So You Want To Start A Game Development Company, more hirings, etc.

Well, I just shot a semi-large document off to Jeff Tunnell. The title is “So You Want To Start A Game Development Company”. It basically addresses some of the myths of getting other people to fund your game development project, some ways to handle self funding, etc. Because I host the SWEng-GameDev and the GameDesign mailing lists at MidnightRyder.Com, I’ve seen this question come up on the lists, I’ve had people email me personally asking how to do it, and I’ve seen a couple of posts in threads here on the GG forums about stuff like this. So, I pulled out all the research I did from back when I build up my business plan, the actual experience I’ve had, and the experience of others, and put it into a 9 page document on the subject. Jeff is going to take a look at it, and decide if it’s worth putting online somewere here at GG (no garantees of that of course – I could just be spew’in drivle 😉

Hopefully someone will end up finding it useful.

The part that mystifies me, is the times I’ve seen people expect GG to fund thier game development. Oh well – people have strange expectations sometimes.

I hired on a level designer too. Eric Forhan is the new level designer for Trajectory. Now if I could only find a modeler too. Bummer.

I’ve got most of the core stuff done, though I am looking at redoing the weapons section a bit, and I still haven’t addressed the issue of switching models and skins so that each player can look different. Gotta look into that closer. I saw either a forum or resource for it once, just need to go hunt it down, assimilate it, and do the same for Trajectory. 

As soon as Eric has two or three levels done, I’ll finally release some development snapshots. Right now, some of the weapons look great – but, they don’t look too impressive when fired across the test background 😉

Back to work…

Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr   (Jun 11, 2002 at 14:37)  

Jeff Tunnell accepted it, and it’s been submitted as a resource. Cool.

Robert Blanchet Jr.   (Jun 11, 2002 at 15:22)

Hey nice website. 

I signed up for two of your mailing lists. =)

Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr   (Jun 12, 2002 at 09:55)  

Thanks, Robert. I actually intend to post the various mailing lists as a resource one of these days, AFTER WWW indexing is supported. They are a great resource for various game development topics from Game Design to software engineering as it applies to game programming. Got guys from pretty much ever major game development house on there (except for Id – I keep hopin’ to see John Carmack subscribe some day 😉