Start Up Cash

[Clord]

Err... I don't know what happened and why the hell should they bash your artists (where you are the one paying here).


I am personally really thankful that you would share how much you spend to get your game into commercial release. It is a pretty nice reference/information that I do hope others that have jumped into the same water willing to share their experiences.


(I am assuming these 2000 usd on 8 chara + expression + sprite, 2000 for trailer, 2000 usd for UI, 2000 for BI, 300 for music, 100 for map are your spending foryour newest STEAM released game The Clan, right?).


In fact. In term of information. For me. That's the most important information I get from this topic.

I don't know the full details either. I just got contacted today by an artist who didn't provide the closer details.


Yeah, those are The Clans - Saga of the Twins related expenses.


In terms of how much I have made so far, I'm pretty sure that posting exact figures is something valve wouldn't allow. Even those developer teams who make for example blog posts about their sales and stuff like that don't reveal how much of the money has been coming from Valve and just give overall vague figures.

 

[Kyuukon]

Can you answer this: Have you been able to recover the investment with the sales to date?

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere]

Indrah and MakioKuta providing the voice of reason once again. Listen to these experienced developers.

I was a tester for Team Isolation's Remnants of Isolation (the one that won the Indie Game Maker Contest last year) and I'd say a game like that deserves to go commercial 100%. You've got a game like Unraveled, which pushed for a goal because they proved they'd already created a great base for a game. The creator of Unraveled has created commercial games in the past, they know what they're getting themselves into.

Another example of a successful kickstarter: Omori. This is helmed by Archeia, who has numerous experiences with very many games. She's well versed in making games and she makes games that have a good following.

With You Are Not the Hero, seita was lucky in that he's a very skilled marketing person, and also a person who will push through even despite some apparent troubles perhaps with financial and in other departments.

I was also loosely involved with Labyrinthine Dreams, or at least from a moral support point of view, and that game was only successfully funded because Artbane + Volrath created Master of the Wind, a game which is largely regarded as one of the most popular RPG Maker games of all time.

So in short, I don't mean to poop on every Kickstarter's parade, but please please don't think you can make a game like the video you showed (which looks like it can't even be made in RPG Maker) unless you really absolutely know what you're doing. Get some prototypes under your belt. If you had a prototype of the entire fighting game from front to back, with placeholder graphics I might believe you. But I doubt you even have any of the core gameplay mechanics programmed, so I'd suggest getting onto that first. Practice makes perfecto.

 

[Andar]

OK - I just checked something and the result is that the OP cannot make a kickstarter campaign (and most probably won't be able to make a commercial game at all), because according to her profile, Let's get Nep Neping is only 16 and you have to be at least 18 to be allowed to make a kickstarter campaign.


So I suggest to use the next two years to make a non-commercial game, that should give enough experience to decide whether or not to make a commercial game after she's old enough to be allowed to do that.

 

[Indinera]

Can you answer this: Have you been able to recover the investment with the sales to date?

He can probably answer this.

However there are a lot of other devs/games and one of them hardly makes the rule. I can understand the curiosity, but one shouldn't conclude anything from one example.

 

[Clord]

He can probably answer this.


However there are a lot of other devs/games and one of them hardly makes the rule. I can understand the curiosity, but one shouldn't conclude anything from one example.

So true.


My game was going to be commercial even before it was even submitted on Steam Greenlight system. Without getting game on Steam I would likely have been screwed in terms of getting on green with the project.


I saw doing that game more as expensive hobby than greedy desire to make a lot of money.

 

[Indinera]

The desire to make money is nothing greedy. How are you going to make a living if you do not make money?

 

[Clord]

Well since I'm posting here, I guess I'm making my living somehow.


I just meant that money isn't my top priority when it comes to my hobby.

 

[Indinera]

You make a living when you can afford to pay your bills, food etc.

Also it no longer is a hobby if it becomes your main source of income.

 

[Clord]

Let's not spam subscribers E-mail addresses with this crap and agree to disagree.

 

[bgillisp]

I saw doing that game more as expensive hobby

That is exactly how I'm handling my game, as if it was a slightly expensive hobby. Of course, if you use the money you would have spent on video games to buy game assests, its not quite as expensive, its just a trade of one hobby for another.

 

[Clord]

That is exactly how I'm handling my game, as if it was a slightly expensive hobby. Of course, if you use the money you would have spent on video games to buy game assests, its not quite as expensive, its just a trade of one hobby for another.

Yeah.


Plus being technically retired, I have a stable income to get by without needing the game sales. I'm not against becoming wealthy but it is a side effect to me.

 

[Yui]

@Indrah/everyone - I have worked on projects before, but nothing of this scale. Though to be honest I recently found out that the studio I mentioned before is very suspicious, and may not be legit, I will only discuss this in PM though. My whole thing about going commercial right now was because they offer a service where they help you with every aspect of game creation from programing to art to music/sound. All I needed to do was provide an idea and money. But now I am weary of this whole situation and don't think I'll pursue this endeavor, and will return to making stuff on my own (non commercial). Also about the Nintendo thing, anyone here can apply to dev for Nintendo, it just takes about 3 to 4 months before they will call with a response. I'm unsure if I am allowed to post the link here, but I'll give what you can search "Wii U developer's portal" it should take you to the site where you can sign up. <---- if this isn't allowed on the forms either please tell me and I'll remove it.

Anyway, thank you everyone for your concern and by no means stop the discussion on how much it really takes to start up/have a commercial project, as this is very informative and helpful. Also I apologize if I came off as arrogant or prideful I did not mean that. I was just under the assumption that the studio in question would take care of everything, which I'm now very weary of, and probably won't pursue anylonger!!!

 

[sabao]

Don't sweat it. Ambition's a great thing, but when a lot of time and money's involved we prefer to err on the side of caution.

 

[Sharm]

I suppose it was only a matter of time before there was a vanity press version of game publishing.

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere]

My whole thing about going commercial right now was because they offer a service where they help you with every aspect of game creation from programing to art to music/sound. All I needed to do was provide an idea and money. But now I am weary of this whole situation and don't think I'll pursue this endeavor, and will return to making stuff on my own (non commercial).

Yeah that sounds like a scam through and through. Don't trust it.

Anyway, thank you everyone for your concern and by no means stop the discussion on how much it really takes to start up/have a commercial project, as this is very informative and helpful. Also I apologize if I came off as arrogant or prideful I did not mean that. I was just under the assumption that the studio in question would take care of everything, which I'm now very weary of, and probably won't pursue anylonger!!!

You didn't come off as arrogant or prideful, but we want to be able to warn developers of setting scope too high, I tend to do that often as well, it's easy to do. And be wary of those kinds of things where you pay for them to make the game for you, it seems very sketchy and I wouldn't trust it. Besides, the fun is in the gam mak, isn't it?

 

[Yui]

@Shobao - haha thanks! and yep money is valuable!

@Sharm - I totally didn't think of it that way till now but it totally is!

@Cashmere - Game creation is fun!!!, I just got caught up in the romanticism of making my Idea game that I overlooked that!

 

[Wavelength]

@Indrah/everyone - I have worked on projects before, but nothing of this scale. Though to be honest I recently found out that the studio I mentioned before is very suspicious, and may not be legit, I will only discuss this in PM though. My whole thing about going commercial right now was because they offer a service where they help you with every aspect of game creation from programing to art to music/sound. All I needed to do was provide an idea and money. But now I am weary of this whole situation and don't think I'll pursue this endeavor, and will return to making stuff on my own (non commercial). Also about the Nintendo thing, anyone here can apply to dev for Nintendo, it just takes about 3 to 4 months before they will call with a response. I'm unsure if I am allowed to post the link here, but I'll give what you can search "Wii U developer's portal" it should take you to the site where you can sign up. <---- if this isn't allowed on the forms either please tell me and I'll remove it.

Anyway, thank you everyone for your concern and by no means stop the discussion on how much it really takes to start up/have a commercial project, as this is very informative and helpful. Also I apologize if I came off as arrogant or prideful I did not mean that. I was just under the assumption that the studio in question would take care of everything, which I'm now very weary of, and probably won't pursue anylonger!!!

Thanks for the info about Nintendo!!  Had no idea the barrier to entry there was that low.

Based on their promises and wants, I would be extremely suspicious of this studio.  It sounds like they want your money and possibly your ideas as well.  If they will provide the work for you piecemeal (pay them for each item as they prove it's completed), and you can sign them to a legally binding contract not to steal or share your ideas, then you might be able to safely build trust with them.  Just remain skeptical and look out for ways you might be getting abused.

On the other hand, don't feel like you have to do something alone first.  Working with other talented people will make it a harder, more complex process, but it will provide lots of motivation and it will massively increase the speed and quality of your game production if you can cooperate well.  I still say you should reach out to someone in the industry and ask for them to mentor you a bit - they can answer the questions about studios like this and what it takes to make a console game.

 

[Scythuz]

It's good that you have decided to be weary of said studio and are considering what everyone has said, there are so many sad cases where this hasn't been the case and it's nice to see an exception for once

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere]

Based on their promises and wants, I would be extremely suspicious of this studio. It sounds like they want your money and possibly your ideas as well.

To be honest, they just want your money. I'll be frank and say 99% of the time nobody wants your ideas. They all have dreams of their own. Devs are too scared that people will steal their ideas when they're half formed. They're not gonna. The only ideas people steal are those that are already realized, and by that time you're already dreaming up new content. Nobody wants to make your "epic" because the audience is the hardest person you have to convince that it's good. Even if you had the concept for the next Super Mario, chances are that no-one cares until you come up front with your own interpretation of it and a prototype.