作者：Matthew Stibbe

这篇文章是我在2001年为法律公司Osborne Clarke网站编写的，文章内容基于自己在1998年和1999年游戏开发者大会上的演讲。内容并未完全更新，因为在过去数年内游戏市场已经发生了许多变化。

我的个人经历

我在1988年创办了Intelligent Games（游戏邦注：下文简称“IG”），雇佣首批员工后于1993年搬迁到正式办公场所（游戏邦注：2000年作者出售并离开公司）。在此期间，我们发布了16款游戏，总销量逾200万份。现在，公司有65名员工，正在与某些大型发行商合作，包括EA Sports、Westwood Studios、LEGO和Hasbro。你可以通过网站www.igl.co.uk了解更多公司相关信息。我们在无负债无外部投资的情况下取得目前的成就。这篇文章阐述的正是这段经历，但是情况或许因人而异。

概述

这篇文章的主旨是为各位呈现开发商的生活方式，包括某些未受关注的事实，同时会列举某些帮助你创立游戏开发公司的技巧。需要特别指出的是，我会在文中提出与想法产生、销售、营销和乏味但至关重要事务（游戏邦注：例如管理、办公、资金流转和赞助等）相关的建议。最后，我会阐述某些在开发公司中构建价值的东西，以及在你的公司运转稳定后可以选择的出路。

未受关注的事实

我不希望读者在阅读这篇文章后认为创建游戏开发公司是种赚取大量金钱的快捷方法。事实并非如此。因而，我将首先阐述某些行业内未受关注的事实——某些《Edge》杂志不会告诉你的东西！

全世界每年发行的游戏总数逾4000款。其中，50%游戏的销售量不足1万份，真正能成为市场巨作的游戏只有排行榜上的前几十位。通常来说，流行游戏的PC销售量分布范围在50万到100万份之间，Playstation One畅销游戏的销量是前者的两到三倍。游戏巨作确实是个很棒的东西，它能够带来金钱，还能够提升你在行业内的声望。但是，巨作同失败作品的比例足以令人震惊。而且，行业内有数百家第三方开发商，多数发行商都有内部工作室，因而这个市场竞争非常激烈。最后，你分析任何年份的巨作后就会发现，逾2/3是现有游戏的续作（游戏邦注：也就是专属游戏巨作）或以LEGO或芭比等大型非游戏品牌为基础的游戏。发行商不会让未通过市场考验的开发商使用他们富有价值的品牌。事实上，来源于独立工作室的原创游戏成为市场巨作的数量非常少，或许每年只有1到2款。这种情况不仅使得发行商在与新开发商合作时谨慎小心，而且也使得你的项目赚取版税的机率大大减少。

在版税的问题上，多数发行商在交易谈判时都会说他们几乎可以确保你获得版税。不要相信这种说法。通常情况下，版税率只有在产品超过销售目标后才有可能获得关注。有些人可以获得极丰厚的版税率，似乎与此趋势相悖，但是通常是因为他们之前已经发布过市场巨作或者他们的游戏开发资金部分或全部来源于自己，从而豁免了发行商的风险。

2000年3月，我在圣荷西的游戏开发者大会上做了有关与品牌合作的演讲，总结了我对这个方面的想法及其原因。依我来看，创建强大的品牌或与强大的品牌合作无疑是开发商成功的核心所在。我用了大量的证据来支持自己的观点，但是仍然会出现许多著名且获得巨大成功的开发商，他们避开品牌选择开发原创游戏。

游戏成本正在逐渐加大。1988年，我开发的首款游戏成本为3.5万英镑，两个人花9个月的时间开发完成。IG中许多项目的预算超过100万英镑，其他项目的预算几乎都在50万英镑以上。除了儿童游戏之外，这些游戏中多数需要花费12到18个月来开发，而且至少需要10个人。举个极端的例子，EA Canada的《FIFA足球》团队大约有120个人，他们每年开发1款游戏。换句话说，在10年的时间里，团队和预算规模增加了10倍。这使得小团队更难以获得大型发行商的信任。

最后一个未受关注的事实是，发行商会取消至少50%已经签署的未完成项目。IG在12年的经历中，我们为每款投入开发的游戏制作了两套付费设计方案，但是有一半游戏都在开发期间被取消了。只有少数开发商愿意承认这个事实。原因有多种多样，比如市场发生改变、发行商倒闭或削减开支、开发延迟、竞争者产品的意外发布等。产品并取消让人感到很不舒服。即便发行商支付了取消赔偿，你还需要迅速为团队找到新的项目，而且还需要团队面对这种突变的心态。通常在项目终止之前会有段令人不适的时间，你的发行商表现怪异，有时会暂停付款，这可以被视为一种警告信号，也让开发商倍感压力。

关于发行商

我可能有点贬低发行商。诚实地说，我个人认为多数情况下发行商就像《侏罗纪公园》中的恐龙。他们并不邪恶，只是遵循着自己的遗传行为并本能地追求着自己的利益。如果签署你的游戏对他们有利，他们就会签约。如果抛弃游戏对他们来说有利，他们也会采取这种做法。但是，重点在于要记住，他们不是条理清楚和理性行事的庞大组织。发行商所看到的消息要受到制作人的控制，他们也是人类，他们也有老板，而老板也有自己的老板。因而，他们或许并非基于最完善的信息或在完全开放和理性的环境下做出决定。这并非蓄意害人，而是人类社会的运行方式。如果你了解开发交易中可能出现的这些问题，那么你就有先发制人的机会。当然和世间所有的事情一样，这也存在例外情况。

这些年来，发行商与IG间的密切合作有如下表现：

1、支付美国国内手机和交通费用

2、迅速地根据发票支付款项，对我们的资金流转起到很大的帮助

3、向我们提供最终用户信息和研究结果

4、帮助招募员工

5、提供工具和代码，音频和视频驱动器

6、有些发行商以公开、诚信和得体的方式取消游戏项目，并支付合理的取消费用

7、向我个人提供某些人脉

最后，发行商对公司的成立也有极大的帮助。

IG未公开的历史

我们发行了大量的游戏，但是也有众多游戏被取消。《Dark Hermetic Order》、《Flying Circus》和《Bloodline》等诸多产品从未有玩家见过，虽然这些游戏的开发都已经得到批准并已签订合同。那么为什么会出现上述状况呢？因为它们都因某些我们无法改变的原因而被发行商取消。

我们上批产品中的某些游戏（游戏邦注：包括《Dune》、《Loco》和《Action Man》）和正在开发中的产品几乎都可以按时完成，如果拖延的话，是因为需要增加某些功能。但是，最先发布的4款游戏延迟的时间介于6到14个月之间。因为此前我们一直在制作固定价格合同的游戏，这耗费了我们大量的时间。这些灾难性的事件让我们学到了许多颇有价值的经验，包括开发、代码复用、项目管理、人员管理、测试、计划以及与发行商的关系和交易，帮助公司获得极大的提升。但是，学习和实践这些经验耗费了我们4年的时间。

而且，在我们开发期间，有家发行商破产，还有两家发行商完全退出了发行市场。

最后，我最初雇佣的10名员工中只有2名还留在公司。事实上，我觉得这同行业普遍情况相比已经很好了。但是从初创企业的背景来看，这表明找到并保留合适员工是件很难的事情。

创建公司的原因

那么，为何要创建独立开发公司呢？

对我来说，主要原因是能够制作自己喜欢玩的游戏。我很喜欢《Harpoon》和《模拟城市》，因而我设计的前两款游戏就是《USS Ticonderoga》和《SimIsle》。尽管这两款游戏是我独自在家中开发完成的，但幸运的是，游戏出售给了360 Pacific和Maxis。我想，这种创造的快乐之感是人们自行创立公司最经常提及的理由。另一个重要的原因是，你有机会掌控自己的命运。许多人都希望能够自己当老板。我能想象到的是，在游戏行业的某些公司中工作可能会做某些违心之事，成立自己的公司就有机会去做那些正确的事情。当然，地位和抱负也是某些人成立公司的原因，制作出热销游戏能够让你受到行业的关注和尊重。如果你成功了，肯定能够获得丰厚的回报，包括巨额的版税和酬劳、汽车以及出售公司换取大笔金钱的愿景。这些事情确实有可能发生。最后，如果你能够以高压为动力，而且很享受长时间的工作，那么这确实是个适合你的工作。

公司成立清单

能够帮助你成立公司和管理开展自有业务的实践层面的信息很多。你可以从亚马逊或当地的书店中找到某些提供建议的书籍。而且，银行也可能有许多供人们创立业务参考的材料。这份清单并不全面，也无法替代专业化的建议，但是能够给你些许想法和提示：

找一名优秀的律师和一名优秀的会计师。他们会理解你正处在创业期，而且应该会适当根据需要调整服务，但是他们都并非免费的。你应当先与他们商讨好价格和服务，这样才不会感到意外。

1、办理独立的业务银行账户

2、联系Inland Revenue，获得他们的新雇员包

3、你或许应当考虑制定工资代理

4、VAT有营业率门槛。联系HM Cusoms和Excise，获取他们的创业者包，获得更多信息。

5、你需要决定是要成为独立交易商、合作人还是成立有限公司。通常来说，成立有限公司是最明智的选择。

6、虽然你可以在车库（游戏邦注：作者选择的最初办公地点是厨房）中创建自己的公司，但是不久之后就需要有个办公室。我觉得通过代理商来寻找办公室是个很有效的做法。虽然你需要为他们的服务支付资金，但是他们会节省你的时间。上次寻找办公室我们采用的是Stanford Webster的服务，他们给了我们很大的帮助。

从个人层面上来说，你可能需要告知好友和家人自己正在创业，这意味这大量的工作和压力。拥有一些人脉至关重要。我的经验是，一旦人们开始将你视为“老板”，他们会觉得很难自由和友好地与你交往。你可能无法获得自己还是学生时拥有的那种支持和友情。当然，这或许只是我面临的情况而已！

营销

营销指的是想出你可以提供的内容和客户需要的东西。

首要的事情是认清你想要开发何种类型的产品，确保该产品存在一定市场。找到你想要针对的题材和平台，尽量发挥你的优势，尝试去考虑多种选项。在你真正开始花时间构思游戏想法之前做上述事情，这样你就不会将时间浪费在设计某种你最后会否定的游戏题材。你应当根据你的激情来做出选择，但是你也应当考虑更现实的东西，也就是客户的需要。一旦你确定题材之后，就要变得更具创造力，尽你所能构思出各种想法。你要做好准备的是，构思出的想法中有80%将被抛弃，所以在这个阶段中你不能将过多的精力花在单个想法上。我们在IG的做法是使用单个页面的“概念简述”来描述游戏。这个文件包括游戏名称，用一句话来阐述的游戏“高概念”（游戏邦注：比如，电影《异形》的高概念就是“太空中的大白鲨”），关键功能和USP（游戏邦注：即独特销售主张）的描述和游戏玩法的描述，还包括目标平台和目标用户的相关实践信息。

你可以通过两种方法来测试想法的有效性。第一，你可以查看未来竞争对手的做法，来看看市场对他们的评价如何、他们的销售如何以及你的游戏能够提供哪些他们没有的东西。如果你无法向用户提供某些新颖的东西或者在市场中开辟出新的路径，那么你应当去思考新的想法。同样，如果与你的想法类似的游戏销售量从未超过5万份，或者该市场存在无法超越的巨头，那么也要做出改变。第二种测试是看你的想法是否能够得到他人（游戏邦注：任何喜欢游戏的人，并不一定是发行商）的认同，看看他们是否愿意“收购”。

这些想法需要被良好地表达出之后，才能够呈现给预期客户。不可出现拼写错误和糟糕的布局，你呈现给他人的正是工作风格、方法和产品的形象。如果呈现作品做得很草率，那么你的公司就会给他人留下不好的印象。尽力确保想法在技术上可行而且不能有过高的抱负，尤其是要认真考虑你能够用来开发项目的资源。

在这个阶段，你需要确定可能合作的发行商。我们有个发行商数据库，并时常维护和更新，我们加入了能找到的所有该发行商相关信息以及他们当前项目的列表。这可以让我们明白，他们是否还有空间或者需要去获取我们要出售的产品和服务。进行此类的市场调查并不困难。我们使用这个数据库来记录每次会议后的联系报告，并且记录我们已经承诺将做出的动作。我们还采取的一个措施是，通过邮件和面对面的交谈同参加项目展示的人保持联系。当你的公司较为成熟时，开展这个行动会较为简单，但是主动联系尽可能多的发行商并且询问他们的需求以及他们正在寻找何种东西也是很有价值的举动。

还有个弄清楚需要制作何种产品的方法就是，接触发行商并告知他们你的开发资源和抱负，看看他们是否有适合你的工作。我们的多数大合同都来源于通过小型电子数据式项目同发行商构建起的良好关系。比如，在我们与Westwood Studios合作发布《Dune 2000》之前，我们为他们做过两份电子数据。如果要采用这种方法，首先你要有某些可以出售的能力或资源。

销售

一旦你拥有了可以出售的产品，你就需要开始主动出击。如果你在行业内有熟人或者有某些行业记录（游戏邦注：比如创业前在某家成熟公司处工作），那么会对这个阶段有所帮助。除了出售自己、公司和想法外，你还需要评估目标客户。根据自己的经验，我提供了某些测试发行商在销售过程中表现的标准。优秀的发行商总是能够在这份测试中获得高分，而较差的发行商总是获得低分！

1、他们是否回复？频率如何？

2、你是否能与不同的人会面？能否见到公司高层？

3、合同文书工作需要多长时间？

4、他们是否做了承诺过的事情？

5、你是否喜欢他们的做法？

6、他们是否会再次和同一个开发商合作？

7、他们取消了多少个项目？为什么？

8、他们是否起诉过开发商？为什么？

9、你自己是否喜欢他们现阶段的产品？

以下问题最好在首次会面时询问：

1、你们如何在运营区域内进行游戏推广？

2、内部和外部开发的比例如何？

3、你们起诉过多少家开发商？

4、与你们合作超过1款游戏的开发商有多少？

5、收回成本并让开发商获得版税的产品数量有多少？

6、去年取消产品的原因有哪些？

7、你们是否能够盈利？（游戏邦注：这个问题会问倒多数发行商！）

8、游戏制作的审批流程是什么？

9、达成交易后，法律部门需要多长时间才能签署完善合同？（游戏邦注：时间最好不超过1个月）

10、表现最差的3款游戏是什么？为什么？

11、表现最好的3款游戏是什么？为什么？

你可以指定自己的销售风格，这些只是小技巧而已。要诚信，但是也要相信你的产品和能力。不要隐藏困难，要在最开始提到它们，但是也要说说你处理这些困难的计划。努力寻找审核过程的关键人物并与之交谈。努力理解他们的过程：谁负责最后签约，审核需要多长时间等。你应当理解，与你交谈的人有着跟你相同的工作和目标，多数的销售来源于人际关系和相互间的信任。努力保证所有内容筹备得当，不要让他们等待文件或任何你承诺提供的东西。保持礼貌，同时意志坚定。我曾经想要将某款游戏出售给一个发行商，而他们不愿意接受开发商主动提供的项目，所以我在他们的接待处坐了5个小时，最终接待员前去找个人来与我交谈。我很礼貌，但是意志坚定！幸运的是，我不需要经常采用这种做法。最后，要谦逊并为失败做好准备，记住你永远都还有成功的机会。

根据我的经验：

1、他们可能不会给你回电话

2、所需时间总是比预期的更长

3、如果他们记得拒绝你，就算是幸运的

4、制作人总是在不断改变

能通过上述测试并且对以上问题均做出回答的发行商可能只会是少数。

当你开始接触发行商时，你或许应当让律师提供些许建议，或者寻求优秀代理人的帮助。很早以前，我在签署设计意向书的时候犯过错误，最终导致发行商在给予我授权制作合同前拥有过多的权利。同时，需要记住的是，想法是很廉价的东西，在12年的经验中，我从未见过IG的想法被发行商泄露，所以不必过于看重保密协定和类似的东西。当然，你需要有自己的做法。

在销售方面，我的最后建议是“准备，准备，再准备”。你拥有的充足资源就是时间，而这正是发行商稀缺的商品。比如，我可以花3到4倍的时间来准备与制作人的谈判。

代理商

依我的经验来看，指定代理商并不会减轻你在销售和营销方面的工作负担，但是他们在合同、行业经验和谈判技巧上的知识对你有所帮助。IG经常使用代理商。缺点是你必须给他们总收入的10%到12.5%。优点是他们会帮你达成实惠的交易，而且成功后才需付款。

定价和时间安排

多数发行商希望你能够签订固定价格合同，同时你要提供之前商定的计划书和时间表。如果你的时间计算有误或者需要更多人更多时间来完成项目，那么提交的时间表就成了你的风险。这意味着在制定时间表、计划书和产品价格时需要格外当心。Microsoft Press出版的《Code Complete》是项目分析和设计的最佳教科书。IG使用Microsoft Project来规划项目，同时我们改进出一套相对健全的方法，用来绕开其中存在的问题，并使之与我们的工作方式相适应。这是商业机密，你也必须总结出自己的方法！在构建时间表时，尽可能地细节化、具体化和现实化是最重要的事情。IG通常使用2到5天的时间来构建时间表，让每个人都分别估算完成各自工作所需的时间。我们假设工作人员每周编程的时间是4天。每周留出1天时间，用来休假、开会和制作文本工作等。依我们的经验来看，这样的估算是较为准确的，即便每周的实际工作时间是50到60个小时（游戏邦注：项目最后数个月工作时间会更多）。如果你制定更长的时间计划，比如每周工作6天，那么就必须保证每个人都绝对能够在整个项目的开发过程中维持如此精力。这是确定时间时很容易犯下的错误。

在为项目做预算是，你应当假设无法获得版税，你应当树立回收所有成本的目标，包括项目初期的某些经费。我们是根据时间表来计算项目预算，将项目开发完成所需的月份数乘以开发商每月所需耗费的平均成本，最后加上前期的企业经费。依我的经验，经费与薪资成本大致相同。因为发行商会拖延付款，因而逾30%的资金将在最后几个月获得，你需要确保付费计划能够满足你每个月的资金运转需要。在开发成本之上，多要求10%到20%的意外资金是合理的。不要忘了将主机开发套件（当时Playstation 1开发工具价格为1.25万英镑）、音效、录音和音乐（当时游戏音频预算为3万到5万英镑）纳入预算中。

管理

这里我要提的建议是阅读DeMarco编写的《PeopleWare》，阅读这本书不必花费很多的时间，但是内容却极有价值。

经费

在大型开发公司中，通常开发商每月的成本为6000到8000英镑（游戏邦注：日常经费平摊在内）。初创公司的日常经费会较少。即便如此，凭我个人经验，单开发商每月成本最少预算为3000到4000英镑。一旦你获得开发合同，你就可以期望发行商通过预先付款的方式来支付这笔费用。在你获得合同之前的3到4个月的时间里，你需要自行承当这笔成本。以下是初创公司资金的数种来源：

1、你自己的钱，朋友和家人赞助的前，贷款或抵押

2、创业天使投资或风险投资

3、兼职——我创立IG所使用的资金来源于自己担任外包程序员赚到的钱

初创公司募集到资金并不容易，但还是有可能的。除此之外，你需要有个良好的创业计划。有关创业计划编写的优秀书籍很多，www.startups.com和www.startups.co.uk等许多优秀的网站上也有很多关于编写创业计划的信息，而且银行和会计师也可以提供帮助。

创业所需成本的具体数字很难得出，但是我尝试列举了以下这些估算年成本的合理项目。以下项目以伦敦为创业地点，提供了各种需要考虑的成本元素。

1、办公室：150平方英尺，每平方英尺15-20英镑，加上3-5英镑每平方英尺的服务费等相关费用

2、电话系统：每分机费用2000+150英镑，再加上线路租赁和通话费用

3、网络连接：连接费用1500英镑，租用费用5000英镑

4、服务器：包括文件服务器和邮件服务器，每个约为2000英镑，再加上2500英镑购置连接器等用来组成网络

5、PC：每台1500-2000英镑

6、软件：每名美工为3000英镑（3DS Max和Adobe Photoshop），每名程序员500英镑（Microsoft Visual C++和Visual Sourcesafe）

7、网络软件：Exchange和NT每个用户授权价格为50英镑

8、审计和会计费用：5000英镑

9、法律意见：3000英镑（游戏邦注：这取决于使用次数的多寡）

10、保险：5000余英镑（游戏邦注：包括办公室和内容、公共和雇主义务、职业保障等）

11、文具、消费品、邮寄和包装费用

程序员和美工每年的薪资介于1.8万到3.5万英镑之间，其多少取决于员工的经验和能力。但是，成本并非总能与能力相符，因而你需要更为小心谨慎地选择自己的雇员。如果开发商已经具有足够经验的话，那么良好的管理责任感会让你赚到更多的金钱。

资金运转

新创业者最困难的转变是处理资金运作和存贷款控制问题。当支付或收取资金由他人负责时，我们很容易遗忘这方面的重要性。因为创业成本（游戏邦注：尤其是员工薪资）每月支出的时间是固定的，但是收入是变动的，取决于项目交付时间、客户许可和客户真正付款的时间，所以小型创业公司的资金出入会很紧张。通常情况下，大型发行商会花2到4周的时间来审查你交付的项目进展，假设他们通过的话，真正支付给你资金还需要4周的时间。

这意味着你总是需要在资金拖欠3个月的条件下高效率地工作。签署合同时获得的大笔签署费用可以部分改善这种情况，高效的审查和许可过程也可以使拖欠时间缩短。

关于这点，我的意见是细致地审查资金运转和存贷款控制。制作每周资金运转计划，并且每周进行更新。跟踪你向发行商发送项目进展情况和发票的日期。努力去理解发行商的许可和付款循环。通常，项目进展需要被2或3个人通过后，才能提交给会计进行付款。如果你知道这些人是谁，就能够更加容易地追踪到项目。你应当一开始就让参与循环的每个人清楚地了解你的需求和期望，如果你有问题，应当清晰地向能够帮助你的高层人员解释。要冷静，不可冒犯任何人。对于那些你拖欠付款的人同样如此，要诚实，向他们解释拖欠的原因，告诉他们何时能够付款。从一开始，你就应当树立目标，制定每月盈利和消耗状况、资产负债表、资金运转项目和债务人债主分析。多数小型开发商在这点上做得不健全，许多开发商并没有把自己的创业公司视为公司来运作。

构建价值

在长期的运转中，你的创业公司有以下目标：

1、成功独立——获得盈利和版税，取得重要成功，并且不断成长

2、与发行商达成交易出售

3、与发行商达成交易出售和多产品并重的交易

4、股票市场浮动

5、转变成隶属某发行商的开发商或成为游戏发行商

有些发展路径需要风险投资者注入资金或有其他的资金来源。有些发展路径可以让你从业务中盈利。独立开发公司似乎存在某种自然的限制，大约在100人左右。超过这个规模，似乎就会以某种形式脱离独立开发的属性。当然，有些发展方向会面临失败，而且悲惨的是，失败的事情极为普遍。英国每年失败的游戏开发公司在25%左右。

好消息是，优秀的开发公司对潜在买家来说，他们的身价将是营业额的两倍甚至超过10倍。这是因为优秀的开发才能和不断推出市场巨作的制作人是相当罕见的。要提升自己的价值，你需要：

1、巨作

2、名气

3、与发行商的密切关系

4、颇具价值的专利技术或品牌

5、与某个特定买家的配合

6、跟踪某些新技术（游戏邦注：如互联网或下代主机）

7、团队成员中有出名的人

总结

总的来说，创业的景象可能很严峻，令人害怕

但是：

1、有人已经实践并获得成功

2、确实存在正规和高效率的发行商

3、可以从错误中吸取经验

4、市场对所有人来说都是相同的

5、整体市场正在成长

6、有些人通过游戏赚到大笔金钱

如果你选择了这条路，我希望你能够获得成功。

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

How to Start a Games Company

Matthew Stibbe

I wrote this article for the law firm Osborne Clarke for their website in 2001 based on speeches I gave to the Game Developers’ Conference in 1998 and 1999. It isn’t completely up-to-date and the market has changed considerably even in the last couple of years.

My own experience

I started Intelligent Games (IG) in 1988 and I hired my first employee and moved into real offices in 1993 [I sold the company and left in 2000]. In that time we’ve released sixteen titles, which together have sold over two million copies. The company is now sixty-five people and working with some of the biggest publishers in the business: EA Sports, Westwood Studios, LEGO and Hasbro. You can find out more about the company from its website at www.igl.co.uk. We got there without debt and without external investment. It is from this experience that I am writing this article – as they say in America: ‘your mileage may differ’.

Overview

This article is intended to give you some insights into the life of a developer: some of the unspoken truths and hidden history as well as outlining some of the things that can help you start a development company. In particular, I am going to give some advice about generating ideas, sales and marketing and the boring (but vital) bits: management, offices, cash flow, and funding. Osborne

Clark are very well placed to advise you on the legal side of the business, so I won’t talk about that at all. Finally, I will speculate on some of the things that build value in a development company and possible exit routes for you once you are up and running.

The Unspoken Truths

I don’t want anyone reading this article and thinking that starting a game development company is an easy and fast way to make loads of money. It isn’t. Therefore, I am starting with a list of

There are over 4000 games titles published worldwide each year. 50% of them sell less than 10,000 copies and only the top couple of dozen sell enough to be classed as hits. Typically, this is in the 500,000-1,000,000 unit sales range on PC and two to three times that on Playstation One. A hit game is a wonderful thing – it will make money and establish your reputation. The flip side is that the ratio of hits to flops is appalling. Further, there are hundreds of third party developers out there and most publishers have in-house studios so there is a lot of competition. Finally, if you analyse the hits in any given year over two-thirds will be sequels of existing titles (a franchise hit) or based on a massive non-games brands such as LEGO or Barbie. Publishers are reluctant studios that make hits is very small indeed – maybe one or two a year. Not only does this make publishers wary but also it dramatically decreases the odds against your project ever earning royalties.

On the subject of royalties – most publishers talk as if they are almost guaranteed when they are negotiating a deal. Don’t believe it. Generally, royalty rates are calculated so that the product has to exceed its sales targets just to break even on the advances. Some people are able to get fantastic royalty rates that buck this tendency but usually this is because either they have had a previous hit or because they are part- or wholly-funding the game development themselves and taking the risk away from the publisher.

I gave a presentation on working with brands at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose in March 2000 and it summarises my thoughts on this subject and why, in my opinion, working with or creating strong brands is absolutely central to success as a developer. You can read that on my website at www.stibbe.net/brands_speech.htm. I have lots of evidence for my view but there are several well-known and highly successful developers who eschew brands and develop original titles.

Games are getting bigger and more expensive. My first game in 1988 cost £35,000 to develop and took two people about nine months. At IG, we have had several projects with budgets over £1m and almost all the rest are over £500,000. With the exception of kids titles, most of these games take 12-18 months with teams of at least ten people to complete. At the extreme end of the spectrum, the FIFA Soccer team in EA Canada is about 120 people and they produce one title a year. In other words, in ten years teams and budgets have increased by a factor of ten. This is making it increasingly difficult for small teams to appear credible to large publishers.

A final unspoken truth is that publishers deliberately kill at least 50% of all the titles they sign before completion. In IG’s twelve-year experience we do two paid-for designs for every one that gets put into full production and about half our in-production titles get killed. This is a fact of life for all developers but few like to admit it because it looks like admitting weakness. The reasons are many: changing markets, publishers going bust or retrenching, development delays, the release of an unexpected competitor product and occasionally sheer incompetence. Having a product killed is extremely uncomfortable. Even with a cancellation fee, you have to rapidly find work for the team by selling a new project and deal with your nicely planned world being turned upside down and you have to deal with the team’s feelings about this too. Usually a termination is preceded by an uncomfortable period with your publisher where they behave strangely and sometimes stop paying and this can serve as a warning but can also be very stressful.

What Publishers are really like

I may seem very down on publishers. My honest view is that in the majority of cases they are like dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. They aren’t evil – they just follow their own genetic behaviour and pursue their own interests instinctively. If signing your game will help them, they’ll sign it. If killing it will help them, they’ll do that. It is, however, important to remember that they are not monolithic organizations that act coherently and rationally. Producers control the flow of information into and out of a publisher and they are human beings (most of them) and they have bosses who have bosses. Therefore, decisions may not be made on the best information or in a completely open, rational environment. This isn’t malice, it’s the human condition. If you are aware of these problems going into a development deal then you have a better chance of pre-empting them. As with everything, there of course, are exceptions.

Some of the nice things that publishers have done for IG over the years include:

Paying for US mobile phones and trips

Paying invoices very quickly or even ahead of approval to help our cash flow

Giving us end-user information and research

Helped with recruitment

Provided tools and code, sound and video drivers

Some of them cancelled games in an open, honest and decent way and paid a fair cancellation fee

Provided a kind of support network for me personally

Finally, I cannot forget that publishers’ advances built the company.

Secret History of IG

We have published a lot of games, but we’ve had as many canned. Nobody saw Dark Hermetic Order, Flying Circus, Bloodline, Conjure, King of Wall Street, Deadline News, Cops and Robbers and a host of other things; even though all these titles were green lit and contracted for. Why? Because they were killed by publishers for reasons largely outside our control.

Our last batch of products: Dune, Loco, Action Man and the current crop in development were mostly on time or, if delayed, done so to add features. The first four published games, however, were between six and fourteen months late. Since we were working on fixed-price contracts this cost us dear. We learned some enormously valuable lessons about development, code reuse, project management, personnel management, testing, scheduling, publisher relations and deal making from these disasters that have helped the company improve dramatically. However, it took us something like four years to learn these lessons and put them into practice.

In addition, one publisher went bankrupt on us and two others completely pulled out of publishing in the middle of our development.

Finally, only two of the first ten people I hired are still with the company. Actually, I think this is pretty good compared to the norm; but in the context of starting up a business, this says that it is hard to find and retain the right staff.

So why do it?

If you’re still reading this, I haven’t been able to put you off! So why set up an independent development company?

For me the main reason was to make the games I enjoyed playing. I loved Harpoon and SimCity and so the first two games I designed were USS Ticonderoga and SimIsle and I was lucky enough to sell them to 360 Pacific and Maxis while working from home with only one employee. I think this joy of creation is the most frequently cited reason for people setting up on their own. Another important element is the chance to be master of your own destiny. Lots of people would love to be their own boss – as one wit put it “everyone wants to go to heaven but no-one wants to die.” I would imagine that working in the games industry in some companies would be an affront to one’s integrity and setting up on your own would be an opportunity to do things right. There can be an element of status and ambition to it – being the creator of a hit game puts you in the spotlight in this industry like no other. There is always the promise of lavish rewards if you are successful – tons of royalty, big salaries, fast cars and the prospect of selling your business for lots of cash. All these things do happen. Finally, if you are highly stress-motivated and really enjoy working long hours then this is definitely the job for you.

Company Startup Checklist

There is lots of information to help you form a company and manage the practical side of starting you own business. Amazon or your local bookshops will have useful books of advice. Also, your bank will probably have lots of materials for people setting up a business. This check list isn’t exhaustive and can’t replace professional advice but it will give you an idea, in advance, of the things you will need to do:

Find a good lawyer and a good accountant. They will understand that you are starting out and should tailor their services (and fees) to your needs but they won’t be free. You should work with them to fix prices and services in advance so that there are no surprises.

Open a separate business bank account

Contact the Inland Revenue and get their new employer’s pack

You should probably consider appointing a payroll agency

There is a turnover threshold at which you have to charge VAT (but you can reclaim VAT on your expenditures). Contact HM Cusoms and Excise for their starters pack for more information.

You will need to decide whether to be sole trader, a partnership or form a limited company. Generally, it is probably most sensible to be a limited company.

While you can start up in your garage (or in my case, in the kitchen) you will soon want an office. I have found it very helpful to use an agent to find an office. While you will need to pay for this, they will save you time and cut a better deal for you. We used Stanford Webster for our last office and they did a fine job for us.

On a personal level, you will probably need to warn your friends and family that you are starting up a business and that it will be hard work and stressful. Having a personal support network is vital. My experience is that once people start seeing you as a ‘boss’ they find it difficult to be completely free and friendly. You may not get the support and camaraderie as an owner that you are used to as a colleague. Of course, this may be just me!

Marketing

There’s an old joke: if you take someone out for dinner and at the end of the meal you say “I’m really good at sex, do you want to come back to my place” that’s advertising. If you say “you look lonely, perhaps you’d like to stay the night with me” that’s marketing. If they say “I’ve heard you’re a fantastic lover, can I come back to your place”, that’s public relations.

Marketing is all about working out what you can offer and what prospective clients need.

The first thing to do is to identify what type of product you want to develop and make sure that there is a market for it. Work out what genre and platform you want to work in – play to your strengths and try to consider several options. Do this before you start spending time actually developing game ideas so that you don’t waste time designing games in a genre that you subsequently reject. You should make your choices based on what you feel passionate about but you should also be realistic about what will sell. Once you have settled on a genre, get creative and come up with as many ideas as you possibly can. Be prepared to reject 80% of the ideas you come up with and so don’t spend too much effort on any single idea at this stage. At IG we tend to do a one page ‘concept brief’ to describe a game. It consists of the working title, a one sentence description of the game’s ‘high concept’ (for example the high concept of the film Aliens was ‘Jaws in space’), a description of the key features and USPs (unique selling propositions) and a description of the game play and visualisation as well as practical information about target platform and target audience.

There are two exercises you can do to test the validity of an idea at the one page point. First you can review as many prospective competitors to see how well they reviewed, how well they sold and what you’re game offers that they didn’t. If you can’t offer consumers something new or exploit a genuine gap in the market then you should move onto a new idea. Equally if no games like yours sold more than 50,000 units or there is an indestructible market leader, then move on. The second test is to see if you can enthuse someone else (who likes games but not necessarily a publisher) about your idea and see if they ‘get it’.

Before they can go to a prospective client, these ideas need to be well presented. Avoid spelling mistakes and bad layout – what you present to someone is like an advert for your style and approach as well as the product. If it looks slapdash that’s the image your company will have. Try to make sure the ideas are technically feasible and not overly ambitious, especially considering the resources you have available to develop the product.

At this stage you need to target possible publishers. We do this by maintaining a database of publishers with as much information about them as we can find and lists of their current products. This lets us see whether they have a gap or requirement for the products and services we have to sell. Doing this kind of market research isn’t difficult. We use this database to record contact reports after each meeting and to log action items such as things we have promised to send. The other thing we do was to keep up a fairly constant dialogue with people at shows, by email and in face-to-face meetings. It is easier to do this when you are more established, but it is worth cold calling into as many publishers as possible and asking the people you meet what they need and what they are looking for.

There is another way to figure out what products to do and that is to approach publishers with your development resources and ambitions and see if they have any work to give you. Most of our large contracts have come from building a relationship with a publisher over small data disk type projects. For example before we signed Dune 2000 with Westwood Studios we did two data disks for them.

Taking this approach requires that you have some capabilities or resources to sell first.

Sales

Once you have something to sell, you’ll need to start knocking on doors. It will help if you already have contacts in the industry or some industry track record (for example if you’ve left an established firm to start up your own business). As well as selling yourself, your company and your ideas you also need to be evaluating prospective clients. I have put together a publisher purity test based on my experience to give some kind of benchmark on the performance of a publisher during the sales process. It’s not black and white, but good publishers consistently score highly on this test and bad publishers consistently score low!

Do they return calls? How often?

Do you meet different people? Senior people?

How long does it take to do the contract paperwork?

Do they do what they say they will?

Do you like them?

Do they work with same developers again?

How many projects do they kill? Why?

Are they suing any developers? Why?

Do you personally like or respect their current range of products?

Some good questions to ask at a first meeting:

How do you do distribution in each of your territories (especially the US)?

What is the proportion of internal vs. external development?

How many developers have you sued?

How many developers do more than one product with you?

How many products earn back their advances and earn the developers royalties?

For what reasons have you killed products in the last year?

Are you profitable? (This is a killer for most publishers!)

What is the approval process for getting a game into production?

How long does it take your legal department to issue contract once a deal is green lit? [Anything more than a month is pretty poor]

What are the three worst-performing games in your catalogue? Why?

Ditto for the three best-performing games.

You will evolve your own sales style but here are few tips. Be honest but positive about the product and your capabilities. Don’t hide difficulties – be up front about them but make sure you also say what your plans are for dealing with them. Try to find and talk to key people who are part of the actual green light process. Try to understand their process: who signs off, how long does it take, when does it happen etc. Try to understand that the person you are talking to has a job and objectives like you and that much of selling is about personal relationships and mutual confidence.

Try to keep the ball in their court so don’t keep them waiting for documents or other things that you’ve promised. Be courteous (to everyone, receptionists included: years ago I once visited Virgin Interactive and saw Richard Branson on reception for two hours!) but firm. I once wanted to sell a game to a publisher that simply wouldn’t accept unsolicited proposals or calls so I went out to America and sat in their reception for five hours until eventually the receptionist went and found someone for me to talk to. I was polite but firm! Luckily, I haven’t had to do that often.

Finally, be humble and prepared for rejection and remember there’s always a next time.

In my experience:

They probably won’t call you back

It always takes longer

You’re lucky if they remember to say ‘no’

The producer always changes

The publishers who pass the purity test and who give good answers to the list of questions will probably be exceptions.

You should probably have a lawyer’s advice or that of a good agent when you start approaching publishers. I made the mistake very early on of signing a design letter of intent which ended up giving away a lot of rights to a publisher before they gave me a full production contract. On the other hand, it is worth remember that ideas are very cheap and that in twelve years’ experience I have never seen one of IG’s ideas ripped off by a publisher so don’t be precious about confidentiality agreements and things of that ilk. Of course, you should take your own counsel on this.

My final bit of advice on the sales side is ‘prepare prepare prepare’. One thing that you probably have a lot of is time and this is the one commodity that publishers are short of. For example, I would count on putting in three to four times the preparation time for a negotiation as the producer on the other side of the table.

A word about agents

In my experience you still end up doing the same amount of work on sales and marketing when you appoint an agent but you benefit from their range of contacts, industry experience and negotiating skill. IG used an agent on only one deal we did. The bad news is that you will end up giving them 10-12.5% of your gross receipts (i.e. of money that comes in the door). The good news is that they may well get a better deal for you and you only pay them if they succeed.

This is a list of four UK agencies that I am aware of:

Mr. Mark Cochrane (The Games Agency): mark@thegamesagency.com

Ms. Jacqui Lyons (Marjacq): jacqui@marjacq.com

Mr. Kirk Owen (Octagon): submissions@octagon1.com

Mr. John Cook (Bad Management): badman@cix.compulink.co.uk

Pricing and Scheduling

Most publishers will want you to sign a fixed price contract where you deliver against a pre-agreed specification and schedule. If you get the calculations wrong and need more people or more time to deliver the agreed features it is your risk. This means that great care must be taken in the scheduling, specification and pricing of the product. The best textbook for project analysis and design is “Code Complete” from the Microsoft Press. IG uses Microsoft Project for scheduling although we have evolved a fairly sophisticated and roundabout way of using it that works around its problems and fits in with the way we work. This is a trade secret and you’re going to have wrestle with Project on your own! It is important to be as detailed, specific and realistic as possible in building a schedule. IG tends to work to 2-5 days tasks in building its schedules and gives individuals responsibility for estimating their chunks of work. We assume that people will work four- day weeks actually coding. The other day a week takes account of holidays, sickness, meetings, paperwork etc. Our experience is that this is pretty accurate even when people are actually working 50-60 hours a week (or more in the last couple of months). If you overschedule, say at six working days a week, then you had better be absolutely sure that everyone will sustain that level of effort actually developing the game for the entirety of the project. It is an easy mistake to make.

You should budget your projects on the assumption that you won’t receive royalties and you should aim to recover all your costs, including a fair proportion of your overheads, from the project advances. We calculate budgets based on the schedule by multiplying the number of developer months required to complete the project by an average cost per developer month plus an allocation of overhead. As a rule of thumb budget £1 for overheads for each £1 of salary cost. Since publishers like to backload a payment schedule so that up to 30% comes in the last couple of months, you need to make sure that the payment schedule covers your month-to-month cash flow needs. It isn’t unreasonable to ask for a 10-20% contingency margin over and above the development costs but don’t ask for an out and out profit if the project has a royalty component. Don’t forget to budget for console development kits (a Playstation 1 kits are £12,500), sound, voice recording and music (a typical game will have a sound budget in the £30-50k range).

Management

I gave a speech about managing creativity that is also on my website so I won’t bore you by repeating it here. The only other advice I have is to read “PeopleWare” by DeMarco – it’s a quick read but invaluable.

Finances

In a large development company a typical developer month costs about £6-8k including a share of the overheads. A startup can have smaller overheads. Even so, you should expect to budget a minimum of £3-4k a developer month as a rough rule of thumb. Once you have a development contract you can expect a publisher to cover these costs by way of advances against future royalties. Until you have a contract – and it can take three to six months – you will need to cover these costs yourself. There are several sources of startup capital:

Your own money (if you have it), money from friends and family (if they have it) or a loan or second mortgage

Business angel funding or venture capital (there is a lot of information on the British Venture Capital Association on both sources at www.bvca.co.uk).

A second job – I started IG with money I earned as a contract programmer.

It isn’t easy to raise money for a complete startup but it is possible. Above all you’ll need a good business plan. There are many good books about writing a business plan. There are a couple of good websites called www.startups.com and www.startups.co.uk that have a lot of useful information about writing a business plan. This is another area where banks and accountants can be very helpful.

It is very hard to give definite figures for the costs of setting up a business, but I have tried to set out below some reasonable guesstimates for the annual costs – assuming a London base – of the various elements to give some idea of what to budget for.

Office space: 150 square feet per person at £15-20 per square foot per year plus £3-5 per square foot service charge plus £5-7 per square foot in rates.

Phone system: £2000 + £150 per extension plus line rental and call costs

Internet connection: £1500 connection and £5000 p.a. for a reasonable leased line

Servers: File server, mail server: about £2000 each plus £2500 for hubs, cabling and so on for a network

PCs: £1500-2000 each

Software: £3000 per artist (3DS Max and Adobe Photoshop), £500ish per programmer (Microsoft Visual C++, Visual Sourcesafe).

Network software: Exchange and NT have per user licences of about £50 each per person

Audit and accountancy fees: £5000

Legal advice: £3000 (depends on how much you use them for, of course)

Insurance: £5000+ (Office and contents, public and employers liability, professional indemnity)

Stationery, consumables, post and packaging

Programmers and artists earn between £18,000 and £35,000 depending on experience and qualifications. There isn’t always a good correlation between cost and competence, however, and you need to interview and test prospective employees carefully. Developers with management responsibilities can expect to earn more than this if they’re good and experienced.

Cash Flow

One of the toughest transitions for someone new to running a business is dealing with cash flow and credit control. When someone else is responsible for paying or collecting the bills, its easy to forget how important it is. Since the outgoing costs of a business, especially the wages, go out at fixed times each month but income is variable and depends on the timeliness of deliverables, client approvals and the time it takes for a client to actually pay up there is a lot of tension in a small business between cash in and cash out. Typically a large publisher will take two to four weeks to review a milestone and assuming they approve it another four weeks to actually send you the money. This means that you will be working, effectively, three months in arrears the whole time.

This can be partly compensated for by getting a large signing fee when a contract is signed and also by managing credit control and approvals attentively.

My advice on this point is to watch the cash flow and credit control carefully. Do a week by week cash flow plan and updated it weekly. Track the dates on which you send milestones, invoices and so on. Try to understand a publisher’s approval and payment cycle. Usually a milestone needs to be signed off by two or three people before it can be passed to accounts for payment. If you know who these people are it is easier to chase them. You should make your needs and expectations clear to everyone in the chain at the beginning and if you have problems you should explain them clearly to the senior people who can help sort them out. It’s difficult to avoid but don’t lose your cool or bullshit anyone. Equally if you have to hold payment to people you owe money too, be honest and explain the reasons and tell them when you think you can pay them. As soon as you can afford it you should aim to have a book keeper to help with this and then later an in-house accountant. From the beginning, you should aim to have a monthly profit and loss statement, balance sheet, cash flow project and aged debtors and creditors analysis. Most small developers go bust and most small developers don’t run their businesses like business – go figure. As someone once said to me: “there’s plenty of time to do nothing when you’re dead”.

The Institute of Directors do a very good ‘accounting for non-financial directors’ course that is open to non-members. This three day course will give you a good introduction to the interplay between cash flow, profit and loss and the balance sheet and other arcane accounting arts.

Building value

In the long run, there are several objectives open to you for your business:

Triumphant independence – profits, royalties, critical success and continued growth

A trade sale to a publisher

A partial trade sale plus a multiple-product deal with a publisher

A stock market floatation

Transition to becoming an affiliate label or publisher

Some of these routes will require injections of funds from venture capitalists or other sources of funds. Other routes let you take some money out of the business. There seems to be a natural limit to the size of truly independent development companies and it is at about 100 people. Beyond this size they tend to stop being independent in some way. Of course, the other route is failure and this is, sadly, the most common outcome. Something like 25% of all games development companies in the UK fail each year.

The good news is that good development companies can be worth two, three, four, even ten or more times their turnover to a prospective buyer. This is because good development talent and consistent hit-producers are very scarce. The basic value of a development business is somewhere between its break-up value and the cost of reconstructing it from scratch – usually less than a multiple of one times turnover. To drive this number up, you need:

Hits

Reputation

Close relationships with a publisher

Valuable proprietary technology or brands

Synergy with a particular buyer

An inside track on some new technology (like the Internet or next-gen consoles)

Famous individuals on staff

Conclusion

Overall, the whole prospect must sound pretty scary

but…

People have done it and succeeded

There are decent, effective publishers out there

It is possible to learn from mistakes

The market is the same for everyone

The market is growing overall

Some people make tons of money out of games

In conclusion, I am reminded most of the strapline for the film “The Commitments” which read “they had nothing to lose but they were prepared to risk it all.” If you make this choice, I wish you every success. (Source: stibbe.net)