作者：Simon Bennett

我并不是一名程序员，美术师，游戏玩法设计师或者一名非常出色的制作人。有些人可能会问，那么我在一家小型独立工作室到底做着什么样的工作呢？

我扮演着如下角色：

业务开发人员

市场营销/活动/社交媒体人员

合同事宜负责人

业务策略人员

财政和预测主导者

工作室管理者

IT系统管理人员

HR主管

IP开拓者

所有的这些任务应该是你想象中一个西装革领且会使用各种业务术语的人所做的事，而不是创造独立游戏的真正细节。但不管怎样这便是我在过去10年里穿着各种装束所做的事；即处理创造性产业的业务端并推动项目的发展（不一定是穿着西装！）。Roll7便是其中的一个项目，通过花了6年时间勉强维持一个混合的日常工作事项后，现在的我们终于可以专注于所有人都喜欢的内容了！

最近我关于30个小型工作室业务端事宜的比例调查时发现—-有些低于10%，也有些高达90%，但平均数值是45%。这是在创造游戏的过程中花费大量时间去致力于一个全新的技能组合，有可能比大多数初创企业所计划的时间还多。

通常情况下，人们评价自己的业务自我管理能力是34%（游戏邦注：0%表示完全不擅长，100%则代表专家），这明显区别于游戏设计/制作的平均自我管理级别（72%）。所以在独立工作室关于游戏产业业务端方面存在一个显著的缺口。

我的工作（也是我的业务搭档Thomas Hegarty的工作）便是帮助我们的创意总监John Ribbins避开每日来自45%现金流转，合同以及危机等带来的压力，让他能够专注于与强大的工作室团队一起创造出最棒的游戏。

并不是每一家小型工作室都设有这样的全职职位，所以为了最近的一次演说，我列出了一些游戏初创工作室可能会在任何业务阶段问自己的问题。这并不是一份详细的清单，我也不是一个业务咨询者或MBA研究生，这只是我希望能够回到2008年夏天去询问我们那毫无经验的工作室的一些问题。

为了更好地提出这些问题，我将它们分散到各个业务循环中。

1.价值创造（想出游戏）

2.市场营销（告诉人们有关游戏内容）

3.销售（出售游戏）

4.价值交付（确保游戏可行）

5.财政（通过游戏赚钱）

以下是基于这一循环的问题：

基本的初创问题

这是你们的新业务吗？你们是独资经营吗？还是合资？

你是否曾经向有经验的会计师咨询意见？

你们是独立发行还是拥有发行商？

你是否拥有足够的钱/时间去推动发展？

你是否拥有一支团队，并设立了明确的条款？

是否每一个人都100%致力于项目/工作室？

你是否拥有所有的IP？你是如何维护它的？

你是否与所有参与者都签订了合约？

价值创造问题

对于你的游戏是否存在明确的市场需求？

这是否只是一款立基游戏，立基市场是什么，为什么你要瞄准这一市场？

在市场中你的游戏USP是什么？

你是否曾使用冷酷的用户去测试MVP并处理所有的问题？

你是否拥有适当的开发制作计划？

你是否添加了真正的财政+意外事件安排？

你是否计划好提交时间？

你的游戏在开发过程中是否进行了完整的QA测试？

你们是否选择了适当的平台去开发游戏以创造最大的IP利益？

你是否将社区输入内容整合到游戏设计中？

你的游戏是否有趣/令人愉快？！（这显然是最重要的一点！）

市场营销问题

 你是否参加某些活动（当地/英国/欧洲/国际）？

你是否参加某些会议（例如London Indies）？

你是否接触过一些相关的记者/Youtuber？

你是否在关键的开发阶段发送了新闻稿？

你是否创造了让人兴奋且突出的游戏预告片？

是否接受了访问或独家报道？

是否使用了被禁止的公告去拓展用户？

是否使用了有效的社交媒体渠道？

是否使用了博客？

是否使用了游戏/工作室网站？

销售问题

你是否为游戏扩展了销售网点（或者只是在Steam）？

你是否进行了主机移植？

如果是独立发行的话，你们是否具有促销/打折策略？

你的游戏是否基于本土化？

你是否致力于在POS上区分价格点？

你是否拥有销售原声音乐的权利？

你是否能够从交叉销售中获益？

是否进行捆绑销售？

价值交付问题

你是否真的完成了游戏并已发行？

游戏是否适合消费者？不？那就解决它！

是否具有DLC计划？

通过NeoGaf和论坛进行持续支持与交流？

是否使用玩家反馈去帮助决定新功能？

财政问题

你是否真正去推动制作的现金流转？

你是否拥有一名会计师去处理每一年的利润？

你是否分配了市场营销花费？

你是否拥有真正的销售预测（低/中/高）？

你是否缴纳了相关税收（收入税/公司税/增值税）？

你是否研究了游戏税收减免条款或研发税收抵免政策？

你是否尝试着去使用RDA资金？

你是否尝试着进行独立投资或募集资金？

显然，除非你明确了第一阶段，即确定自己的游戏是否优秀，否则即使你执行了后面四个阶段，一切也都是扯谈。就像早前的一句电子游戏格言所说的那样，“你可以改善垃圾，但只是在业务圈中滚动它则只会让你停滞不前。”所以在你相信自己的游戏值得你投入大量时间之前，请不要去担心其它要点。

（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）

50 Questions an Indie Start Up should ask themselves…

by Simon Bennett

I am not a programmer, an artist, a gameplay designer, or a very good producer for that matter. Some people might well ask, what am I doing working at a small indie studio?

Well, I am ALL of the following people;

Business Development guy

Marketing / Events / Social Media person

Contracts monkey

Business Strategy overlord

Finance and Forecasting inventor

Studio Manager

IT systems confuser

HR dude

IP exploiter

Its pretty much all the tasks that you might expect a man in a suit using lots of business jargon to do, not really the exciting nitty gritty of making indie games? Well, thats kind of what I have spent the last decade doing in various guises; dealing with the commercial side of the creative industry and making projects happen (not neccesarily in a suit though!). Roll7 (http://www.roll7.co.uk) was one of these projects and after 6 years of scraping by with a relatively mixed agenda, we are now focused on the one thing we all love!

I asked about 30 small indie studios recently how much work the business side of things took up – some were a low 10%, up to a full on 90% – but the average was 45%. Thats a serious chunk of time working on a whole new set of skills while you build your game, possibly more time than most young start ups plan for…

On average, people rated themselves with a self competancy in business of 34% (with 0% being totally incompetant and 100% being an expert), this is a clear difference from an average self competancy rating in Games Design/Production at 72%. So there is an obvious and accepted gap that exists in Indie studio’s competancies around the business side of the Games Industry.

My Job (and to a large extent my business partner Thomas Hegarty’s) is to basically to shield our Creative Director, John Ribbins from the day to day stresses and strains of the 45% Cashflow, Contracts and Crises in order that he may focus his efforts working with our fantastic studio team to make the best games possible…

Not every small studio setting up has the benefit of this full time position, so for my recent Develop talk I compiled a list of questions that any games studio start up might want to ask itself at various stages of the business cycle. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I am not a business consultant or MBA graduate, it is essentially a list of questions that I wish I could step back in time and ask our fledgling studio back in summer 2008.

To help frame the questions, I have split them up into the business cycle (which I have translated into Game stuff in brackets).

1. Value Creation (Come up with game)

2. Marketing (Tell people about game)

3. Sales (Put game up for sale)

4. Value Delivery (Make sure game works)

5. Finance (Make money from game)

Here are my Questions based around this cycle…

Fundamental Start Up Questions

Are you a new Business? Sole Trader? Partnership?

Have you sought advice from an accountant re the above?

Self Published or have you got a Publisher?

Do you have enough money / time to bootstrap the development?

Do you have the right team, are the terms clear?

Is everyone 100% committed to the project / studio?

Do you own all of the IP? How will you assert this?

Have you contracted everyone involved appropriately?

Value Creation Questions

Is there is a clear market demand for the game?

If its only a niche game, what is that niche and why do you fit?

What is your games USP in the marketplace?

Have you tested the MVP with a cold audience and addressed all of the issues?

Have you got a proper Production Schedule for development?

Have you added a realistic financial + schedule contingency?

Have you accounted for Submission Time?

Is your game FULLY QA tested throughout dev?

Going to be developed for the right platforms to maximise IP revenues?

Are you going to involve community input to design the game?

Is your game FUN / Entertaining?!! (this is obviously the most important point!)

Marketing Questions

Are you at Events (Local / UK / European / International)?

Are you at Meet-Ups (eg London Indies)?

Have you contacted relevant Journalists / Youtubers?

Sent out Press Releases at key dev stages?

Exciting and Stand-out game trailer?

Booked interviews and exclusives?

Using Embargoed Announcements to maximize reach?

Social Media channels effective?

Blogs?

Game / Studio Website?

Sales Questions

Have you maximized the sales outlets for the game (not just Steam)?

Have you approached Consoles re Ports?

If self publishing, do you have a sales / discounting strategy?

Is your game localised?

Are you working to differentiated price-points at POS?

Do you own the rights to sell the Soundtrack?

Are you able to benefit from cross sales opps?

Humble Bundle?

Value Delivery Questions

Have you actually finished the game and shipped?

Does the game work for customers? No? Patch it!

DLC Plan?

Continued support and communication through NeoGaf and Forums?

Use gamer feedback to help determine new features?

Finance Questions

Have you cashflowed your actual ins and outs for production?

Do you have an accountant for your annual return?

Have you allocated marketing spend?

Do you have realistic projections for sales (low/mid/high)

Have you accounted for relevant taxes (NI / Corporation / VAT /)

Have you looked into Games Tax Relief or R&D tax credits?

Have you tried to access RDA funding?

Are you going to self invest or raise finance?

Obviously unless you nail stage one, it doesnt matter how well you execute the later four stages if the game is not ‘good’. As the old Video Games adage says, ‘You cant polish a turd, and rolling it in business glitter will only get you so far’. So definately not worth getting too worried about these other points until you are confident that your game is actually worth devoting a substantial chunk of your life on!(source:gamasutra)