Where do you get fund?

News & General Discussion
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Kickstarter? Its not for anyone who don’t have enough fanbase. Normally 50~100 projects listed in game category in just [one day]. And you will get tons of emails from SNS promotion scammers who seek upfront money from you.

Government fund? Its not for game fields, its normally for apps or super technology like full charge smartphone battery in 1 minutes.

Venture capital? 1000x times harder than earn government fund.

From family? If not have rich family?

Earn yourself? Yes, this is only hope, but if your day job is just employee or part time, you can earn just for yourself and remaining is small money, that can only affordable buying assets at asset store.

So even if go for solo developer, you need fund for yourself.

Where do you get?

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From making smaller, less ambitious games and from a day job.

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I am working as dishwasher :frowning: And I have small money for life, so nothing left for gamemaking. Then I have brother, who can sometimes painting for me and mother, who gave me old android phone :slight_smile: Ok, I don’t think, that I have the worst life from all :stuck_out_tongue:

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Your own funds you built up over years in the industry, as well as building up the necessary experience in the industry to make a successful game. Then try to get tax breaks and funds for startup businesses from the government.

Not sure where you live but we got a fund for startups and a tax fund for digital media in my province.

But before you go it yourself you really should work in the industry for a while, at least long enough to work your way up to a director type role and learn the business side of things.

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Here are some other valid options to consider

  • Day job
  • Contract work
  • Government grants
  • Working for an existing game studio

The last one really is worth looking into in more detail. Do you really want to make every aspect of the game? Or would you rather simply work on one area, and have experts in the others do all the parts you don’t like.

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Work for your money like everyone else does.

Yes, its hard to work “2 jobs”… yes, you need to cut corners if you have to pay for your project out of your pocket… both with that project (not gonna pay for the next GTA V Killer game), and with the rest of your life (maybe stop wasting 200$ per week on booze, or get out of that ultraexpensive cellphone contract when you only use your phone once a month).

Over the course of some years, most people in western countries can save 100k$ and more if they keep their expenses in check. That is a healthy budget for a midsized Indie title where you outsource a lot of the work.
Afraid to risk that money on a high risk undertaking like an Indie game? You should be. That is why you should ONLY start tapping into that saved money as soon as you have a good project idea well under way (meaning investing time into learning the basics of programming, art, or game design is a very good idea) so you can bootstrap something without having to spend money on freelancers yet. And you probably do not want to waste all you have on a single project. More games will fail than succeed, no matter how good they are.

As to Kickstarter… building your fanbase is paramount to any Indie game anyway. Even if you get the funds for your game somehow, you will need to build the fanbase at some point. “Build it and they come” does not work (most of the time).
Yes, its easier to build a fanbase with a finished game. But given you invest enough time into your Kickstarter campaign (and really, you should at least calculate in 1-3 months of preparation, and somebody working almost fulltime on the campaign while it is underway), and have invested time into building an awesome prototype, something that can get people excited, the time you “waste” on your kickstarter might really prove invaluable later on, as you not only get funds, but also an existing community of people “invested” in your future game, literally.

And failing a Kickstarter, as long as you take the time to analyze why it failed, and use the opportunity to talk to the people that got involved with you over the kickstarter, can also be a valuable expierience.
Maybe the idea you had was good, but people did not get it? Maybe it was great but let down by a stupid implementation decision?

Kickstarter money comes with strings attached. You are committing to do something with the money, you risk your name for delivering on your promises, and you go out there and expose your ideas to a wide audience in the first place.
This can be scary, or seen as an obstacle. It can also be seen as a good thing. If you are not ready to risk the ridicule and backlash of failing a kickstarter, or worse, not being able to deliver, maybe your project is either not ready yet to be made, or is a bad idea in the first place?

While I think having expieirence with the business side of things certainly valuable, this quite a limiting rule of thumb given how small the chance is for a single individual to ever get into a director role in the industry… unless they are extremly good and hellbent on getting there.

I would wager getting expierience in the industry, and getting some expierience running a business from SOMEWHERE could substitute quite well.
And the running a bussiness expierience could as well come from building your own games and selling them, as long as you start small (thus with smaller risks) before you scale up.

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you have to be pretty hellbent, on getting somewhere if you want to run a game company as well. Most successful startups i have worked for or seen startup, are run by people who have a decade of industry experience or more and have held senior positions.

Also back to the OP if you want to start a studio you pretty much will have to do work for hire at some point, to keep the studios revenue running

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This also leads to something I wonder about often. Why people are so focused on these “epic” size games that require several years (or more) of time and a load of money to finance development. When they don’t even know if they can make a great game or not.

I believe strongly IF a person can make a great game they can do so with a tiny game. I think sometimes people are misleading themselves thinking that just because a game has a huge scope, a ton of content, etc it is a “better” game than a smaller game.

What it will likely be is just a much bigger and more expensive waste of time instead of a great game.

On the other hand, if they have already made a couple tiny games that were great games limited only by scope and then made a couple small games again that were great games limited only by scope and then made a couple larger games that were also great games limited only by scope… then sure it makes sense to go ahead and tackle the grand beast of a game with a huge scope. BUT… if a person had followed this process they would likely already have the money necessary to fund this latter epic game so this discussion probably wouldn’t be needed.

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Aside from patreon/kickstarter…

  1. Day job.
  2. Freelancing.
  3. Side business.
  4. Inheritance.

In general, just save up using whatever source of income you already have.

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Smart budgeting and saving up. Usually, that’s much less involved than people think - Most people don’t keep a budget at all in the first place. Even just keeping track of your expenses and income can help already, and having a simple savings account with your bank where you can squirrel stuff away.

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I’m pretty sure that most of them are inspired by big titles that they like rather than getting involved for the craft itself.

If you find GTA inspiring then chances are it inspires you to make something that’s like GTA, and anything between you and that might seem like a distraction. On the other hand, if you’re interested in making games for the sake of making games then starting small and building up probably looks like a good idea.

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I get my funding by working for the man.

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