Yes, this is exactly the advice that Tom Sloper gives in his “How to Start Your Own Game Company” article on the website I linked to earlier.
Yes, exactly. A grand idea isn’t worth much these days. Or rather, it isn’t worth much unless it’s harnessed to big-budget production values and professional project development experience.
Yeah, I hear you. But sometimes you just can’t get from A to B.
The sort of open-ended gaming experience you’re describing … that’s a big undertaking. I attended a public post-mortem that the Looking Glass/Ion Storm guys did at GDC a few years ago where several of their designers were talking about how they built Deus Ex, which has a lot of the sort of features you’re describing.
All those different possible paths to success were a nightmare to balance and test. Changing one little thing in one part of a mission could have all sorts of unintended consequences downstream. They really struggled with it, and this was an seasoned dev team working under an award-winning designer with years of experience.
The chances of garage start-up making a game like that are about the same as me being able to film an action movie blockbuster with my video camera. Both of us just don’t have access to the tools and skills necessary for the job.
To paraphrase what I said before: The only reason you should start a game company is because you want to run a game company. You shouldn’t start a game company with the idea of making a specific game.
Okay, let me explain the purpose of licenses.
Most businesses try to minimize risk. If forced to choose between a guaranteed smaller return, or a bigger return with the possibility of big failure, they’ll almost always take the former.
Game development is all about the latter. Which makes publishers crazy.
Licenses reduce risk. Say you’re a game industry exec. You might not know whether that dev team down in San Diego is going to pull their project off or not. They’re a bunch of flaky artists! And dorky engineers! And the designer sounds like he’s insane! How can you trust these people?
But damn it, you do know that people love Harry Potter! If you can make a game with a Harry Potter license, you know you can guarantee that a certain number of people will buy the game, even if its total crap. You don’t want it to be crap. You want it to be a masterpiece. But still, having that license there covers your ass. You know that there’s a safety net underneath you.
This is why licenses and sequels are so popular. Brand-new intellectual property is very, very risky. Because if it flops, it flops really hard.
So, a license only makes sense if it can guarantee a certain number of sales. And that means something that’s got big mass market exposure: A major motion picture, for example. Or the NFL. A big-name author like Crichton or Clancy. A major gaming franchise like D&D or Magic the Gathering.
But the licensed IP has to be big. Even name authors in niche genres like science fiction might not be big enough. McCaffrey, barely. LeGuin, barely. Orson Scott Card? Well, everyone always says Ender’s Game would make a great videogame, but somehow it never happens … .
So, back to your business plan. No one will license content from you. Not even for free. They don’t need it. They’ve got teams of guys sitting around making up their own stuff. They don’t need yours. Game companies only license IP that moves boxes.
Now, it is possible to set yourself up as a free-lance writer and write for the videogame industry. Writing gets contracted out a lot since titles rarely have enough written content to justify having a writer on staff for the entire dev cycle.
The best way to prepare for that is to build up your porfolio, particularly with non-game writing. You won’t be hired as a free-lance writer on a videogame job for your design skills, but for your ability to tell a story, and particularly for your ability to write snappy dialog.
Even better is to build up your rep in another, more writer-friendly industry. There are guys who are free-lancing in the industry now after having made names as TV writers or genre novelists or comic book writers. They’re not big enough names to be considered IP, but they do command professional respect.