Can I sell my indie game to a big company?
This is a BIG answer.I could say YES and NO. Everything can be sold but is it worth to sell them?One big company usually not need to purchase indie games, because already have lots of resources and the personnel to create almost everything.But why do you want to sell your game?Before you sell your game you need to answer other questions.And the investor who will show interest will ask lots of questions.Is your game unique?Is your game competitive?Is your game profitable?What kind or rights will you sell with your game?Does your game have market?The BIG company who will purchase your game should have profits?How expensive will be your game?After you sell the game what kind of rights will sell too?If for example you will sell the rights of the game, maybe you will not be able to create another similar one and use similar titles.Selling a game you will need to have all your designers,programmer,composers,actors,authors rights transferred to you and the company which will receive the game will not have issues with the law and with these people and transfer all of these rights from you to the company with signed contract.Sometimes selling your game to a big company will be a bad decision but depends and how much money you will earn from the trade. Selling a new game which no one know it, with no potential customers and with a low price maybe will be a very bad move. Maybe you will receive very few money and then the company will become rich and kick yourself.My opinion is to not sell your game in a big company at least yet. It depends how profitable is your game and all I explained above.If you are holding a profitable game, why do you need to sell it?If you are holding an unprofitable yet game why do the company needs to purchase it?Premature actions will lead to disasters and disappointments.You can sell it but I do not advice to sell it yet.Do research, promote it, try to earn profits. Just sell it is not always an option.Maybe you will sit on a goldmine.
How to sell my video game ideas to a video game company?
It's pretty much impossible to just sell a game idea. Video game companies are already filled with creative people, so they already have plenty of ideas themselves. As such they don't really feel any need to pay for more. About the only way to get the game made is to get hired on (likely in a producer/director role, and have dun pulling that off if you don't have experience doing something similar already), or to make a demo of your game so they can see it in action (and then will likely want to hire you and any team members you had as programmers/artists on the game).
Does Gamestop produce its own games or has other companies do them for Gamestop?
Because it's been a common practice to have a "middle man" sell goods and services sold to the by producers. Sometimes that's exactly how everyone makes money. The only reason you'd want to sell your own products without the use of a middle man is if you're a big enough name create the large sales that middle men do or sell better. One thing you may want to note about companies like GameStop is that they DO sell their own products as well, but they're usually the small things that people buy to aid their gaming experience. (like system fans, disc cleaners, etc...) Also, some video game companies DO sell their own products, in addition to middle men like GameStop. SquareEnix definitely at least has an online store.
How do gaming companies make money?
I suppose you are asking this related to which gaming platform PC or mobile?In PC or console games, companies which build such games invest millions to give gamer a great experience. Their source of income is from the sales of the game through retail be it brick & mortar model or online . They also release downloadable content (DLC) which is also sold through retail. Some of the new games like Warface, Blacklight Retribution which are basically MMOFPS, earn through micro transactions, which the players can use to upgrade their characters .In mobile gaming, companies mostly go for free game release and then encourage gamers to use micro transactions to upgrade their characters. Some games like Hitman :Sniper and other such high end mobile games can only be played by paying and then downloading .So both are actually using the same source of income i.e., micro transactions and reatail or selling the game .Keep Gaming !!
Do game developers buy their own games?
If you're on the development team, the company usually gives you a copy. If the company publish more than one game, employees usually get free copies for all games published by the company.When I worked for a big publishing company, I never paid for any of the games they published, we get free copies, occasionally include season pass. And swags too, hoodies, T-shirts, shot glasses, pins, stickers, posters…One of the cool perks working for a big company.
Do game companies make a massive amount of money?
Sure, any endeavor would be massively profitable if you could just make up the numbers like you did. But let's look at the actual numbers.For a X-Box 360 game that's sold for $60 at retail, $12 goes to the retailer and $12 goes to Microsoft (as a fee to the console manufacturer). That leaves $36 to the publisher, which is then spent to pay off the costs for development, marketing and manufacturing, as well as the publisher's overhead.Now, the average development cost for a AAA game is about ten times what you quoted in your scenario. The top PS3 games, for example, each cost $20M to $50M to develop. Then there's the marketing costs, which for a top tier game can be equal to the development costs but might be as high as three to four times the development costs for a tentpole title. The total development and marketing costs for Grand Theft Auto V have been estimated to be $265 million.The large, well-established publishers like Activision and Electronic Arts do consistently make a profit, but that's because they rely on developing tentpole franchises in which the hits make up for the misses. The fact is that most published games do not even break even, and so the ones that do make a profit need to earn enough revenue to cover the losses for all the other titles that didn't make a profit. And even then, game publishers still go out of business -- THQ, for example, once one of the biggest game publishers in the business, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in 2013. Game developers have it worse because they develop only a few (perhaps only one) titles at time and need each one to be profitable to be stay afloat. One mediocre game, and they can be out of business for good. Even if they make a great game, they have to count on the publisher do their job in marketing and selling their game. And each year, many game studios go out of business (see 20 Games Studios We Lost in 2012 - IGN).Yeah, some people in the game industry consistently make lots of money, but they're the exception rather than the rule. The IGDA 2014 Employee Satisfaction Survey found the average employee in the game industry has worked at 4 companies in the past 5 years. According to Game Job Watch, over 3400 people in the game industry were laid off from their jobs in 2013.If making a massive amount money is what you want to do, there are a lot easier and less risky ways of doing it than by making games.
How can independent game developers sell their games?
Sell from your own website. This involves doing your own marketing and is very difficult to get a large number of eyes on your product. For an example of a title that did very well on this, see Creeper World. The title was sold independently for a number of years, gaining traffic from a free demo-version on Kongregate. The series had a number of sequels, each with its own limited free version on Kongregate. Also check out Spacechem. This game was sold on the Zachtronics web-site, later being picked up by Steam after positive reviews. The company has a catalog for sale now, including Infinifactory, TIS-100, and Shenzhen I/O.Submit your product to a popular digital storefront. For example, take a look into Steam Greenlight. The Steam community votes on pitches they would be interested in, and a number of those developers now make some good sales. For example, check out Wulverblade and Guncraft. Both titles participated in the Greenlight program.
Why do some game developers refuse to publish their games on Steam?
Very thoughtful question but believe me it is not easy to answer. What I have heard is something totally different.Being a game lover, i know that developing a quality game needs whole lot of effort, time, creativity, testing, developments, bug testing and good finance to release too. For a company it could be easy, for start up and new not so, but trust me for an individual game developer this could be as challenging as putting everything on stake.After taking some much of pain and risk by a developer what he should expect now! Is it not worthy to get good profit sharing and sale revenue from company to motivate him for next level or game ? or is there any harm to ask for good support and timely update for game ?Here the entire scene turns around. What they face in India is -Game developers hardly get good return of their games.Most of the platform, who publish games, play dominant role in profit sharing, ad revenue and other financial part.They keep higher part at them and share very small profit with game developers.Not only this, their cycle of profit sharing is so abrupt that it never complete the terms and frames. Their is no time deadline, duration etc for payment.Poor support on service and refund also discourage developers. Poor customer support at next level earns bad name for game as well as developer both.Sometimes monopoly goes up to that level where game developers refuse to publish games at those platforms just because of their vague terms and conditions.In such scenario, game developers avoid those platforms where they don’t get promising returns, good profit, timely payouts, customer support, refund to customers etc.I don’t know whether you are a gamer or game developer but trust I can suggest you some platforms to put your games and get good benefit. You can search for G2A, Kinguin, Google Play Store, GStore etc. where payment terms vary as per company.These are global platforms where developers across the globe list their games and become part of global retail market place of games/ digital games. Hope the link will serve you the best.‘G Store’ is all Set to Revolutionize Gaming Industry - PCQuestG2A makes route of FIFA 18 in IndiaRest you can share your views and hope this will answer your query up to a level.