Lets say I won the lottery and wanted to design a video game

How would I go about hiring a crew to do that?

Buy Uber Ent.

I'm sure if, after taxes, you end up with saaaaaaaaaay $154million (Big Jackpot) that you could purchase Uber (the studio, the devs themselves are cheaper ) for an aggressive offer of $5m.

I got this number by multiplying my guess of 300,000 MNC titles sold @ $15/apiece. Then taking salary and benefits into account, plus time spent.

You want to make an offer that perks their ears up, but not something that says "I'm willing to spend too much"


Other than that, play Game Development Story. Thats a 100% accurate representation of how the industry works.

You don't need to win the lottery to design a video game. Just start doing it, there are plenty of free tools out there.

Take a look at the development of Mount and Blade. It started years ago with a tiny team of 2 (I think) Turkish game geeks and a very basic demo. Then they got an awesome artist (ganbat) and kept developing it over time, then finally got a release on PC, then an expansion.

It survived because of good design. Best horse combat mechanics I've seen (they did it when Bethesda was afraid to) as well as difficult, addicting gameplay and it was incredibly easily modified.

Yeah, but I want someone who knows what they are doing to boss around.

But what you're buying isn't what they've done already, but what they're going to do. What you figured out is how much money they *have*. If they think they're going to make $10M next year, and $50M in the year after that, then why would they listen to your $5M offer?

Here's another problem from the other way around. From your perspective, in order to make your $5M offer back, you have to coax this team you bought (maybe resentful for your doing so) into doing a second title that makes that much again. After you buy it, you have the task of keeping the mojo alive, or else using the IP you gained with a brand new team (probably more common).

This is why game companies rarely see buyouts go well.

Somehow typing this reminded me of this article about duke nukem forever... it could stand an update, but it's still funny:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/What-Hap ... 6340.shtml

I'm not buying uber. I want my own design team.

This is a recipe for fail.

By boss them around, I mean give the direction of my vision and give them the room to make it work.

I have to agree with Eka. You need to build a game first and get to understand the process or it'll fail. There are many, many examples out there of people trying to do what you propose and it not working.

I'm not trying to poo-poo your dreams, I'm just saying it sounds easy but it's not.

If you have won the lottery, I'd be happy to tutor you in building a game!

Why would any experienced developer that knows what they're doing listen to someone that has no experience making games? I know it happens in the industry and it usually ends bad. Making games is a collaborative process and to have "vision" you need to understand how to make games first and have the experience. If you're really serious about this, start by making your own small games first.

Good, that is what I'm looking for.

I have made games, not video games, but tried to make games. But I would prefer to have a team that I could keep employed to finish the dream instead of being a half finished piece of crap.

To be honest if I did win the lottery I would also go back to school learn how to program and meet some people to help me get what I want.

Also I heard developing a game is more about being good at communicating your vision that simply knowing how to program or draw. I feel I'm going at communicating, taking criticism and all of that. I would probably start small, with some sort of tutor, I plan on stealing scathis now to do that. Then working up something on the level of MNC or Braid or something, a nice x-box live release then build to some of my more ambitious ideas.

First off, you heard wrong, you need to be able to do everything.

Secondly... I don't come cheap.

:idea: :lol: :?:

I heard you need to be able to do everything about also be able to communicate to different teams.

Also, that is why I need to win the lotto.

That's part of "everything". :mrgreen:

Also maybe I don't understand why being a patron of the interactive arts as a business model wouldn't work.

Say I had the capital, had the idea of some sort of master thief game, wrote it down on paper and handed it to some guys that know what they are doing. Why wouldn't that work?

What if they hated your idea?

That would work... but that situation never happens. Invariably the people putting the money in either want most of the money from the sales, leaving little to the devs, or want more creative control and aren't savvy enough to make it successful... or both.

In an ideal world, yes rudigarmc, it would work. But I have yet to see it happen. There are just realities that always get in the way.