Got a mobile game idea? Next step is to contact a professional game studio to turn your idea into reality. Like any other business, developing a mobile game requires funds and a plan. The article helps you identify various sources of funding and how to approach investors.
Your next action plan defines the seriousness of your idea. First thing first and before you find out the ways of funding, you need to estimate the cost and prepare schedule for your game launch. You start by getting a ballpark and hiring a professional game studio to prepare GDD i.e. game design document. GDD helps you prepare for presenting your idea to potential investors.
You may have a brilliant game idea but how you communicate it to potential investors? You need a GDD (game design document) and cost required to build that game.
Ballparks are important to get idea if the investment within range or not? E.g. if you are planning to build a hyper-casual game it may cost about $15,000. You can approach few close connections and rely on your savings, whereas if you are developing MMRPG game it may cost you over $1,000,000 and you may need to search for potential investors.
GDD is one of the essentials, and you must have it before pitching to investors. It helps in documenting your game idea and visualize the gameplay. It is used for pitching game concept and monetization plans to investors. It can be added to business projections to formulate a business plan.
Investors need a clear picture of your game; and GDD is the best way to give them clarity through a single document. The design document includes mockups to visualize the exact idea of the game. The investment you need for GDD can be around $2,000 to $5,000 to get GDD.
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Funding sources
Once you are done with the ballpark and GDD. The next important step is to find potential sources for fundraising. Some common and preferable sources are:
Friends and family
Do you know who has your back in the first place? Yes, your loved ones. They have trust in you and they will love to see you grow and establish your place in the business market. So, both GDD and ballpark will help you in putting forward your point of view regarding the idea of your game. So, try convincing them before you convince institutional investors. Initial funding is usually preferred either from personal savings or from loved ones.
Crowdsourcing
It is another way to get investment. Yes, if you have a brilliant idea, you can use different platforms for fundraising. Platforms like Kickstarter, Indigogo, and Crowdrise are the main source of investment for many game developers.
Crowdsourcing is an old practice implemented by many people to raise funding from the public. Successful campaign requires game designs, descriptions and a demo video. You can benefit from your previous reputation if you have worked on any other idea before. If you are a beginner in it, you can take an example of the successful game campaigns to follow the footsteps. For the examples, you can read out the top 10 video games funded by Kickstarter.
Angel investors
Look for angels who have invested in games and understand investments in games. You can approach them through Game Conferences, LinkedIn or Game Jams. Remember, most angels require GDD or demo gameplay . They are usually not comfortable investing with ballpark only.
Usually, they are investing in start-ups and many other business ideas in exchange for debt or ownership equity. They provide capital for the ideas and are ready to provide initial investment to most star-ups when most investors refrain from investing in it. Angel investors will take a risk at that time.
How to find investors
Already dreaming about the success of the game? It is only possible if you can get the right investors. The question is how to find them. You have multiple ways to find the investors.
Attract audiance
There is a common norm in the market, you can launch a beta version of the idea and attract the relevant audience. Market it as must as you can and excite potential customers about your product. This helps in developing virality and win investor confidence. Usually, if developers have an initial investment, they run such campaigns and attract potential investors through it. This way, you will also get a clear idea about the response of the market.
It also helps you to enter the ecosystem of the game and later show the graph to investors.
Grants
If you will have a deeper look, you can find many government game development hubs in the UK and France. Similarly, many other countries are also offering such institutes. If your government is aware of the need and future market, they will have the department for game development. They can provide you funding.
Build a strong team
Finally, you need a partner with a studio that can deliver; as a part of your team. Get advisors on board from the industry. This is another way of finding investors. People who look for new ventures to fund, they are often attracted to the teams. They know if they can trust the team, the money they are investing is safe.
Prepare perfect pitch
You have done everything you need to find the funding and investors for your game. However, you fail in pitching right. All the efforts go down the drain within a second. So, always prepare the best for pitching the investor and never leave a loophole in it.
Video
You can prepare an animated video or another video to make sure you are conveying the idea in the right way. So, make a video to impress your investor making every point clear.
Basic Art
If your investor is unable to visualize the concept of the game. You might not be able to impress them and secure the funding. GDD plays a vital role here by giving mockups, or other visual designs along with factual graphs to make give a clear idea about your game.
Think like investor
If you want to impress your investors, think like them for a while. Ask all the possible questions. Let your brain go through all the harsh and tough questions. Prepare answers for those questions and most importantly, ask if it is worth the money? If you don’t think it is worthy, how you will convince your investors? So, you need to ensure that your game idea is good enough that you or anyone else won’t have any doubts about its success.
Success stories in gaming industry
We know how much our kids and even adult love mobile games. So, there are some of the top success stories in the game industry.
- Minecraft has become a huge success even the beginning was humble. Now it is one of the top games of US generating million dollars every year.
- Shovel night is one of the finest examples of crowdsourcing. It was funded by websites like Kickstarter. The target of the funding was $75,000 but reached the $311,502. This is one of the successful campaigns for games that you can use as an example too.
If you will go any further, games like Flappy bird, Pokémon Go, and Final Fantasy are also in the list of some successful game stories.
Conclusion
Key takeaways from the article are that you need ballpark for the right estimate of the cost along with GDD and then find the best investors. Prepare the perfect pitch to know the worth of your idea. You must be aware of the considerable facts regarding funding or resourcing for the funds too. Funding a mobile game is not a problem if you are clear in your mind and know the right value of the game.
