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funding for a starting up game company?

Submitted by ninothe on

where would one start?
i my group at school is just doing a research docutment and this is one of the things we have to find out. We have to pretend we're a gaming company trying to get funded.
any help on this would be great.

cheers

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 13/04/05 - 5:52 AM Permalink

Perhaps the following might help.

1) state governments in different states often have some investment options - try your state government website.

2) federal government arts grants can sometimes help for certain types of interactive media.

3) pick some game companies and read their websites on how they started up. look for words like 'grant', 'partner', 'publisher', and the like.

A lot of people spend their entire working life trying to get funding and deals for their games. It's not an easy task :)

Submitted by Red 5 on Wed, 13/04/05 - 6:27 AM Permalink

It's extremely difficult because games are generally considered very high risk for investors, and government grants (usually R & D grants) require you supply 50% capital before they'll give anything.

Maybe you should look into advertising in-game for your research, (selling advertisments within the game) it can work providing you can convince potential clients that your product will reach the intended market.

Submitted by ninothe on Wed, 13/04/05 - 7:11 AM Permalink

thanks mcdrewski. i'll look into those more soon.

red5, i realised that you're right. the advertising idea is a really good way to get money, thanks so much for that for that. do you know if it's been done before?

or does anyone else know if this has been done before? advertising in game is a new idea to us and since it is a made-up document, i think we'll have enough to have to get away with saying "advertising will get us all the money we will need". i just need to back it up with some proof.

just incase, can poeple come up with other ways to help my poor, fake, games company?

cheers
-nino

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 13/04/05 - 7:59 AM Permalink

It's quite topical right now, since advertising of real-life products has recently started top be implemented in Anarchy Online (see [url="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/11/0216227&tid=10"]this slashdot article[/url] as a starting point). It's been implemented in games such as Grand Turismo, the EA sports games etc. for years.

However, unless you're making a blockbuster game, I'd be quite surprised if advertising will get "all the money you'll need".

For reference, and a reality-check, I refer you to that bastion of journalistic factual content, penny arcade.

quote:
[url="http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-04-04"]Geoff Zatkin - Penny Arcade Mon, April 04 2005[/url]
One of my buddies was speaking to a high school class a few weeks ago about the game industry. After a few moments of disconnect, she asked the class what they thought the development cost of the last GTA game was. Most students thought it was around [US]$500,000. She informed them that they were short about two zeros.

Start at bigkid.com.au, or gamenews.com.au for links to many, many games blogs and sites and you can find all sorts of useful information like this. Then you should be able to do some sums, some math etc. Plus you'll get a fantastic mark for doing such comprehensive research :)

Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Wed, 13/04/05 - 9:43 AM Permalink

You could try contacting the guys at [url]http://u-235studios.com/[/url] as they have received some funding from the state government (Vic) and have managed to produce a fantastic demo with which they are attempting to garner a full publishing deal from the big publishing houses.

Submitted by ninothe on Wed, 13/04/05 - 11:20 AM Permalink

thank you both. you've been very helpful.
this is awsome resource.
cheers

Submitted by hyperswivel on Fri, 22/04/05 - 7:53 AM Permalink

How about the Nescafe Big Break? It's not exactly a stable platform to design a business plan around, but at least you'd be pitching a more original idea that "I wanna get my band started up, and we spent all our money on weed".
And God knows that game designers are a walking advertisement for the benefits of excess coffee consumption.

Posted by ninothe on

where would one start?
i my group at school is just doing a research docutment and this is one of the things we have to find out. We have to pretend we're a gaming company trying to get funded.
any help on this would be great.

cheers


Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 13/04/05 - 5:52 AM Permalink

Perhaps the following might help.

1) state governments in different states often have some investment options - try your state government website.

2) federal government arts grants can sometimes help for certain types of interactive media.

3) pick some game companies and read their websites on how they started up. look for words like 'grant', 'partner', 'publisher', and the like.

A lot of people spend their entire working life trying to get funding and deals for their games. It's not an easy task :)

Submitted by Red 5 on Wed, 13/04/05 - 6:27 AM Permalink

It's extremely difficult because games are generally considered very high risk for investors, and government grants (usually R & D grants) require you supply 50% capital before they'll give anything.

Maybe you should look into advertising in-game for your research, (selling advertisments within the game) it can work providing you can convince potential clients that your product will reach the intended market.

Submitted by ninothe on Wed, 13/04/05 - 7:11 AM Permalink

thanks mcdrewski. i'll look into those more soon.

red5, i realised that you're right. the advertising idea is a really good way to get money, thanks so much for that for that. do you know if it's been done before?

or does anyone else know if this has been done before? advertising in game is a new idea to us and since it is a made-up document, i think we'll have enough to have to get away with saying "advertising will get us all the money we will need". i just need to back it up with some proof.

just incase, can poeple come up with other ways to help my poor, fake, games company?

cheers
-nino

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 13/04/05 - 7:59 AM Permalink

It's quite topical right now, since advertising of real-life products has recently started top be implemented in Anarchy Online (see [url="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/11/0216227&tid=10"]this slashdot article[/url] as a starting point). It's been implemented in games such as Grand Turismo, the EA sports games etc. for years.

However, unless you're making a blockbuster game, I'd be quite surprised if advertising will get "all the money you'll need".

For reference, and a reality-check, I refer you to that bastion of journalistic factual content, penny arcade.

quote:
[url="http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-04-04"]Geoff Zatkin - Penny Arcade Mon, April 04 2005[/url]
One of my buddies was speaking to a high school class a few weeks ago about the game industry. After a few moments of disconnect, she asked the class what they thought the development cost of the last GTA game was. Most students thought it was around [US]$500,000. She informed them that they were short about two zeros.

Start at bigkid.com.au, or gamenews.com.au for links to many, many games blogs and sites and you can find all sorts of useful information like this. Then you should be able to do some sums, some math etc. Plus you'll get a fantastic mark for doing such comprehensive research :)

Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Wed, 13/04/05 - 9:43 AM Permalink

You could try contacting the guys at [url]http://u-235studios.com/[/url] as they have received some funding from the state government (Vic) and have managed to produce a fantastic demo with which they are attempting to garner a full publishing deal from the big publishing houses.

Submitted by ninothe on Wed, 13/04/05 - 11:20 AM Permalink

thank you both. you've been very helpful.
this is awsome resource.
cheers

Submitted by hyperswivel on Fri, 22/04/05 - 7:53 AM Permalink

How about the Nescafe Big Break? It's not exactly a stable platform to design a business plan around, but at least you'd be pitching a more original idea that "I wanna get my band started up, and we spent all our money on weed".
And God knows that game designers are a walking advertisement for the benefits of excess coffee consumption.