Why Is It So *&@#$% Hard To Finance Video Games
Cross-blogging goodness... I really loved the transcript to Dean Takahashi's speech at the Video Game Investor Conference (I didn't even know there was such a conference) and thought I'd pass the link along. This is a very well-thought out and unbiased discussion of the issues AND opportunities for investors and game-makers alike to get together and make dreams happen (not to mention money)

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/09/deans_speech_at.html

There are some very interesting things he suggests here that I never heard about (like the German tax shelters for people wishing to put their funds into entertainment).

The quote from Jim Rose from Talonsoft was really the thing that piqued my interest - that they could break even on a game that sold as little as 15,000 units. WHY IS THIS SO IMPOSSIBLE TODAY?

Well, yeah, I kinda know the answers to this one.

#1 - It's NOT, you can go to Shrapnel Games or Matrix Games and see a bunch of lower-budget wargames that are still plugging away, making (I am GUESSING) modest profits on modest sales numbers. The indie game community is alive - not WELL, but alive and slowly scratching out an existance - on this model. How does it WORK, though? I don't know. I'm hoping to figure it all out.

#2 - It costs so much just to get the consumer's attention now that the return on 15,000 units wouldn't even begin to cover your marketing costs. As Dean quoted in the article - Play Big or go home. But does it have to be that way?

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:18 PM (Permalink)