Hello!
After years of making games alone, I have decided to make games with a few friends.
All we want to do is make a game under a collective name and split the profits.
What steps must we take to do this?
I tried searching on the internet but all I found were tuts that assumed you had never even made a game before.
I just want to know how the business side of things works.
Also, on Steam how does revenue work?
Would the money just go to me, and then would I distribute it to my teammates or is there a way for it to go through some system
where it automatically distributes it?
Well, the “making games” bit and the “starting a business” but are actually really different. I highly doubt you’ll find a good tute thats specific to that combination.
Also, a company is just one form of business. Assuming that you really need to start a business at all, it might not be the right one for what you want to do, which sounds pretty casual. On the other hand, depending on the laws where you are, it might be the best one in terms of liability and risk. (Where I am, the default business arrangement is what’s called a “Partnership”, which has pretty nasty liabilities should one of the partners start doing dodgy stuff in the name of the business.)
Where I am there are things called “Business Enterprise Centers” which exist to help people find out what they need to know to start businesses. I suggest looking for something like that and getting an experienced local to help you out.
How about doing some research yourself, since the laws/etc will be probably be different depending on your location… (unless someone on here from Florida has done it…).
As for profit splitting, I would suggest you all record exactly how much time you spend working, and what you worked on. Unless you can come to some kind of agreement about how it will work… nothing worse than contributing 50% of a project, only to get 20% share…
As for steam, I would start with getting a game that is gonna actually make it on there before worrying too much about it.
For the company part I went to an accountant and he pretty much did it all for me, I just had to decide on a name, made it an LLC (usa) and paid the fee. There’s more to running a company of course, good to be aware of taxes and so on even if your accountant deals with it, but that made it much simpler for me.
From what I’ve gathered I need to trademark the name to the company and form a Partnership with my team members, correct?
There are only 4 of us so a partnership should be enough for now.
We are also very close friends and this business is a creation of all of us, so to put one person at the top would be weird.
I will also probably take imaginaryhuman’s advice and see an accountant.
Also, sorry for posting here about business stuff. I just figured people here would have more experience with game companies specifically.
EDIT:
What I meant was I found tutorials about starting game studios for people who have yet to dive into game design. I am already experienced on the game design side of things, and these tutorials glossed over any helpful details about the actual business side.
Me and some friends made an LLC awhile back. We used http://sunbiz.org/ to create it. It cost about $140 per year to keep it filled. Also for payment you should just all go open a standard saving/checking account and . We had a business account and we had to make purchases each month in order not to get charged a maintenance fee. Now they changed it so you have to spend up to 250 dollars a month not to get hit with a $17 fee. We had four cards and sometime we would forget to buy stuff when you have 0 incoming coming in and then being charged 70 bucks in fees.
I really think you want to start an LLC for legal protection and not start an actual company. Some people do though, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on, so good luck.
