this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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In my opinion game studios should not sell out to investors and/or have any stocks as it will lead to profit making the calls eventually. It is tempting to get a bunch of investment, I know it would make my game studio easier to run right now, but then you are constantly reminded how it all ends up. Don’t like the system, stop playing in it and build your company slowly and organically instead and retain full control.
Same goes for many businesses outside of gaming. Imagine if there was no such thing as the stock market / investors and all companies had to grow on their own merits.
In my virtual studio everyone is their own sole proprietorship contributing to the project off and on and getting compensated fairly for their contributions. They also have their own projects too and may even pay me to help them sometimes. This way everyone assumes their own risk and reaps their own benefits. If any one person on the virtual team has a hit with their project, they retain full control and owe no money back to some shareholders who did nothing but lend money to make money. It does mean I am way slower than if I could just hire everyone full time as employees, but knowing where having investors will ultimately take me, I accept. Plus going slower means more time to sit on things and polish and not feel time pressure to appease shareholders.
Shareholders are a little like getting a loan and depending on how successful you are, you have to pay back more than you borrowed and giving them control on your art. No thanks.
Unfortunately it's not even this. A company can be perfectly profitable and still be sued by shareholders for not making them money. This is because the ~~leeches~~ shareholders only want to see short-term growth at any cost so they can dump the stock 2 quarters later at a profit
This is one of the biggest roadblocks I see devs of all shapes run into: how did you bootstrap to the point of paying decent wages? I ask because I won't accept free work, I won't accept AI garbage, and I value talent and think it should be paid. But that middle part is hard, and losing 2-5 grand on failed projects hoping that they can pull their weight is literally vexing me.
That is a good question. I spent the first 18 months making an early access version of my title and then started making money from that and have been growing it since. I am hyper focused on the overall experience which has put my title in the top .01% of all titles in Meta’s early access store called App Lab. Been at the top for nearly 3 years now. It is easily a 10+ year project even though I am full time now. Yes…I continuously update to keep current with the tech. It has all come a long way since I began over 4 years ago.
I am going slow too as I cannot hire people unless I make the money first. Really trying to do it organically. About to release another big update to the park (it is a highly detailed VR Theme Park) and will raise the price again. I raise the price each time I add more content while all those who already bought get all the new content for free. No in app purchases, no add ons as I wish to reward early adopters and ensure each guest’s experience is whole.
Mad respect for developing and managing a project of that scope on your own. Also, for keeping your integrity in this cutthroat stage of capitalism we are in.
Your game sounds super fun. I would definitely check it out if I had an Oculus.
FTFY.
Yeah, but why make it out to be a gaming industry problem? It's a capitalism and stock market problem.
Because it's ok to talk about different types of business. It's also ok for you to read an entire comment. Try it.
What did you fix? Companies addition. I don’t get it.
They're showing that they didn't really read the whole comment, as that's already in there...