hey, I’m making a video game and need some advice. i have a good idea of where to go with it, but i just don’t know how to use any gaming software. i was just wondering if it would be better to learn to use the software or to hire someone to help me. i think the game will be a big hit among teenagers but i have absolutely zero resources to work with. if anyone could help or give advice it would be much appreciated.
Exactly what kind of advice would you like? Do you have specific questions?
My first piece of advice is to temper your expectations; your first fumblings around trying to create a videogame will almost certainly not result in a product that manages to be a major hit among teenagers. Enthusiasm is good, but the reality is that you will have to spend a long time just learning the craft of programming (or using whatever game creation software) first, if you have no experience doing so yet. (And, of course, programming is just one part of the process)
It is very difficult to create a commercial-quality videogame all by yourself. In addition to programming the thing, you also need to be able to create all the art and sound assets, and very few people have all the necessary skills. Even relatively small projects usually involve 3-5 developers. And large projects can involve more than a hundred.
What platform were you planning on targeting? PC, console, handheld, phone? Were you anticipating retail distribution or download only? Full 3-D graphics or simple Flash animation? I would be better able to answer your question if I had a clearer idea of the scope of what you want to make.
Creating a video game is a massive undertaking. AAA-titles are the result of tens of thousands man-hours, if not hundreds. So, if you’re single person, you should start with the basics. Flash games are probably a good starting point, since they’re small, ubiquitous and there’s a large and comprehensive catalogue of information available regarding both the platform and the programming language.
If you’re deathly serious about jumping straight to a “proper” game, then you’ve immediately got to realize that it’s not a one-man project. I can count on two fingers the amount of people I’ve met who have the mental acumen to do all the various pieces of work necessary in a game; planning, programming, artwork, animation, lighting, modelling, sound-capture and editing, testing, promotion, logistics, distribution and so on and so forth. All of the above are college-level jobs on their own; it’s simply too much for one person to handle in a reasonable amount of time. (I.e., if you do it alone, the game will necessarily be outdated before it’s even released.)
Your best bet is to find a forum or group of like-minded individuals and sell them on your idea.
ETA: A good idea might be finding a game that has similiar content to your own and modding for it. That’ll allow you to work with the existing development tools, like-minded developers who could be willing to share favours and achieve at best what you want or at worst a “demo” for your own game.
in reply to the kind of advice i am looking for… I’m looking to see if anyone would know what is a good software to use for creating a game. i would like to start with just a P.C. game. having read the replies I have gotten so far, i agree with indistinguishable in that i did jump into this with the attitude of “I can make a bestseller on the first try” that is an unreal expectation for me to have. tank you for that. i wasn’t sure how the game was to be marketed (download or by store), however i was leaning towards download so i wouldn’t have to worry about cost of production as much. as far as animation goes, i was leaning towards a simpler animation system (flash animation) for its simplicity. i wasn’t sure if i should do this alone, seek help from friends with more knowledge of this than i have, or even seek out a smaller gaming company for help. i am very appreciative of the help you have both given me so far, it has helped me answer many questions of mine that hadn’t even come to mind yet.
Gukumatz, i just read your comment and was wondering, do you know of any group who would buy my idea and still let me try to help as well as teach me about the process of creating a game? i really am clueless about the process… i am a long-time video-gamer but only recently have i been interested in creating my own.
So you don’t actually have any programming knowledge?
Assuming you have no programming experience. I think in 3 or 4 years you could learn how to program a simple game with XNA that might sell to bored teenagers.
I highly suggest you read “How to teach yourself programming in ten years” before you begin:
http://norvig.com/21-days.html
Good luck!
Also, even a “simple” 2-d platformer like Limbo has a budget of at least 250k, so keep that in mind when you start sending out RFPs to game development studios.
The ugly truth is that ideas are a dime a dozen and useless without the ability and determination to implement and market them correctly.
i do not have any programming knowledge. i know i must sound very naive right now and i think that would be an accurate assessment, but i am determined to learn more (much more), i will look into “how to teach yourself programming in ten years”, and i most certainly will seek all the help i can get now that i have a better idea of how challenging this can be for one person.
No matter which way you go, the forums belonging to TIGSource (an indie game news site), is likely to be a useful resource. A lot of indie game creators (including succesful ones :)) hang out there.
As for software to use, you might try Game Maker. I haven’t tried it myself, but some fairly high profile indie games have been made with it (for example Spelunky).
Friends of mine have spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively in the pursuit of being game designers. Good luck.
Ideas are cheap. No one has any interest in buying undeveloped ideas and then doing the work of developing them, no matter how good you think the idea is. Having ideas is not the hard part of making a videogame; anyone who has ever had any interest in videogame development can fill books with all the ideas they’ve had. But if you want anyone to take it seriously, you will have to do most of the hard work developing the idea into a playable game yourself (or with a team of friends or other like-minded hobbyists).
(These are all quite common naive attitudes among those wanting to start videogame development, incidentally; your posts remind me a great deal of myself and many of my friends when I was younger. Luckily, you seem to have the sense to recognize that those of us with more experience aren’t just crushing your dreams maliciously, and that we are just trying to be helpful by telling you the cold hard facts. Just out of curiosity, how old are you?)
Wowzers, dude. In all honesty. You probably won’t be making that much money even with a Flash game. There are tons of websites that have rapidshare, megaupload, and hotfile .rar files of free downloads of games that developers are selling. Even a successful casual gaming website like popcap games that churns out great games still has their stuff hacked and offered for free on the internet, and their games usually sell for around $10 USD.
You almost certainly aren’t going to make any money as a videogame developer; think of it as a hobby, the way people start garage bands for fun without becoming professional musicians. Eventually, once you’ve acquired some relevant skills, you could join a professional videogame development company, but that’s not such a glamorous job as you think: indeed, it’s hardly a glamorous job at all, consisting for the most part of the same anonymous code-monkeying as any other part of the software development industry (or art-monkeying or what have you). Enjoying food doesn’t mean you’d enjoy running a restaurant, enjoying driving doesn’t mean you’d enjoy being a mechanical engineer, and enjoying videogames doesn’t mean you’d enjoy the process of making them.
Still, give it a shot as a hobby, and see how you like it.
Well, I didn’t exactly mean making money to support oneself. I was thinking more along the lines of extra pocket cash for a couple of pizzas and a few pitchers of beer occasionally.
But yes, you are dead on with that post. It’s not like being a game developer consists of sitting in front of a massive plasma TV trying to get through “a level” for hours on end. I had that fantasy once…a long, long time ago.
As others have said, no one will buy your idea. Most game companies have dozens of ideas for games they’d like to do if they could get funding for them.
I’m a senior game designer with Sony PlayStation. Part of my job is to screen pitches from developers who want us to fund their games. When we do our due diligence on new developers, we’re not just assessing whether we think the game will sell or not. We’re also judging whether or not we think the developer is capable of executing on their pitch – do they have the skill and creativity to see the project through to the end?
Most small indie developers are doing it for love. They’ll know they’ll never get rich, or even turn a profit. They’re doing it because they love making games. And if you’re a good indie developer, you can make some cool things. And over a few titles you’ll gradually build up your experience and skills to a point where you can pitch to someone like me and be taken seriously. And then you’re in.
The point I’m making is that if you REALLY want to make games professionally, you need to stop thinking about how to make this one particular game you have an idea for, and start thinking about how to get the skills you need to work in the industry. Making that first game will be primarily a learning experience. It won’t be a hit and it probably won’t even sell. But until you make that first game, you won’t make your second, or your third, or your fifteenth, or whichever one finally DOES sell.
Although, having coded outside the game industry and coded inside the game industry, I’d take inside any day, even with the pay cut it involves. But then, I really love MAKING GAMES.
There might (or not) be a minor misunderstanding here; asante picked up the “buy the game” from me talking about “selling” the pitch, so we were talking about getting (or forming) a team of independent people with the required skills in on the project. Not in the “that’s a great idea, here’s $250k towards funding” sense, but rather in the sense that someone on a forum liked the idea and wanted to help realizing it.
That depends. I know (and participate in) a lot of active mod communities, so there might be something there. But that depends entirely on what kind of game it is - RTS, FPS, RPG, 3rd person, first person, isometric, etc, etc. Most such groups that have advanced into full-concept conversion mods (like the Lord of the Rings mod for Medieval: Total War 2) are pretty tight and lean, with only accepting people who can really pull their weight.
But other groups accept patchwork jobs and will give your access to their work forums for the asking. (Some Mount & Blade mod groups work like that, for instance. And you should check out Mount & Blade, by the way - Armagan who makes it made it only with the help of his wife. Well, at least to begin with - by the time the releases got close to 1.0, there were a few more people involved. But I don’t think the formal development team has more than 10 people even now. And there’s a huge mod community.)
ETA: In fact, EVERYONE should check out Mount & Blade. 
Wouldn’t the work load and pay in the industry depend on just what your position would be?
I understand as a code monkey you can expect to be shuffled around the industry and not making much money, but what about software engineers? People with high end educational backgrounds in physics, mathematics, and software engineering make good money in the industry, don’t they?