small business? game company

[graodon]

hi guys,

i didnt know which section to post it in so im asking it here.

I dont really have the university qualifications to make my own games from scratch, but i am able to work on unreal engine 4 on a basic level and improving slowly.

I am wondering if anyone is interested in such things and if it is possible to start something like this in bangladesh. i know there are small companies like trimatrik interactive but im not talking those kind of games

im talking about big games to be able to go global mostly. I am primarily a business student so i think i can help out on both marketing as well as developments process but would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions on what can and cant be done and how i could go about things.

also, my very first project is a competitive LAN game that could be spread to local gaming cafes and maybe someday, e-sports. dreaming big but starting small.


that being said, I primarily need someone who can help me with certain things like developing the actual game properly, registering the company name, sponsors, promotion, etc. great things cant be achieved alone

thank you.

[Sami 1999]

You're planning to make FPS MP game?

[graodon]

no. a third person action multiplayer game. hack n slash + shooters depending on the different classes and characters.

im already making it and have made 4 characters so far with basic functionality being unique amongst them

[sensei]

This is really great so see someone with such initiative and kudos to you being so brave and start to work on your own game in bangladeshi market. As you are a business student i don't think this is hard for you to understand the possibility in bangladeshi market, its very less than zero. We don't even have legitimate way to buy games from direct developers (like india have their own region and in every single purchase we owe to them) i would highly suggest you if your passion is strong and if you think this is the thing you are willing to give everything for then try for abroad scholarship and do something there. I don't think anyone or there is any system yet or maybe in more than 10 years would be available in Bangladesh and you are too early to do something right now

[graodon]

This is really great so see someone with such initiative and kudos to you being so brave and start to work on your own game in bangladeshi market. As you are a business student i don't think this is hard for you to understand the possibility in bangladeshi market, its very less than zero. We don't even have legitimate way to buy games from direct developers (like india have their own region and in every single purchase we owe to them) i would highly suggest you if your passion is strong and if you think this is the thing you are willing to give everything for then try for abroad scholarship and do something there. I don't think anyone or there is any system yet or maybe in more than 10 years would be available in Bangladesh and you are too early to do something right now

thanks for the words of encouragement man.

i am well aware of that problem. thats why im trying to make the game competitive rather than story focused to get communities into it, to get it into gaming cafes and getting it recognised and popular. im hoping to get the name out first so people know about the game to be able to do something.

not expecting profit from the get go, but rather expecting to spread the name and get it out of bangladesh to the global market if possible. no other game has done this on a competitive level honestly. smite and paragon arent exactly hack n slash +third person shooter if you understand what im talking about.

tried for scholarship in uk and other places. they dont see results, they only want qualificaiton at college level to even consider taking me. even then its too expensive and i cannot afford any of that. and i wont be able to afford university in bangladesh either at this rate. so im trying to do something that can help get bangladesh out of ground 0 and help expand my possibile choices as well

[shafi]

I know the startup community is a shitshow in bangladesh. But then again you can open up a company, and make india or other countries as your customer base. Or even open up a company and take up some outsourcing video game development from other countries, so that you get the necessary experience in video game development. Then start your focus on your own video game development and hire some more developers, then make india your customer base as they really have some good laws and rules regarding copyright and other stuff.

Another thing to remember, that even in north america, which has a very good ecosystem for startups, 9 out of 10 companies fail to make it to a bigger company. The main reason is lack of innovative ideas and focus, so if you do wanna really succedd, you have to be extremely determined and hard working. You shouldn't doubt in any moment that you made the wrong decission, just work your ¤¤¤ off and try to be innovative. For example, if you now make a generic fps, no one will buy it, so many generic fps in the market right now. But if you make some innovation, like a combination of rts and fps and throw around a very good story, it will sell like hot cake. So you have to be mindful about that.

Also i would highly suggest, as myself pursuing a software engineering degree here at UBC, is to gather some experience first. Making a very big project like a video game really requires some small software building experience. For example: you need to learn the alphabets first in order to make a sentence, and then paragraph. Software industry including video games work in that same way.

And definitely good luck and i do encourage you to continue. Startup industry is what made US and Canada the global tech hub it is today. Europe didn't have such a culture and now they are really struggling to compete with north american counterparts.

[graodon]

thanks for the information and suggestions shafi, i will keep that in mind when moving on with my plan. it will help me tackle the problems better than before hopefully.

[Trave160]

Are you using Unity engine for your game?

[graodon]

Are you using Unity engine for your game?

im using unreal engine 4. unity engine is a little more complicated and kinda annoying too when you think about it.

[Robin Rayhan]

Well there is two aspect to looking at a business: Something you love doing but is not profitable, so you might not end up being able to support yourself. Then there is the other side, where you might have to do something you don't like but then again its profitable, so you will have a stable income. If you are serious about being a game developer, you should make small fun mini games for Android phone, something addictive like flappy bird. They might give you a stable income from Ads, from around $100 - $250 depending on downloads, per month. With a stable income, then you can concentrate on passion projects.

[graodon]

thanks , didnt know you can earn alot from thosemini games

[Robin Rayhan]

thanks , didnt know you can earn alot from thosemini games

Flappy Bird developer earned $50K daily. Then he got death threat and deleted it.

[chanchalcxi]

I don't want to be a sour puss but making a global multiplayer game which will blow out is going to be tough for a small team,

also u need capital of around 20 lac to start that small team, talented ppl won't work for free and noobs can't make good games, ppl in BD have already attempted and all of them resulted in failures like liberation 71 which was developed by 20+ ppl,

Maintaining servers for multiplayer games are also expensive, Clash of clan devs spend millions of dollars to maintain their servers... and only 1 percent people actually pay anything to play that game, that's why mobile games are risky ventures, crap easy to develop games like flappy bird can suddenly become a massive success but they don't have long term sustainability ...

On mobile even games like deer hunter 2017 which is hugely popular have complex functionality and good graphics...

Developing games in Unreal Engine is harder than Unity, without learning programming u can develop games in unreal but for that u have to master Blueprint, also Unreal's particle system/Cascade and animation editor are way more complex than unity's, C#/Java is also easier to learn than C++... fixing game breaking bugs are also tougher in Unreal...

Degrees won't help u in this sector but u have to put on a lot of hard work. also u have to keep in mind profit margin in vfx and gaming industry is really low, Oscar winning studios like Rhythm and hues (life of pi), digital domain went bankrupt, Game studios like Lionhead studios (Fable), Disney infinity also went bankrupt recently, and giants like Avalanche (mad max/just cause) and Activision (COD) laid off thousands of ppl bcz their profit margin thinned,

I am not being a pessimist even though I sound like one, u can achieve anything in life if u r focused enough and work hard for it, but also need to learn about reality, way too much optimism can be destructive ...

[graodon]

I don't want to be a sour puss but making a global multiplayer game which will blow out is going to be tough for a small team,

also u need capital of around 20 lac to start that small team, talented ppl won't work for free and noobs can't make good games, ppl in BD have already attempted and all of them resulted in failures like liberation 71 which was developed by 20+ ppl,

Maintaining servers for multiplayer games are also expensive, Clash of clan devs spend millions of dollars to maintain their servers... and only 1 percent people actually pay anything to play that game, that's why mobile games are risky ventures, crap easy to develop games like flappy bird can suddenly become a massive success but they don't have long term sustainability ...

On mobile even games like deer hunter 2017 which is hugely popular have complex functionality and good graphics...

Developing games in Unreal Engine is harder than Unity, without learning programming u can develop games in unreal but for that u have to master Blueprint, also Unreal's particle system/Cascade and animation editor are way more complex than unity's, C#/Java is also easier to learn than C++... fixing game breaking bugs are also tougher in Unreal...

Degrees won't help u in this sector but u have to put on a lot of hard work. also u have to keep in mind profit margin in vfx and gaming industry is really low, Oscar winning studios like Rhythm and hues (life of pi), digital domain went bankrupt, Game studios like Lionhead studios (Fable), Disney infinity also went bankrupt recently, and giants like Avalanche (mad max/just cause) and Activision (COD) laid off thousands of ppl bcz their profit margin thinned,

I am not being a pessimist even though I sound like one, u can achieve anything in life if u r focused enough and work hard for it, but also need to learn about reality, way too much optimism can be destructive ...

thank you for that information and warning. i'll keep that in mind. optimism does hurt if there is too much. i may change to unity if unreal proves too troublesome later on. but right now im sticking with it because blueprint system is helping alot since i have no idea about coding at all.

[furiousTaher]

some tips- stick to blueprint, watch youtube tutorials, sub unreal engine utube channel, watch the blueprint optimization video in their channel, and the video with the profiler tool etc.

thank you for that information and warning. i'll keep that in mind. optimism does hurt if there is too much. i may change to unity if unreal proves too troublesome later on. but right now im sticking with it because blueprint system is helping alot since i have no idea about coding at all.

[graodon]

some tips- stick to blueprint, watch youtube tutorials, sub unreal engine utube channel, watch the blueprint optimization video in their channel, and the video with the profiler tool etc.

profiler tool? thanks, ill have to check it out. and will do. these tutorials are very useful