DustinClingman.com

I’m often asked as to why I chose to get into the game business. The primary reason I cite is that I was always interested in telling stories and games/interactive entertainment represent the very best possible way to engage a wide range of people while at the same time giving them some control over the outcome and how the story unfolds. It was on that premise that I began to scheme as to what the next great game idea was going to be and how I was going to use it to conquer the world!

Flash forward 11 years. I’m very proud of the games that I’ve created or been a part of during my career, but at the same time, none of them changed the world…yet

When I talk to up and coming developers and entrepreneurs, I see that they too wish to conquer the world with that next great game idea. Since this blog is about startup game studios and entrepreneurship, I'm going to operate on the ludicrous premise...that you actually DO have a great idea for a game. What do you do next?

This is the first in a series of several articles about getting your original game out to the people. We’ll cover protecting the idea, the role of publishers; marketing and promotion…pretty much everything but the actual development of the project for now.

Before really digging in here, it's important to take a step back for a moment and remind ourselves that most games lose money. In fact, most games lose alot of money! Even when you've got great games released you can endure economic conditions like those in 2009 causing total game sales to be down nearly 20% on the year. In other words, commercial failure is highly likely even for games that make it out the door. With that said:

Protecting the Idea

There are two main groups that your ideas need protecting from. These are Publishers and Yourself. Let’s take those in reverse order.

Protecting the Idea from Yourself

This is always the last person you suspect, but it almost always the individual that hurts you the most. Generally, a poor company structure or development team will cause the most headaches. So how can you protect the Idea from Yourself?

•    Setup a company and get all of the stakeholders to sign the idea over to the company. - Your team can split the ownership of the company with you, but fundamentally, the best way to protect it is to give it away to the company.  Whether you think you game has a big chance or not, there's alot of wisdom in setting up a company. One point to make right now is that when you form a corporation (if you so choose) you need to remember that you become a share holder and not the owner of the content. You own some or all of the business that controls the property, but unless you specifically call it out, your corporation will be the owner of the IP and source
•    Sign contributor agreements with anyone doing work – Make sure that any friends or associates know exactly what they’ll be getting out of doing the work to make the game possible. It’s important that the company has the rights to the work, so give them stock, pay them cash, but most importantly make sure they understand and sign the agreement. It has nothing to do with greed, but with clarity so that everyone understands up front, before they do any work what the deal is going to be.

Protecting the Idea from Publishers

As should be clear by now, the odds of your idea really coming out of the blue are pretty slim. However, it is reasonable to think that you might have some USPs (Unique Selling Points). Often, game publishers are looking for exactly these nifty and novel ideas when trying to find new projects to fund. When it comes down to any kind of danger surrounding the idea, it’s when the USP comes out of the bag that you’ve got a potential problem. Ironically, USP are often obvious combinations that don’t make sense to not already exist and can be easily exploited in a completely different game concept. To protect yourself from publishers, I recommend:

•    Don’t talk too soon – Approaching a publisher is best done when you’ve got a working version of the game that you’re willing to let them see. They prefer this because you’ve shown that you can get things done and it likely means a cheaper investment for them to help you finish the game. Cheaper = Less Risk = More likely to get behind you if you’ve got something novel. Waiting also helps because they will be more incented to work with you rather than to try to beat you to market with a competing game.
•    Sign a Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement- If you can…but realize this likely means nothing. Lawyers will disagree on that point, but remember this: Contracts are only relevant when you intend to pay to defend yourself against them. Some larger publishers, like Nintendo, may not even be willing to sign anything. Effectively, they deal globally and as such cannot guarantee that they don’t already have an idea like yours in development? Heard of Yoga Wii? I pitched a game almost identical to it to Nintendo, sans Balance Board almost 3 years ago. Am I upset? No way! Yoga Wii Exists and Wii Fit was in development before I had even brought the idea around.
•    Sell them on yourself and your team – Publishers who think they’re dealing with a good team will be more likely to try to engage you rather than screwing you. Be over prepared with Team Bios and your past experience. Make sure they realize you’re for real and not just a group of guys with a dream.

•    NEVER! EVER! Let a Publisher Ruin your Game – It is ALWAYS a preferred outcome that a game sit on the shelf than a publisher come along and ruin it. If you’re of creative mind enough to get to the point where you’re having those discussions and meetings, I’ll assume that you are capable of killing your sacred cows. With that said, Never let them change anything. They take you as you are or not at all. If one publisher will give you money, so will another one. Keep your integrity and don’t let them push you around for a couple of bucks. Once you get on that track, it’s all downhill from there.

Other Risks

Without doubt, there will be others that you need or will want to discuss the idea with. A regular NDA should suffice here with the earlier caveats. However, the best thing that you can do is to get good at vetting people. Instinct is something a new CEO cannot live without. In short, You can’t do good business with bad people. Learning how to spot them quickly is important to your ability to survive.

That’s it for now. Please post any questions you might have in the comments or drop them to me on Twitter as @dclingman!