Casually Hardcore devlog

Brain dump – What I learnt from GDC 2008 (one year LATER)

February 15th, 2009

Here are notes I almost made right after attending GDC 2008 (last year) talk about finding angel investor funding for games. None of it makes sense raw so I’ll add comments at the end:

Lots of money
Angels for bridge
Tailwinds
Simple & compelling

Pitch first
Team > Idea
Bootstrap!
Reputation!

Keiretsu
Gameplayholdings

http://www.garage.com/

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Unaccredited investors – BAD
Exit strategy

My comments:

1. Lots of money – Angels / VC have piles of cash seeking out worthy investments.
2. Angels for bridge – Angels (personal investors) are great for temp funding right after the bootstrap stage.
3. Tailwinds – Your project should have some relation to the current fads – MMO, Social networking, Web, advergaming, etc.
4. Simple & compelling – The sales pitch must be understandable and convincing.
5. Pitch first – i.e. Try out your idea first to see if the response is positive rather than building something nobody wants.
6. Team > Idea – because investors pay nothing for an idea and want to see a solid team/management in place. “Success” in the end is related to the talent/experience of the team. Artistically this means “process” takes precedent over “ideas” and “creativity”
7. Bootstrap! – Build it because nobody will believe you can until you do and also nobody will fund you unless you are proven.
8. Reputation! – Build one from the start. Nothing screams failure than working on money-losing, late, canceled projects all your life. IMO this is good and bad advice. It’s great advice to steer away from poorly managed, low-success projects, but at the same time high-profile work can be emotionally/personally devoid.
9. Keiretsu – An organization of angel investors
10. Gameplayholdings – An advisory company.
11. http://www.garage.com/ – Guy Kawasaki’s company
12. Notes about game pitching – short and simple

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13. Unaccredited investors – BAD – because of SEC/US rules. You want accredited investors (net worth of a $1M?) to avoid lawsuits and because future investors often need to buyout previous ones. It’s complicated, but avoid taking large sums from friends and family if you are starting a potentially mid-to-large sized studio.
14. Exit strategy - All studios/projects have to pay out sometime, how?

To summarize – none of the above should concern independent developers! The above is for people wishing to form the next spin-off studio made up of ex-EA, ex-Sony, ex-Activision employees.

Entry Filed under: Game Development