Firstly I will say that I am a part time financier of Independent touch/flick style games and I am always looking for promising projects to fund and develop. I do think that the individual game developers who are sitting in their bed/lounge room are the reason why the mobile games industry is where it is today and will assure the growth and prosperity of the industry into the future. I am a gamer from a very early age, from Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 tape drive, I know what I like and what I think will in the end make money, because although the artist amongst you may say Im in it because I love to make Art (in some form Picture/animation/sound/code). But in the end if your art is not appreciated and make money (either break even or Profit). Then the next game will not come. This, I think is a problem with some Independent developers. That is the point of this first post: Know who you pitching to, know your target audience and know with confidence the direction of the game. The funders will want to have an input in big decisions and be prepared to make business decisions in defiance of the Artist inside.
Thank you for this. We are in complete agreement, this is a business first, and an art second. Ideally there's room for both in a game, but the hard decisions have to be purely business based (yay capitalism...). I'm looking forwards to your next tip(s)! Our next game has a lot of investor potential, enough to give all of us on the team goosebumps and keep us awake at nights in excitement, so we will be exploring this more fully soon. How do you recommend putting together a pitch? And how does one go about contacting and/or finding potential investors?
I would love to know where I can find some investors who are willing to take a loss with the first few games in order to help grow a company- especially on the iphone market, the more games you have, the more your individual games sell.
Hmm, I believe those are called Suckers, not Investors. Honestly though, it would be interesting to know how far sighted a particular investor is. A lot probably has to do with how well you present yourself and pitch your company.
If you are expecting an investor to take a loss on a couple of games before make a 'green' game. Expect a lot of knock backs. These people who give out money into what the believe to be 'losers' will eventually disappear. There is a saying that the market will remove bad investors, this is true with any market, stock/ housing even basketball cards, if you buy assets that are going to lose money you will run out. Start ups only get investors after an idea or a product, (some are the exception don't get me wrong). That said, tip 2, only ask, if you are pitching, for a percent of the calculated development cost, to use a very public product, Angry Birds: " 100,000 euro's to produce" if they pitched 50k for half the game, they would of received a flat 'get out!' ( without 20/20 hindsight) But if the pitch was 25 or 20 for a 50 split then it is a lot more attractive to the person/company taking up the 'RISK'. Don't be mistaken risk is what will get you funded. If you reduce risk for an investor you will attract. ask yourself if you had 20-30 grand sitting around would you give it to someone just out of university ( generality) to make a game that may or may not give you your money back or be that .1% chance that make good money. Remember when investing: "Profit is made before you buy, not when you sell!"
it means that the investor for 20-25% of the risk he get 50% and YOU for 75% to 80% of the risk you get 50%. + He do nothing, and you work... -> you are a bad investor Unless the money is made to pay your own salary, you better get 100% of the investement in that case. The investor bring the money and you bring your work and expertise (and some money to prove that you believe in the project). And if you just go out of university what ever you ask, NO investor will give you money.
its 20-25k (money) not % and of course students never come up with brilliant ideas that get invested into.. like facebook.. *cough* most likely no one invests in just ideas.. but if you have a running game and can show of your ideas in an interactive manner.. you can get funded.. thats the way most of game developement worked over the years.. pitching prototypes & proof of concepts to various publishers etc. of course that won't work for the next run of the mill endless jumper, runner, gunner whatever.. but enough developer got under the cover from different publishers.. you don't need to be 20 years in the biz to be able to create an competive mobile game. sometimes it can be even a problem if you only worked on big titles for years.. because its then even harder to make smaller games and you need to force yourself to put only one candle on the tiny cake and not 20, because there is not enough space but one lives and learns
20-25K for a 100K budget game is 20-25% of the money risk, no? But maybe my math is a little rough I didn't say no student have good idea. But like you say no one invest on student only idea. Student just go out of university != Facebook ( facebook is just the second business of a student, and receive a first investement for 7% of the company, when the business was already successfull..)
Considering without them you'd have no money, they're entitled to a larger cut and you'd have to make do with the smaller budget.
An investor RISK is greater than the developers RISK, the physical payment of funds for a project even in your mind is going to be successful, is a hard thing to do. And im not saying the time put in is not valued, it is completely. Think about it like this, if tomorrow your boss comes to you and says ok, do you believe in the project? (You say yes) well ok the project but we are running a little short on cash, can you put in half of the budget, not get paid until the project goes live and we start making money. Im betting 98% of people will say No thanks Ill just keep getting my normal weekly/monthly pay cheque! @zigzag Games: what type of games are you interested in?
From my experience, investors need that to invest: - A demo (tech demo, some kind of piece of the game that shows you have a product that matches a consumer's need) - A team trackrecord (these games published, these successes, that many years in the industry) - Some kind of business plan that states a clear return on investment (x10 in 12 months being better than x3 in 24 months... and the game industry is not good for that) So basically, funding in gaming is tough. The ROI is low, except if you make Farmville-like games that will create a multi-million user base. And you must have contacts. Very hard finding a dude having 500k to spend on your game if you are a game developper (I mean, hey, you are actually reading this forum right? And you're sitting on your chair in boxers with a can of coke right, you're not in the San Francisco's Sheraton's lobby...). At least, I find it difficult. I went the road of "no salary for a year and put all my money in it".
In the Touchjudge example that I was referring, without them you still have 80K dollars You are a developer and you invest you own money of 75-80K dollars. You are short of 20-25K dollars, and for this you give 50% of the profit!-> of course it's easy in that case to find an investor yourself -> you are a very very bad investor (you bring the product, you make the product, you invest 80% of your money, and you get only 50% of the final price) This is possible for a 10 millions of dollars budget. If you have already invested 8 millions, and you're short of 2 millions, finding investor with this kind of money is hard. You may be forced to give him more than he deserved. But for 20-25K to add to your 75K, it is easy to find it (friends, family, colleagues, your bank) Emeric you need to add something in your list: you have to show that if the project failed, you will also lose something (money invested in the prototype or your own money or etc..).
if you have a 80k for a 100k project you don't need additional funding.. you just need to cut loose a few features, put them into your update roadmap and be done with it.. if the project earns you money you get thoose missing 20k back soon.. if not well you won't need them then anway.. again i think the example given here talks about having manpower.. and not actual funds.. again if a indie dev team has 80k at their disposal they do not need anyone for additional funding..
@hurcule: I said: " An investor RISK is greater than the developers RISK, the physical payment of funds for a project even in your mind is going to be successful, is a hard thing to do" So what i'm reading from your post is a developer who has 80% of the projected cost will go looking for an investor? "you are a very very bad investor (you bring the product, you make the product, you invest 80% of your money, and you get only 50% of the final price)" -- who is a bad investor? I read that you are calling the developer a bad investor? If the project is a success, who recives all the name recognition/game company name splashed around. I know this is not worth physical money in your pocket but it is worth alot. Great investment: Coca-Cola/Disney these names are worth upwards of 50 billion (USD). If you have a track record of success and a nice cash flow, go to the bank and ask for a small business loan, We are talking about 98% of developers out there making their 1st/2nd/3rd game that are 'lacking success'. @ Mr Ugly: "if you have a 80k for a 100k project you don't need additional funding.. you just need to cut loose a few features" - totally agree with your statement. If you have to much artistic integrity to cut some features out of the game to save cash and release the game, then you most definatly will need the extra 20k, Maybe deal with eg- the first 25k is yours and then you get 20% of proceeds... Last in, first out.. Keep this in mind to keep investors happy... even to draw them in..
Ok Tuchjudge I totally agree with Mr Ugly too, that's why that's still very stupid to give 50% of the benefit when you engage 80% of your real money. You still bring the investor the idea and the concept. And like Mr Ugly pointed you, you don't need this money at all cost. Also don't forget that an investor will cost you money (he will probably ask for some progression track, give you his opinion etc.. that takes you some of your time). hopefully he can bring you his industry contact that compensate. 2 weeks ago a company paid me to do an update of a report for one of their investor. And they paid me pretty money for that But you probably can give 35% of the benefit for 25% of funding, that's a more reasonable deal. There is no point of keeping an investor that don't invest much happy. If you have too much artistic integrity, the investor won't give you any money... If you can still make a game that sell with 80K, he will give you the money to spend only in marketing -> that will increase his potential income. He is a business man not an art sponsor. That's why many go to the indie way and try to find funding from their own resources like myself.
I've learned recently that publishers are not worth the time of day during development! They want the app made already and won't support you until the app supports them. Better off staying indie if a publisher can't provide when you need them.
@Hercule: Ok at least we are now on the same page, the % stated were only an example, sure you can play around with the % in and outs based on many variables. Of a 100k project give 5 people 10% and charge them 15k/10k/5k each its completely up to you. We have heard that developers are great from people and they are there simply for there 30% and all they have to do is put the name on it. I agree that publishers are in some cases a waist of time for you and your games but in the case of "if a kid see's chillingo (C) for example on a new game and he likes 'the bird game', if your indie game(although 10x better in quality and payablilty) is sitting right next to C's new game, based on that alone he is going to check out the C's game first. It truely is as simple as that, and people are 5 times more likely to buy the first thing then buy the second.
