just under 10 years, I can assure you there's no way you're gonna sell your idea to a company for a big lump of cash. Doesn't work that way.
Ideas are like children or pets (depending on how serious you are about it). They're worthless to everyone else, unless there's already something exceptional about them that sets them apart. If someone cares about their idea like that, then what kind of ideas does somebody have if their first thought is to sell it.
My ideas are absolutely priceless, and the right people would agree. But, only I can make the pooch fly, figuratively speaking.
It should probably be pointed out that formally registering a copyright with the U.S. government costs a whopping $35, and can be done online in a matter of minutes. That is maybe one Happy Meal more expensive than paying a notary public to roll your own legal creation.
Apparently everyone at Slashdot has had their dreams crushed until all that's left is a cynical husk of a person. The game industry might have a healthy dose of cruel reality to it, but it's sad to see that every post is essentially "ideas are a dime a dozen, you'll never make it, it'll never happen." Games get made every day, by people who at some point, had no experience in the game industry.
I hope the original poster will take the few nuggets of advice on how to actually pursue it and give it a shot, even if the odds aren't in his/her favor.
I currently work as a game designer, for a studio that is in the perpetual rut of getting gigs for licensed titles. The truth, from my perspective:
Everything depends on the publisher. When making any change to the design, there is a hierarchy of rubber-stamps to go through before it can actually be allowed in the game: from the rest of the team, from the producer, from the creative director, etc, with the last step being the publisher.
While some ideas may get squashed in-house, those are usually for the better. As long as you have a hands-off -- or just incompetent -- publisher, then you are free to insert whatever you like.
But if the publisher is intent on showing off their IP in a particular way, all developer ideas will get trashed. In the worst case, the publisher may dictate production practices as well as creative direction. Hence endless crunch, etc.
You sound like you have a great idea that you have made no attempt to test. Find a programmer. Bribe one. Offer an exchange of services. Just get a prototype made and try it out.
If it is as good as you describe it, then you will generate genuine interest in it and some investments. At that point you can pay a good coder to implement it fully, properly, and in a portable way.
What is more likely to happen is that you will show it to people who will blow a billion holes in it because they "will not get it" even when they are playing with it. The smart thing to do is to listen to the advise and follow it. What you will do is ignore the advise and be emo because no one gets your genius.
I think these paths are reasonable. Certainly better than the "just don't try, you can't win" suggestions. I've been on path #1 for a number of years, working on a very nonstandard game that nonetheless has been fairly profitable for me. Not only profitable, but educational, entertaining, and all-around rewarding. I've made great friends, learned a ton, and it's probably going to greatly improve my future job prospects, whether the game becomes a full-time business or I use the skills I've learned to work for someone else. Don't listen to the naysayers. The same people who are telling you that it's not possible to get the game published would outright laugh at my own game's situation (text based, low tech, minimal graphics, in the twenty-first century? Profit from optional donations? Ha!). Assuming you have the time and energy, and the willingness to learn, it's definitely possible to do it yourself.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I don't know what year it is for you,
but here it's still 2008 and your statement "people buy games online now" is just wrong, unless you are writing from the future.
The concept of a publisher is still lightyears from being "laughable". It's still the way most game purchases are made.
Also, "mere employee"s do get a financial benefit from innovative ideas: game design is a paid job, and where I work, you get bonuses and a payrise if you do your job well.
Being an employee is nothing to be ashamed of.
Now if you're talking about receiving a ton of cash because the game sold well,
then don't assume that this cash is only for designers.
They're not the only ones who put some talent and hard work into the game, you know.
Judging from most of the indy game success stories I read, the people you need to sell it to are (a) yourself and (b) the 2-4 friends with the proper skillset to help you pull it off.
Having enough money saved up to cut back on your day job, or quit it for a while, helps too. Or having a spouse who's willing to shoulder the financial burden of the household while you build this thing.
egypt urnash minimal art.
There will always been indie games. As long as people have a passion for creating games.
Of course as the market stands right now there is no rational business reason to invest in them without a compelling business model. Either an established publisher, or an innovative business idea. If you're asking on Slashdot how to get your game noticed, I safely assume that he is not an established game company.
There are hundreds of games that people love and play that made the developer a little bit of money, yet had no serious financial backing. They are not considered a success in the context of operating a business.
(can't believe how many AC's reply to me and how many I bother to respond to)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The most complete guide is on the International Game Developers site http://www.igda.org/biz/submission_guide.php (free reg req.) That's an industry standard. Also, Sloperama.com is perhaps the best resource on the web for game submission techniques and requirements for game jobs. He is a 30+ year expert in the field and deals with your question specifically with GDD examples and everything else.
you truly do love the smell of you own farts you smug EuorTrash bastard, don't you?
Don't work your way up a corporate ladder. The best thing you can do is start your own business. Now a good idea is not enough. Do you have what it takes to run a start-up? Can you find investors? Can you put together a team that can consistently produce good results?
If you can do these things, then start your own business. Your goal could be to become a game publishing powerhouse or to simply get big enough to be noticed and purchased. Either way, it's better to take the risk. Putting yourself in position of selling your game to another company has no long term benefit to you and if you join a game company, you will become yet another employee. Remember, corporations have no loyalty to you. They have a loyalty to their bottom line and they will try to take advantage of you. If they cannot, they will let you go.
For maximum profit and long term benefit on your hard work, go it alone. If you do not have the skills to manage a startup, then find someone who does and put yourself in a developer's position within your own startup. If you're in a country currently in an 'economic recession' then this is the time to start up. Venture capitalists love to put money into startups during recession. When the recession is over and the per unit value of your country's currency increases, your company will be worth much more in a short period of time.
Another coward here replying, but you might as well have spoken about the COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY. Some make it big like Frank Miller (known even to some causal people of the unwashed masses) but the tonnes are grunts working long hours on some aspect of the assembly line (letterer, colorist, inker penciler, corrections) to make deadlines. The truly creative and satisfying aspect is to have a book created from begining to end (ok maybe offload some uninteresting function such as lettering to a grunt).
AMEN!
- another former game developer
EA feeds off the creativity of others like a parasite, even if they act interested they will destroy the game and force you to work on lame sports games.
If youâ(TM)re going to develop games for Xbox 360 and want to sell your game on Xbox LIVE Community Games, youâ(TM)ll need a Premium membership. Itâ(TM)s just $99 per year or $49 for four months.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
Fobsta, sounds like you need a business plan. Right now you have a prototype. Venture capitalists, investors, etc. won't give you 5 minutes without a business plan.
You'll probably need help writing it. I provide this service for my clients. Send me an email, if you would like to explore next steps.
steveskura@gmail.com
-Steve
This guy is right. If you want to make video games, you can either work for someone else and make their video games, (boring!) or you can make your own. Problem is, it's not easy to go out and make your own game and try to make money from it. In fact, it's very hard. I would know; I'm doing it right now. When I say it's very hard, this is really an understatement, because there's no way to accurately verbalize how hard it really is. The above post makes it sound straightforward, but it's not. So, when reading advice like what is given above, take it with a grain of salt, because this kind of advice is not for the overwhelming majority of people.
Hi I just want to give, no - sell a fabulous game concept that I have to a programmer, game company or whoever can get it made. I am a gamer, I have played all kind of games on computer for money, for free, bought some and I have a great time management game that I think would be hot. I do not have the time to change careers, I am in academia, but I enjoy playing and think this would be a fabulous game.. I am not a programmer or technical person at all. Please help!
of people with ideas who want other people to do the work but still get paid for the idea.
The only ones who make any money selling their ideas are the ones whose ideas are about how to make money. Some of them manage to sell their ideas, usually on infomercials. Almost nobody except the person selling the idea makes any money. And you're not trying to sell an idea about how to make money.
Get to work, give it away, or give it up. Ideas are easy, and free.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
You forgot the best way of getting into the industry: writing mods for established games.
Threewave, Counterstrike and any other number of people have all made it successfully that way. Plus, a lot of game company staff are people who started out as modders.
Of course, I started in the game industry and then moved into modding (www.customtf.org), so I did it kind of backwards, but I think it's still good advice.
I've been working in the games industry as a programmer for five years. Pretty much everything the poster above says is spot on. Making your way to a position of creative control within an existing, huge, monolithic game company, would take more patience than Job ever had.
This is the perfect time to be a small indie game developer and put your stuff out on the web. Web games of all kinds are catching on fire right now, and there's no sign of it stopping. At last the landscape is at a place where one or two people working in their garage CAN make a great simple game, can get it in the hands of potentially millions of people through the web, and can make a mint of money off of their game without having to give it all to brain-dead, money-hungry publishers or other middlemen who did nothing to help make the quality product. For proof - and inspiration - look up the success story that "Desktop Tower Defense" has been for its creator (deservedly, because it's a great game and you should also play it if you hadn't). Same for "Urban Dead", an in-browser zombie MMO.
Remember, if no one else funds your game, no one else can dictate how you should change it, and no one else takes a cut of the profits when you finish it. It's having the discipline and patience to finish the project, and finding a couple of similarly disciplined and patient like-minded friends, that's the hard part.
You have summed up everything I've realized in 2 and a half years years working at a game company, particularly the "cult of managers" part. I was hired as an artist/designer, but really I'm just an implementer of bad design ideas that come from the publisher, the licensor, or worse - my own boss, who admittedly hates games made after 1985. It's a sad state of affairs.
You need to put together a business plan. Ideas, products, etc don't usually get venture capital or angel fund money on their own. You need to show that you have a comprehensive plan for your product. Shoot me an email if you want some advice from someone in the industry.
why should I take an AC comment seriously? I rationally explained my position, but you dismiss it in an attempt to incite flames.
"The FACT is, you claimed that nobody will invest in an independent game" .. feel free to point out where I said that. Putting words in my mouth is trolling 101.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You had me until:
If you're going to develop games for Xbox 360 and want to sell your game on Xbox LIVE Community Games, you'll need a Premium membership. It's just $99 per year or $49 for four months.
I'm not sure I get your point.