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I was wondering how much it could really cost to start up a game company, that could eventually compete with the likes of GW, PP, Rackham, etc.

Anybody in the know/business have any knowledge of what it would take?

I'm thinking you would start small like Privateer press did, and work your way up. If you have a good game, you should be able to make some money after a while.

So list of things needed:

Games designers(could very well be your self)
Miniature designers-(I assume this is contracted)
Sales people
Work place/offices-(although with current technology-could do so from home to start out)
Manufacturing facility/equipment--(or subcontract it out until you can afford your own fab)
Warehousing
Printing costs-(for game books)
Travel costs- (to cons so you can show off your wares)
Advertisment costs?

Aything else?

So what say ye, anyone able to chip in with answers on this?


GG

It took about $3000 to start up On The Lamb.

We've only got three staffers, My Husband, His bestfriend, and myself. We're not getting paid yet, till the book starts to pay for itself.

To get our book made it really only cost us time, Artist Commissioning, and Printing. It was $1490 to print the book (190 pages, B&W, softcover 6"x9"). I don't have the artist costs in front of me, but the pricing varies depending on the person.

We don't have any warehousing costs, the books just hang out in our house till they get shipped out.

Travel costs haven't been too bad, depending on the con. Our first con was a major rip off, Janicon in Jax, FL, they canceled the con about 2 weeks before hand and have been promising a refund for months now.

Our Second, Kajonk-A-Con in Knoxville, TN, was much better. It ended up costing us about $300 for the booth, hotel and travel.

Our Third, Megacon in Orlando, FL, was much closer to home, but also much larger. It ended up costing about $400.

And our fourth, FX Show also in Orlando, is this weekend. So Far the cost is about $350, but ya never know.

Right now we're trying to find a good cheap local banner printer for our booth at Conventions.

Also, our best sales have been Digital Distribution via RPGNow.com

generalgrog wrote:I was wondering how much it could really cost to start up a game company, that could eventually compete with the likes of GW, PP, Rackham, etc.

Anybody in the know/business have any knowledge of what it would take?

I'm not really 'in the business' (although I do a bit of side work for a company: see my sig (below the KoL spam )) but I think a good rule of thumb is whatever you estimate costs will be, double them. Maybe even triple...

generalgrog wrote:
I'm thinking you would start small like Privateer press did, and work your way up. If you have a good game, you should be able to make some money after a while.

Sadly, there's a lot of good games that have just not received the 'critical mass' to be a big deal. In the RPG and tabletop game market there seems to be a very small top tier of maybe 5-6 companies, and then a very large second tier.

generalgrog wrote:
So list of things needed:

Games designers(could very well be your self)
Miniature designers-(I assume this is contracted)

I believe many companies have their sculptors on-site.

You also left out art and layout people. Good looking books attract people but are difficult to produce.

generalgrog wrote:
Sales people
Work place/offices-(although with current technology-could do so from home to start out)
Manufacturing facility/equipment--(or subcontract it out until you can afford your own fab)
Warehousing

From my understanding, if you can get a deal with a distributor you've got a things a lot easier as they help sell to the hobby shops for you. Retailers can like it as they can order a couple books and some starter minis from a game line to test the waters whereas buying direct might require a much larger and expensive order to qualify as a retailer.

Online stores are great, but they don't make product.

generalgrog wrote:
Printing costs-(for game books)
Travel costs- (to cons so you can show off your wares)
Advertisment costs?

Aything else?

So what say ye, anyone able to chip in with answers on this?

Travel to cons is effectively part of advertising. If you have a verifiable business this could be a potential way to move some money around for tax purposes. If you already go to a couple events a year, going as the business means the events are likely deductible (but I am not an accountant, which is something you neglected).

I think the prototype 'small game company' has three major 'groups' of staff (although people may float between them):
* Business (I.E. running the online store, working with retailers, making sure bills are paid and such)
* Creative (Rules and minis development)
* Production (Getting the books printed, minis casted and everything packed and shipped)

I think in this era running a 'distributed' office is definitely doable. You can put up a basic website for a few bucks a month (but pictures of your nifty minis will drive bandwidth costs up) and have email and a spot for shared files so a lot of staff can work from home. Minis production and warehouse is going to require space, but I'd bet an experienced caster could make a small, clean shop in a relatively small light industrial park pretty easily. Maybe even in a garage/workshop.

Cyporiean wrote:It took about $3000 to start up On The Lamb.

We've only got three staffers, My Husband, His bestfriend, and myself. We're not getting paid yet, till the book starts to pay for itself.

To get our book made it really only cost us time, Artist Commissioning, and Printing. It was $1490 to print the book (190 pages, B&W, softcover 6"x9"). I don't have the artist costs in front of me, but the pricing varies depending on the person.

We don't have any warehousing costs, the books just hang out in our house till they get shipped out.

Travel costs haven't been too bad, depending on the con. Our first con was a major rip off, Janicon in Jax, FL, they canceled the con about 2 weeks before hand and have been promising a refund for months now.

Our Second, Kajonk-A-Con in Knoxville, TN, was much better. It ended up costing us about $300 for the booth, hotel and travel.

Our Third, Megacon in Orlando, FL, was much closer to home, but also much larger. It ended up costing about $400.

And our fourth, FX Show also in Orlando, is this weekend. So Far the cost is about $350, but ya never know.

Right now we're trying to find a good cheap local banner printer for our booth at Conventions.

Also, our best sales have been Digital Distribution via RPGNow.com

$3K for a start-up RPG company, isn't bad at all.

Obviously an RPG company doesn't have to deal with the extra expense involved with hiring sculpters, and also getting molds/minis fabricated.
I would think that in order to in anyway compete with the big miniature game companies you would need some really flashy colored game books to attract people.

Interesting.....

GG

I'd say step 1 would be to take a business course to get the basics down and try to learn local laws about business licenses and such. Sure, it's frustrating working on paperwork when you want to be creating, but that's how it works.

Balance wrote:I'd say step 1 would be to take a business course to get the basics down and try to learn local laws about business licenses and such. Sure, it's frustrating working on paperwork when you want to be creating, but that's how it works.

Well yeah....that would be ideal. (I have a business degree-and plan on an MBA sometime)

But I was really looking for people, in the know, who had some inside information on the nuts and bolts costs. Like Cyporiean. :-)


GG

Where are you located? I'd really like to start one myself...

No actual estimates, but in the d6 Generation interview Matt Wilson started up the Privateer
Press RPG line with the idea that they would be saving money on some of the highest costs- artwork
since they did it themselves.

A bit OT: If you need someone to write up rules or bounce ideas off of, I'd be glad to help

I've been puttering around with a wargame idea for the last fifteen years or so, and have not had the money to do anything about it. All the time, I do web searches for wargames, and so many of them are defunct. Others seem like great ideas but nobody I know plays them. It seems that getting the word out would be the biggest hurdle. It must take a very specific mindset to be successful at advertising.

Seriously, we should all join forces and do this thing. I think pretty much everyone has made up their own wargame and never done anything with it at some point.

The thing is, I know a lot about manufacturing and the engineering associated with that. Mainly on the electrical instrumentation & controls and also a lot about injection molding and molding machines. I will be finshing my M.S. this year and will start on my MBA next year.. I think.

I know that some of the costs associated with molding itself can be massive. At least in the particular field I'm in. I work mostly with large molds that can cost over $500K. I think a small mold for a sprue would probably cost $5K to $10K. I had also heard that GW was going to some new form of plastic molding where it's done with powders, lasers and layers and not the traditional pelleted plastic injection. Maybe saving some money?

I don't know much about the aspect of game design, although as most of us I have toyed with the idea of thinking I could do it better than othr game companies.

I am actually friends with Richard Borg, as I helped playtest some of his games(Battle lore and others) when I lived in the Orlando area.

I would love to start up a miniature gaming company, but I think it's more of a fantasy right now, and I was just rtying to get a handle on the costs associatd with the design, art aspects.

I live in Sout West, Virginia by the way.

GG

My main problem is that I can't draw or paint and keep changing my mind about the fluff, so I have very little. My rules set started out as a reaction to the crap that was 3rd edition 40K. I also cannot settle on a name. It WAS called Warmachine, until 2002...

GeneralGrog, that's awesome. My principal interest is designing game rules and making the master-models for miniatures. You're head of technical stuff and actually knowing how to produce the models. Warpcrafter, you're with me in games design.

I'm learning zbrush and sculpting in general right now. My 3D skills are quite good for modeling in general, I just need to learn more artistic sculpting that will allow for me to more quickly whip out designs.

It's actually been a plan of mine to take up comission/contract work digitally sculpting models to turn into plastic injection molds along with other illustration work.

And yes, I've been planning to create a game company once the economic woes lighten up.

The main issue with starting anything up is that it really can't be the work of a committee. Someone will have to step up and not just lead, but own the whole shebang. Only rarely does a group of individuals come together and share a vision that allows them to spontaneously work together, in all other cases its one vision and entrepreneur that pushes something forward.

If something is to happen, we all need to product portfolio level work, show it here, and we go from there.

Hi all.
Just thought I would ask the question.
Wouldnt it be better to start a games company creating great rule sets, usable with a wide range of OTHER companies minatures?

And if there are very popular ranges of minatures with crappy rules. Why not write a better rule set for these popular minature ranges?

This completley removes the expence of developing background and supporting artwork, not to mention the minature ranges from the initial start up costs.

And after the original rules are picked up and in popular usage, THEN you could put your own background and minatures out to accompany your now popular rule set.

To write a better rule set than GW is easy!(They are primarily a minatures company .)

However, there are many companies developing great rule sets.
Writing a better rule set than Thane Games, Ground Zero Games, Two Hour Wargames, etc is A LOT HARDER!

I have knowlwege of a wide range of game mechanics and gaming conventions ,(in the last 25 years I have played over 30 different game systems from over 8 different companies.)So I could help with determining the most appropriate game mechanics/conventions based on the game play requirments if needed.

TTFN
Lanrak.

What is Zbrush like to use?

So this is the 1000 pound elephant...Captain G... you have any start up money?


GG

Check out the latest D6 Generation podcast for their interview with Curt Covert of Smirk and Dagger Games. Gives some really good insights into starting a game company.

generalgrog wrote:I know that some of the costs associated with molding itself can be massive. At least in the particular field I'm in. I work mostly with large molds that can cost over $500K. I think a small mold for a sprue would probably cost $5K to $10K. I had also heard that GW was going to some new form of plastic molding where it's done with powders, lasers and layers and not the traditional pelleted plastic injection. Maybe saving some money?

This sounds like how many of the 3d printing systems work. I've heard they can do some impressive work. One of the DP9 forum people did an impressive mech design using it. I've heard it's not quite ready to be used for new models yet as the resolution of units is a bit off, but it's still good for prototyping and testing.

I think there's a lot of tech that can make sprue design easier. Sculpts can be scanned to be manipulated digitally as needed and 3d printers can make 'rough drafts' less expensive. I think I've read that molds can be cut from CNC machines quickly which makes them noticeably cheaper.

Still, I think there's a definite art to laying out sprues. A few people on dakka have commented on some of the GunPla manufacturer's noticeable skill (even doing tricks like multi-color sprues!) but I think GW's actually pretty good at this, too, although they may have bad days. The sprues have a lot of parts, pretty good quality, minimal mold lines (usually, and especially on the tiny parts... Only so much they can do on the big pieces). Look at how the Rhino improved from the older version to the new.

You sound like you've got a good start by knowing the technical side of the manufacturing process, which is probably more than most.

captain.gordino wrote:GeneralGrog, that's awesome. My principal interest is designing game rules and making the master-models for miniatures. You're head of technical stuff and actually knowing how to produce the models. Warpcrafter, you're with me in games design.

Okay, so how are we gonna do this?

warpcrafter wrote:I also cannot settle on a name. It WAS called Warmachine, until 2002...

All you have to do to come up with an original name is find a synonym for each word. So instead of "war" you can have, say, "battle", and instead of "machine" you can have something like "technology".

So you could call your game "BattleTech". What do you think?

@ GG, I have no start-up money, no.

We need to make some minis that we can sell which people will buy for use in games other than ours, because it won't be big at first. So we make cool heads and alternative infantry. Make alternative models for 40k, while we work on our ruleset(s).

We make money off of those, using resin and metal molds at first, while we save up for plastic molds. Once we can do plastic, things take off, because everyone likes plastic. I hope. But the mold-making is where I don't know enough. That's where someone else, GeneralGrog if he's interested, comes in.

Once we're doing ok selling the minis, and we have a wee bit of a name for ourselves, we start introducing our rules, which we've finally perfected.

C&C?

captain.gordino wrote:

Once we're doing ok selling the minis, and we have a wee bit of a name for ourselves, we start introducing our rules, which we've finally perfected.

C&C?

I think you forgot a step--

Realize there's too much money in selling miniatures to ever give your full attention back to
writing game rules.

That's true, I suppose. I was sort of hoping to avoid that step, which I guess would take a conscious effort.

generalgrog wrote:
So list of things needed:

Having worked for indies for most of my adult life (not minis though), here's how I'd break this down:

Games designers(could very well be your self)
Miniature designers (could very well be your self)
Sales people (IS your self)
Work place/offices (IS your house)
Manufacturing facility/equipment (eBay all this stuff)
Printing costs (Find a printer, get to know him, get it on the cheap)
Travel costs (With the internet, you don't have to appear at every trade show)
Advertisment costs? (Unless you're sitting on a pot of gold, forget this. All your press needs to be FREE)

Just my two cents, but I'm pretty well-versed in running small businesses, well not [i]that[/] well-versed, but I know how to do almost anything on the cheap.
Forums, newsgroups and having a couple of mates in the press is invaluable. If you don't have mates in the press, you need to make them, it's that simple.
As for marketing/sales/pr/designers/artists/production staff; that's gonna be YOU from the get-go. Unless you know some talented sculptors who will work for free (or revenue-share), then you're gonna be doing everything for at least the first year.

captain.gordino wrote:What is Zbrush like to use?

Zbrush, is a digital sculpting program. It's very powerful, but because of that power it's also very complex. It also requires a firm grasp of sculpting and artistic skills. But, it and other 3D software are what's being used nowadays for plastic games. You can reuse a lot of parts when doing 3D drastically reducing the amount of work. But there is that extra step of having to have the 3D sculpture 3D printed at high quality before making the metal mold.

I started writing my rules set as an alternative to 40K, but it's grown way beyond that now. It's more like an amalgam of 40K, Dungeons and Dragons, Battle tech and steampunk. Perhaps it would be best to get together (Not literally, since I'm unable to travel) and work on the rules, then perhaps get some small miniatures company interested. I would be satisfied with making simple, mostly one-piece miniatures like the box sets made for War of the Ring. They would be the cheapest option. Some companies can do resin much cheaper than Forgeworld, such as Fenryll.

There's a disconnect going on here:

1) some people are talking about how to start up a company that sells games
2) part of the original statement was 'compete with GW'

People get together all the time and start gaming companies. They throw their heart and souls into it, long hours, and all their money. They may even make a profit some day. Hopefully they have fun. Then 99% go back to the real world. Those 1% are dozens of pretty cool little game companies.

They don't compete with GW. They mostly try to stay alive and keep putting out their game.

Focus on starting your own company, ignore any delusions about competing with GW. If you get big enough to get your game into distribution and to gaming stores, you'll be doing good.

Starting a company has a hugely variable cost depending on what you decide to do.

If you just want to publish books, you can probably typeset them yourself using software that's already on your home computer. Artwork is more expensive. Publish via Lulu.com and there are no printing costs. I have two rulebooks published via Lulu.

http://www.lulu.com/uk/products/

If you are going to compete with GW it's a whole different game.