“Where can I get money to develop a mobile application?” – is the main question that game developers ask themselves. After all, even if the allocated budget is enough for the technical part, no fewer funds will be needed to attract and retain users. If you think your mobile game does not need promotion because it is already quite viral, put aside this idea: every mobile application, be it a game or a to-do list, needs attention and high-quality advertising campaigns. This will require help from mobile game publishers who will provide you with all the essential services that the developer needs from day one, including personal game designer and publisher manager, creative team, data analysis, and more.
Self Funding
This method is popular for those just starting their journey in game development. Do you have the necessary development resources and enough funds to launch the project? Then it’s excellent! But the problem is how much the budget will be enough for independent promotion and support of the mobile game.
Some games remained in the shadows for a long time, without the audience’s necessities for life, and brought a loss, for example, Among Us, which was an unattractive game until it appeared on online streams and YouTube videos. It was an indie project that waited two years for a breakthrough.
This is the disadvantage of this funding method. The video game market requires a stable investment that not all singles can afford. In this case, it is best to take the help of investors at different sites.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is a way to raise funds with the help of people who want to support a specific project or a specific developer on certain platforms. Advantages of crowdfunding: the ability to raise the required amount of money for the project. Crowdfunding allows you to collect the necessary funds by attracting investors who want access to the project. They voluntarily pool money or other resources to support the authors of an exciting idea.
The video game industry, especially indie games, often use crowdfunding to implement their projects. Moreover, the investments received are spent on equipment (computers, graphics tablets, monitors, etc.) to implement ideas into the game fully.
Crowdfunding is a popular tool among technology startups. How to publish a project?
The answer is obvious: find a suitable crowdfunding platform, register, fill in all the required fields and sign a cooperation agreement with the platform. Mandatory ad elements:
- the essence of the project. This is a brief description of two or three sentences: what your project does, for whom, and why it exists in the video game market;
- video presentation. Record a motivational video in which you will tell about the project and ask philanthropists for support;
- project description. Here it would help if you told about your idea in more detail: what is the goal and mission of the project, what problems of society or people does it solve and how, how do you see development – how much investment is needed and what will it be spent on, who is working on the project and what has already been done. It is in the description that you must convince yourself that you are doing a valuable thing and can realize your plan;
- photo and graphics. The less text and more multimedia in your description, the better. Moreover, you can demonstrate game design and find investors much faster because of this;
- You need several of them – a certain amount of donation should receive some reward. It is very nice when a player will receive a unique skin, title, or bonus for support in the future.
Investors and Game Financing
As with any business, growth in financial performance is essential for game development. To achieve the desired result, the company must be able to quickly respond to challenges and balance the interests of users and shareholders. Creating new large-scale projects requires severe costs, which creates risks of non-repayment.
Game investors help to be sure that the project will live and develop. Developers, in turn, need to prove that their project will be profitable, playable, and popular. To achieve this, funds go to all stages of creating a mobile game. Moreover, for projects, a separate item is often allocated for outsourcing. Since the help from the game art studio will speed up the project’s launch and help you achieve your goals.
The game industry is one of the fastest-growing and promising areas in entertainment. Investing in game dev can meet investors’ expectations if you consciously approach the choice of company shares. In general, the search for investments is a complex and lengthy process, especially for an indie team with no name and no great experience in game development. But this is not an inherently hopeless story. The teams continue to look for investment and someone who believes in them in the pursuit of making a great product and building a development studio with them.
On the one hand, games are created by talented creative people who love to draw and develop scripts and programming; on the other hand, they are met by people who like to play quality games and are willing to pay for it.
