pop@bunkerb.UUCP (Paul Pederson) (03/06/86)
*** REPLACE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR LINE *** Well, if the rumors are true, I won't have access to this network for long, so I wanted to share some information with you which may or may not be very valuable if you intend to start your own gaming company some day: (Seven friends and I started a game publishing company 1 1/2 years ago. We are still in business, but if I had to do it all over again, I would follow the advice which I am giving you now!) To summorize: 1. Have the money before you start. Typical start-up costs are around $10,000 - $20,000 for a good quality gaming company. You can get away with less, but it will probably show... 2. Be prepared to put in long hours and to do a lot of work. Have the right attitude before you begin. 3. If you invest in equipment, be sure it is a cost savings, and that you have someone who is able to run it! 4. Have the products ready first before you sink money into the company! Remember, new games sell, new scenarios don't! 5. Let the professional distributors handle your products! 6. Make sure your company is well organized. 7. Be choosy about who you go into business with! 8. Make sure your partners have the talents required. You will likely need: a president or someone who will take charge, editors, writers, artists, and production workers if you print your own products. Almost everything costs money. That which does not cost money requires your time. If you do not have access to a fairly good supply of money, then you shouldn't even start until you have it! In our first year of business, we lost nearly $8000 due to heavy startup costs! More importantly, if you and your business associates are not willing to put long, hard, sometimes frustrating hours into the business to make it work, then you should not even think of starting the business! We started the company with a 'well lets do this and see what happens' type of attitude and thought 'let's not be worried about profits. Let's have fun doing this.' It turns out that these were the wrong attitudes to have. When the work had to be done, we found out that nearly 1/2 of the 8 partners either were not capable of doing the work, or were not interested in doing the work. Thus my advice to you -- BE PREPARED AND COMMITED TO DOING LOT S OF WORK, sometimes more than you think you should do! Needless to say, those 4 guys are no longer part of the company.... Make sure that you have a good assortment of products before you invest in equipment or start actual production work. We THOUGHT we had a good assortment of products when we started the company. It was nearly 1 year, however, before we released our first title. Why? Because we found that all of the products we had were only in a rough format, and we spent a lot of time polishing, testing, and working on them before we felt they were ready to release. During that year, needless to say, we lost a lot of money due to expenses without income... Generally speaking, it is cheaper to buy used printing equipment and do your own printing than it is to hire the work to an outside printer. This is especially true if you plan to do print runs of 5000 or more. HOWEVER, if you are not a printer, or are not willing to learn how to print WELL, or if the machinery you buy is ready for the scrap heap, then for gosh sakes, have the work hired out to an outside printer! Quality is a MAJOR factor on how well your product sells. If it is even slightly less than the best it can be, not only will your products not sell well, but your company will have established a reputation for poor products which will be extremely hard to overcome! Games sell better than modules or scenarios sell! At the time we started the company, the market for FRP modules looked fairly good. However, by the time we released our first module, something seemed to happen to the market! We had a heck of time selling them. After talking with other publishers, we discovered that it would be much more beneficial to put our time, money, and efforts into creating NEW games (not our own versions of D&D, CHAMPIONS, TRAVELER, or other games -- there are too many for the market to support already!) Thus, we will be coming out with four new games within the next 2 months. Let the professional distributors handle distribution of your products! When we started the company, I was convinced that we could handle distribution of our products by ourselves. I reasoned that if we offered high quality products at large discounts to dealers, they would be more than happy to carry our products. WRONG! Almost every dealer that we talked to stated that they preferred to do business through a distributor because there was less paper work involved in handling the merchandise, and because they 'trusted' the distributors to sell them products which they in turn would be able to sell. This seemed really ludicrous to me, but after we established sales to distributors, our volume increased nearly 50 times! (and needless to say, we finally started making money!) The organization of the company DOES make a big difference on how well the company works. We first started the company with a 'committee' arrangement. That is, no one was really in charge, and all decisions had to be made by committee. That was a total failure! Needless to say, this type of company structure inhibited productivity. Because there were no clearly defined leaders, NO ONE made a decision, and NO ONE wanted to feel responsible for ANYTHING! Shortly after we reorganized the company structure, things started to happen! We elected a president, vice-president, and established managers for different departments. When someone finally took responsibility for things, then we were finally able to get something accomplished! Another important point: Choose your business partners well! You've likely heard the old adage "Don't go into business with your friends"? I'd swear that whoever said that definitely knew what he was talking about! You should be sure that whomever you go into business with has good financial backing, or is eager to do a lot of work to make up for his lack of funds! It turned out that I was the only one of the 8 original partners who had any money and a good credit rating. If I hadn't "stuck my neck out" and arranged financing for the company, it wouldn't be around today! There have been times when I have sorely regretted this... As I said earlier, be sure that if your business associate doesn't have any money that he will be able to do some work. I thought that the other partners would be able to work at least as much as I on necessary projects and tasks, but it turned out that only 3 of the other 7 had the desire to do anything. The other 4 turned out to be free-loaders (more or less) and needless to say, they are not a part of the company anymore! This may seem like strong language and accusations, but I'd hate to see you make the same mistakes I have made! Take my advice, please! (A note: the other 3 partners have done very well, and I am glad that they are my business associates and my friends!) Make sure your partners have the talents required. We had most of the talent required (editors, typists, printers, managers, and so forth), but we did not have anyone in the company who was able to do illustrations or paint cover artwork! Thus, we had to have illustrations and cover artwork done by outside artists. Nearly 20% of our expenses were paid to artists. You could realize a large savings if one or more of the business associates is a talented artist whom you could convince to take a share of the profits rather than paying a straight fee for the work. Artwork is very important to a game. If the art is great, surprisingly, the game will sell very well (yes, people do judge a book by its cover), and if the art is mediocre or bad, then the game will NOT sell, and you will have damaged the reputation of the company! So, in closing, let me say that I do not regret being involved with this company. However, if someone would have given me the advice which I have given you, then I could have saved a lot of money, time, effort, and frustration!