作者：Will Freeman

对于初创工作室来说，资源和金钱总是最紧缺的。而通过专注于你的游戏中最重要的部分，即我们所认为的核心机制，你便能够充分利用这些限制条件。

你必须有效区分必要元素与想要拥有的元素。

star-ups(from jschina)

Dave Ranyard—-虚拟现实开发者

与各种各样的人交谈；进行各种社交能够带给你巨大的变化。保持灵活性，如果你的梦想是创造一款惊人的动物园管理游戏，但是这时候你却构思了一款冲浪游戏，你便不应该忽视这一想法。也许你可以创造一款动物冲浪游戏，如此你到达你的梦想的中途了。请相信因果报应，它是非常真实的。所以你要善待他人并尝试着去帮助他们。如此在你真正需要帮助的时候别人便有可能出现去帮助你，你也将因此感到开心。

Jaime Cross—-Team Junkfish的总监兼联合创始人

学习如何面对基础会计和现金流。我建议初创工作室能够有效处理管理方面的事宜，特别是关于奖金，付款方式和店面等等。根据我们的经验，最终会有人将这部分工作当成自己角色的一部分，这也将随着你的业务的发展而继续发展。

John Romero—-Night Work Games的游戏设计师

你并不需要任何钱。你只需要行动力。你并不需要Kickstarter。你并不需要筹集资金。你只需要行动力。你想要从较小的内容开始？那就去做啊。找到愿意投入时间于开发循环中的朋友。如果你正在创造一款游戏并且有朋友在家制作游戏或者和你拥有相同的处境，你们便可以走到一起。你可能已经找到愿意与你一起努力并经历考验的朋友，并且你也通过创造一款游戏而创建了一家公司。这便是你的起点。如果你是在空闲时间制作游戏，你便不欠任何人任何东西。任何人都不能占有你的公司一分一毫。你完全是凭自己的能力去做这些事，所以你拥有公司的一切。

Garry Barter—-Hertzian的首席执行官和联合创始人

与当地的社区建立良好的关系。找到身边志同道合的人，并听取他们的经验教训。作为来自偏远地区（康沃尔）的初创公司，参加每个月举办的小型聚会便意味着我们不仅能够获取团体信息，同时当我们想要组建团队时我们也可以在此寻找一些优秀的人才。

GiuLiano Cremaschi—-Armada Interactive的首席创意官

这是我的第三家初创工作室，我也希望它能够有不错的发展。而这也是我和别人共同创造的最优秀的工作室，原因很简单，首先，我们所有的角色都已经被填满了。其次，每个人对于自己的任务都有一个明确的看法。再次，我们第一个项目的范围非常明确。而如果你缺少这三个重要组件，你的工作室便有可能在某一时刻出现问题。

Dugan Jackson—-Tikipod的开发者和所有者

真实地面对你能够创造的内容。也许你很难在一个长期项目中始终保持热情。那就记下你在开发中所投入的时间，这能够帮助你在未来的项目中去衡量全职开发游戏是否会导致财政困难，并以此去判断什么时候开发过程中的某些部分会失去控制，如此你便能够在遇到这种情况的时候做出有效的应对。

Jaspal Sohal—-PaperJam Games的创始人和总监

对于任何初创工作室来说，你们总是不可避免的需要向其他人推销自己的游戏。在我看来你最好在拥有如下资产时才开始推销游戏：一个原型架构，美术概念和一份设计文件。没有什么比呈现所有完整的信息更能在宣传的时候留给别人好印象了。原型架构能够展示出你的核心游戏机制，这比任何口头描述都厉害，强大的美术概念能够帮助用户了解最终游戏大概会是怎样的，而设计文件（甚至只是第一个版本）也能帮助你真正理解你尝试着去宣传并创造的游戏。

Colin Northway—-Northway Games的设计师，程序员和作家

我的最佳建议便是，确保你是在做自己最初想要做的事。如果你是因为别人在做并且这么做能够赚钱才去做某事，你便不可能取得什么好结果。你应该找到一种全新方式去看待那个你所憧憬的世界，并愿意在此倾注你的全部精力。

Keaton White—-Abyssal Arts的总经理兼制作人

做好逆来顺受的准备。如果你的资金不足，你便需要接些工作去维持公司的运行。

如果你没有能力去完成某些工作，那就签些合同工去帮你做这些事，而如果所有的这些选择都不可行你就要准备好亲自去学习并亲自做这些工作。

Tracey McGarrigan—-Ansible PR and Communications的首席执行官

我曾与许多初创公司合作过，而我总是给予他们的一个建议便是在开始前先拥有你的URL。即使你还没有计划，也许你之前从未使用过这些通道，但是拥有自己的URL对于你来说真的很重要，并且在长期看来这也能够帮你省下更多钱—-即能够帮助你避开一些冒充者。显然，从第一天起便制定一个合适的计划并明确如何在这一过程中发展便是非常重要的下一步。

Olly Bennett—-Cardboard Sword的总经理

找一些人或从你的团队中挑选一些人去扮演我们所谓的“业务蜥蜴”的角色。这些人将成为你的外部制作人，业务开发者，PR顾问，贸易展览大使，会计，法律顾问和公司管理者。所有的这些角色都必须由一个自信且性格外向的人来扮演。雇佣这样的人才往往非常昂贵，所以你应该尽早便获取这样的人才。如果碰巧你的首席程序员符合这些标准，你便不再拥有首席程序员了，而如果你的设计师符合这些标准，你或许就需要再找个新的设计师了。如果你们当前的团队能够胜任这样的角色，即不需要任何人去专注于某一角色，你便能够找到任何获得成功的方法。

David Jimenez—-2Awesome Studio的首席游戏设计师

市场已经达到饱和状态，只是创造其它游戏（即使达到最优化效果）并不能让你突显于此。你必须创造些不同的内容让玩家在一看到截图，动画或其它任何你所呈现的部分游戏内容时便知道那是你的游戏。你应该找到自己的立基用户并专注于任何能够增强并推动你的特殊卖点的元素。

Dan Thomas—-Moov 2的创始人兼经理

找到除钱以外的成功衡量标准。当然了我们都需要谋生，但不要将自己陷在永无止境的赚更多钱的任务中。

你应该衡量你对生活的欲望，然后思考对于你来说还有什么其它的“成功”元素。例如名誉，在大会上发言，与偶像共事等等。

Tomas Pelak—-Joint Custody的首席执行官

对于即将问世的游戏《Sceal》，我们发现与国际团队进行远程工作比在斯洛伐克和当地团队共事更划算。这也让我们能够获得更多多元化的技能。所以我的建议是，在定夺全球化合作太昂贵或太困难前请先对此进行更深入的了解。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Develop’s top tips for start-ups

By Will Freeman

As a start-up resources and money are usually tight. Use these constraints to your advantage by focusing on the most important aspects of your game, which in our case has always been the core mechanic or ‘hook’.

It’s important to differentiate between the necessities and the nice-to-haves.

Dave Ranyard
Virtual reality developer

Talk to lots of people; a connection here or there can make a huge difference. Be flexible; if your dream is to create an amazing zoo manager game, and a surfing game comes up, don’t dismiss it. Maybe you can make it an animal surfing game and suddenly you are halfway to your dream. Karma exists and is very real. Be nice to everyone and try to help them. At some point someone will reciprocate just when you need it most and you’ll be very very happy.

Jaime Cross
Director and Co-founder, Team Junkfish

Learn how to handle basic accounting and cashflow. I would recommend that start-ups have a decent handle on the admin side of things, especially for grants, payment processors, storefronts and the like. We’ve learned from our own start-up roots that someone will end up dealing with this as a major part of their role, and it will continue to grow as the business develops.

John Romero
Game Designer, Night Work Games

You don’t need any money. Just do it. You don’t need to get Kickstarted. You don’t need to get funding or anything if you’re just making it. You want to start small? Just make it. Find friends that will commit to that time and the development cycle. If you’re making the game and you have friends who are working on it at home or in the same spot and you guys can actually launch it, whatever happened during that dev cycle maybe created a company. You might actually find the people that will stick with you and go through this ordeal, and you’ve made a company just by making a game. It gets out and then you start from there. If you do it in your spare time, you don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t have someone owning a piece of your company or anything. You did it all yourself, so you own it all.

Garry Barter
CEO and Co-founder, Hertzian

Engage with your local community. Find like-minded people near to you, use their experience. As a start-up in a remote location – Cornwall – attending a small monthly meet-up has meant that not only have we been able to tap into the knowledge and network of the group but, when it came to the point where we wanted to build the team, we were able to access an established pool of talent.

Giuliano Cremaschi
Chief Creative Officer, Armada Interactive

This is my third start-up studio, and hopefully it’s the charm. It certainly is the best studio I’ve ever co-founded, and the reasons are simple. One: all key roles and competences are filled. Two: everyone has a concrete view of their tasks. And three: the scope of our first project is very clearly defined. If you lack any of these three key components, chances are that your studio will be in trouble at a certain point.

Dugan Jackson
Developer and Owner, Tikipod

Be realistic about what you can make. It can be hard to maintain enthusiasm/momentum over long projects. Log development time spent, it can help with future projects to both calculate if it was financially viable as a full time job and to see where some aspects of development may have gone out of control – so you can handle them better next time.

Jaspal Sohal
Founder and Director, PaperJam Games

For any start-up studio, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll need to pitch your game to somebody else. In my view, you shouldn’t even consider pitching your project until you have the following assets: a prototype build, concept art and a design document. That may sound like a lot of ‘busy work’, especially when you’re excited to just starting talking to people about your project, but there’s no better way to make a positive impression at a pitch than to have all the angles covered. A prototype build will demonstrate core game mechanics better than any verbal description, strong art concepts will help an audience visualise the final game and a design document – even a first revision – will help you really understand the game you’re trying to pitch and, ultimately, make.

Colin Northway
Design, Code, Writing, Northway Games

My best tip is to make sure you are doing something original that you’re passionate about. If you want to do something because a bunch of other people are doing it and making money then that thing is probably over. Find a meaningful twist or a new way of looking at the world that you’re excited about and want to dedicate years of your life to.

Keaton White
MD and Producer, Abyssal Arts

Be ready to roll with the punches. If you’re underfunded, be prepared to take on contract work to keep yourself going.

If you don’t have the skillset to do something, contract someone who can – don’t cheap out – and if those options don’t work, be ready to learn and do it yourself.

Tracey McGarrigan
CEO, Ansible PR and Communications

I work with lots of start-ups and the one big piece of advice I always tell them is secure your vanity URLs before you start. Even if you don’t have a comms plan in place, and may never use some of those channels, owning them is really important and will be much cheaper in the long run – no imposters. Obviously, getting a comms plan in place from day one, and working out how you are going to tell your story along the way is the very important next step.

Olly Bennett
MD, Cardboard Sword

Find someone or nominate someone from your team to be what we fondly call your ‘Business Lizard’. This person will be your external producer, biz dev, PR interviewee, trade show ambassador, accountant, lawyer and company manager. All of these roles need to be covered by a confident and extroverted person. Hiring someone like that is prohibitively expensive, so get one early. If that person happens to be your lead coder, you no longer have a lead coder; if it’s your designer, then you need a new designer. Any ideas that these roles can be handled by your current team, without someone dedicated to the role, will quickly be quashed the moment you find any form of success.

David Jiménez
Lead Game Designer, 2Awesome Studio

The market is saturated, doing just another game – even if polished – will not make you stand out. You must do something different that makes people know your game is your game instantly just seeing a screenshot, an animation or whatever other piece of art you show. Find your niche and focus everything you do on enhancing and promoting your unique selling points.

Dan Thomas
Founder and MD, Moov2

Find a success measure beyond money. We all need to make a living, but don’t subject yourself to a never-ending quest for ‘more money’.

Quantify your lifestyle desires, then decide what other factors ‘success’ consists of for you. For example: fame, speaking at conferences, working with idols and so on.

Tomas Pelak
CEO, Joint Custody

For upcoming game Scéal, we found it is more cost effective for us to have an international team working remotely than a local team working together in Slovakia. It also allows us to branch out to find wider skill-sets than what we have locally. My tip would be to see what’s out there before dismissing global collaboration as too expensive or difficult.(source:develop-online)