Gudam Warrior Member Posts: 25 From: Registered: 02-26-2003 |
I was wondering how to start a small video game company. What do I need? |
Angel Member Posts: 699 From: The Blissful State Of Me? Registered: 05-21-2001 |
The real qustion would be what do you already have? What tallent are you going to contrubute? Just some qustions before I answer. |
CobraA1 Member Posts: 926 From: MN Registered: 02-19-2001 |
First of all, which country are you in? |
ArchAngel Member Posts: 3450 From: SV, CA, USA Registered: 01-29-2002 |
Also, are you plan on making free games, or actually selling games? A freeware company is easy. just get a group of homies and make some games. That's what I did. A commercial company, well, I have no idea. Later! ------------------ |
Mack Administrator Posts: 2779 From: Registered: 01-20-2001 |
Realistically, you'll need a lot of money, and I'm not talking about a few hundred dollars. If your really serious and dedicated to it, you need a half decent dedicated website, the proper software licenses, etc. etc. etc. All this can cost several thousands of dollars, and this is even before things like a team, an engine, etc. and all of this comes out of your pocket. Arch Angel posed a good question. Do you plan on creating a free game or a commercial game? Even free games can cost money in the end (just not as much), I still think the best thing to do right now would be to get a solid design foundation (this is critical!), then work up on a alpha/beta release (you'll probably be doing a lot of things yourself), then go hunting for people who may donate some time to help you out. Normally people who actually see something in progress and it looks pretty good, they'll join on to help you out, then you branch into team management, which is a whole topic in it's own. [This message has been edited by Mack (edited March 08, 2003).] |
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CobraA1 Member Posts: 926 From: MN Registered: 02-19-2001 |
If you go the usual route for programming and distributing your software, yes it can cost a bundle. However, there are free alternatives to most options, except web hosting. Sure there's geocities and other free services, but they tend to severely limit what type of stuff you can put on your webpage, so you probably won't be able to use them for software. I've never tried a free/shareware directory like Tucows, so I don't know if they are free or not. I do, however, have my own domain name and a webpage, but I'm paying for those. The cost of a webpage is pretty cheap if you know where to look, but free hosting that allows executable files is almost impossible to find. As far as licences go, I don't know much about free/shareware licenses, but I do know that there are many open-source licences available for no cost. I've seen a few freeware/shareware licenses floating around, but I'm unsure of the legalities of applying somebody else's license to my own software. Software development can be done with no cost using open-source tools, and there are some free tools available from other sources. Java is the easiest to develop for for little/no cost, as Sun Microsystems provides the SDK and IDE for Java development at no cost. There's also BlueJ (designed for educational use, but its class diagram layout of classes is usually only found in Enterprise-level IDEs (via UML)) and Jedit (a pretty good code editor with project/class management plugins available). The GNU compiler is also available, but all it does is compile - it's not an IDE. You'd be surprised what's available for little/no cost if you look hard enough. Start small, and make sure the code is reuseable, so you don't have to re-invent the wheel! |
GUMP Member Posts: 1335 From: Melbourne, FL USA Registered: 11-09-2002 |
Incorporating in the US is easy, you could probably do it yourself but I'd still recommend a lawyer. Problem is you need the $ for all the bills associated with that. |
