Starting a Company

Has anyone thought of starting their own game company, or started/ing to make games?

I’m already in the process of getting the name registered and trademarked .

Oh and by the way, the line in my sig is not the slogan – but the company name is. Check out my forum on my homepage link in my profile.

Once I get some money, I’ll try and get an actual page and a VB thinger. We’re learning CSS and XHTML in school right now so that’ll help a hell of a lot.

For actual programming languages and game program resources, I have:

Various Blitz languages.
Cool Edit Pro trial
A few available codes from the CDs’ games.

I hate to put a dampner on your enthusiasm buddy, but you really need to know your boundaries.

Registering a game company, and getting it trademarked, is the least of your concerns.

For starters, you need a game idea; as an independent developer, I can tell you know that there is no way you’d be able to compete on the console retail market. That leaves you with two main avenues: PC game development (almost as hard as console retail to get published, so you’re looking at internet distribution; where it is very, very hard to get noticed) and Xbox Live Arcade development for the 360.

To create a game that is enjoyable in any way shape or form, you need to master C++/C# and be working with DirectX. "Various Blitz languages" and a "Cool Edit Pro" trial won’t cut it.

Simple truth: if you want to make a 3D game, you need a development team. Game design is multi-faceted and complex, and is far too much for one person to do on their own. By the time you completed everything, something would be outmoded.

To create a professional game, the tools you need include, but are not limited to:

Visual Studio 2005 Professional
3D Studio MAX or Maya

The combination of which will cost you several thousand dollars.

If I were you, i’d forget about starting a company for now, and concentrate on learning about the industry and how to make games. A good place to start is an excellent free tool that Microsoft has released that has the exact same functionality as Visual Studio, except it only supports the C# language (which is all you need for most modern games, anyway).

The first thing you’ll need is Visual C# Express (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/), which is a slim-downed functionality version of Visual Studio 2005. After that, install XNA Game Studio Express (http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/gse/), which is a collection of tools to develop games for the XNA platform.

XNA is the platform used in PC games with DirectX 10, and in the Xbox 360. The same tools in the program being offered above for free are what real Xbox 360 developers use to create their games.

I’d highly suggest downloading these programs, and running through the various tutorials included with the program and online at MSDN. Coding4fun (http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/) is an excellent place to start.

Good luck, but remember to start small. You need to learn how to walk before you can run.

I’m not starting on hardcore console/PC games. I’m going to start small, and hopefully try and sell a few copies to people I know and just slowly grow. I won’t be creating huge games like Final Fantasy or a Pokemon game (just games I thought of at the top of my head) but simple sprite style games. Know what I mean?

To create a game that is enjoyable in any way shape or form, you need to master C++/C# and be working with DirectX. "Various Blitz languages" and a "Cool Edit Pro" trial won’t cut it.

most fun I’ve had this year on a PC game was with a Blitz Max program <3

Sarah you program? Cool!

Maybe if I ever need help you could be some assistance?

no, I meant the most fun playing a game was a game made in blitzmax.

I do programming & scripting but not for games.

I’m not starting on hardcore console/PC games. I’m going to start small, and hopefully try and sell a few copies to people I know and just slowly grow. I won’t be creating huge games like Final Fantasy or a Pokemon game (just games I thought of at the top of my head) but simple sprite style games. Know what I mean?

OK, but I still wouldnt bother registering a company. You’ll be able to give away your games on the internet, but you won’t be able to sell them.

If you want to make amateur games, realise that you’re an amateur. Don’t cover it in a sheen of authenticity.

EDIT: Also, if you want a future doing this kind of thing, then this is pretty useless to you, education-wise. You can manipulate sprites in XNA Game Studio (one of the first tutorials is how to make 2D games, actually), but you’re learning how the pros do it at the same time. It’s harder, but ultimately more rewarding.

also you should realize that you can make and sell software without going through any legal hurdles– you don’t need to register a company, register trademarks, etc.

I think I made a wrong approach to starting it. I think I should’ve made the website first, then the forum…so I’ll start that soon.

I have this game idea I wrote out. its all the background story to the game i want, characters and their descriptions and the controls of the game. I drew out characters and areas as well and made up all the controls for it. I thought it would be a cool game but i wouldnt know how to get it to someone who would be able to make it into one. I assume it wouldnt be easy at all so i never tried.

but if you ever get a company going in the future, make my game. ill give you a pineapple sundae if you do.

I made an underground game. It’s kinda like FF in a way, but I tried my best with the storyline. It has side-quests, boss battles, and the battle system is both turn-based and real-time. It depends on the battle and sometimes you can alternate between the two.

Well I’ve now made a thread for recruiting for some development for some titles.

But if you’re going to join in, please join the forum as well. As replies increase, development will begin. For everyone who volunteered to help with graphics, that would be greatly appreciated as well. So any assistance would be great.

Question: do you have any idea about team management?

Because unless you want your project to fail like every other "HEY GUYS LET’S MAKE A MOD/GAME/FLASH MOVIE" on the internet, you need to have a project outline and deliverables set up, along with a list of team members you need before you allow volunteers to join willy-nilly.

First of all, you need to have great knowledge on C language, DirectX or/and OpenGL.

Making a videogame is very complex. You need a team, working daily. If u are going to make it urself and u want it to be a good 3D game, it will come after years and of course it will be useless because big companies would have created games with much better graphics at that time.

Better get some skills and try to join a company…

Vista killed OpenGL.

Practically.

XNA/DirectX 10 is a much better API anyway.