Game Development Business and Legal Guid

Chapter 1 : 

Chapter 1 Things to Know About Running a Game Development Company

Things to Know About Running a Game Development Company : 

Things to Know About Running a Game Development Company A retailer's help can make a big difference in a game's sales. A retailer needs to get a certain return per square inch of shelf space per month. If a game isn't selling, the retailer can't afford to have it hogging up shelf space.

Things to Know About Running Your Company : 

Things to Know About Running Your Company 1- Keep the company stuff like a Web site or a business card and stationery to a minimum until you're one month away from showing your work. 2- The scale of pitch materials from cheapest to most expensive is: A. Design plus story-boards B. Animated game mockup C. A rendered .AVI D. Playable demo with art and music E. Full level/mission demo.

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3- Try using a free engine off the Web or modding another game to incorporate yours. Check the licenses to make sure you're allowed to make this use of the software. 4- Get your attorney and accountant sooner rather than later. 5- There are tools out there to help you build your prototype. Some, like virtools, cost $5K to $10k; others can be found free or under GPL on the Web. 7- Two excellent resources: www.gamasutra.com and www.igda.org. Game-specific legal tips can be found in the famous last words column at idga.org and at www.gamelawyer.com. Take a look at www.gdconf.com, which always has interesting speeches from the previous Game Developer's Conference. Biz Dev, Inc. has a great series called Publishers Speak that asks major figures in publishing everything you want to know but couldn't get within 10 feet to ask. Check it out at www.bizdev-inc.com under "Publications.“

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8- Join a successful developer before you do it on your own. 9- You have to impress a game agent as much as you have to impress a publisher. 10- You have to be incredibly well-organized to use completion bonding. You can't change your mind about what the game's going to be. 11- If you do self-fund, expect around 50 percent of net wholesale as a royalty. Human Resources 12- Avoid long hours, unclear reporting structure, and unclear decision-making. 13- If you're hiring a manager, the candidates should be interviewed by everyone they'll be managing. Be sure you've got your employees' buy-in before hiring anyone.

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14- Hiring for the long run means starting people at reasonable salaries. Many game developers have very low turnover, but you're still expected to give raises, so keep this in mind when setting salaries. 15- Run it like a company, not a clubhouse. People have to be accountable. Fire those who don't fulfill their responsibilities. Publicize policies and enforce them equally. 16- Don't poach. At least, don't poach from those with whom your company has good relations. 17- Have regularly scheduled meetings by team, executive level, and any other logical grouping. Face to face communication is the grease that makes a company's wheels run smoothly. 18- Always offer people the opportunity to contribute new game ideas at any point. 19- Pay yourself and your people reasonably but not exorbitantly.

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20- Talent is important, but a compatible personality is just as important. When colleagues like each other, life is a lot easier for everyone. 21- Do you tell your employees about trouble? Most developers tell their employees what is going on when their actions can help solve the problem but try to avoid distracting employees with other issues. 22- Don't forgetpeople are not machines. Employees have spiritual and emotional needs as well as financial ones, and part of your job as manager is to meet those needs (or hire someone who can). 23- Delegate. Just because you can do it yourself doesn't mean that you should.

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24- Don't get emotional. When someone says something that makes you want to rip her head off, stop and ask yourself, "WHY did she say that" and "What is my GOAL." That will keep you calm and help you find the solution. 25- Stress is very hard on your health. You can only go one month at crazy hours before you start to lose your health and your judgment. 26- Starting a company in an area far from talent will make it difficult to attract and retain employees. 27- Everyone should be an at-will employee. 28- If you think there's a problem, there's a problem. 29- The boss should get an annual review by the employees.

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Publisher Relations 30- Self-funding your games is only so appealing to a publisher because its financial risk comes from two ends: developing the game and spending the money to market and distribute it. As one publisher said: "Even if we get a free product, getting it out the door is expensive." 31- Publishers look at the compatibility of your technology to the product: does your renderer match the art style the project needs, is your animation motion-capture if it's a realistic fighting game, and so on. 32- During development isolate all localizable elements, including audio and video. QA needs to test on different hardware running different local preferences. Not just your game that gets localized; you'll need to translate the box, sales material, and anything else used to sell the game.

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33- Don't make a game that copies another game. 34- Extra features don't always make a game better. 35- Own your technology. 36- The decision to produce your game happens by committee. Production 37- Consider outsourcing. 38- It's important to expect things to go wrong during production because it's human nature to be optimistic and underbudget/underschedule. 39- Keep the timeline visual, with graphs. 40- Keep an eye on other games coming out. 41- Always make your technology modular and scalable.

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42- Before expanding into more teams, remember that managing two projects can be 6 times as hard, and three projects can be 20 times as hard. 43- If you are releasing a product abroad and don't know the market, get a distributor you can trust. 44- The market for licensed product is still germinal, and prices have yet to settle.