CCP (Eve Online) are probably a good role model - they managed to start up and develop an MMO without having a history of successful games projects (unlike 989 or Blizzard). From the wiki page:
All of you have to understand that you must start small! Make a game like Doodle Jump at least. Then get bigger and bigger. When I first came on Touch Arcade, I decided to make a Mario game. I posted a thread in this same forum, saying I want a team of a bunch of people to do all the work for me while I tell them what to do. Everybody had the same replies as in this thread. Then I found a small, not so stable team with the same idea. In about a week I got sick of working on it and did something else. Now I've decided to practice my artwork more and offer my services to any developer for free so I can get my name on a game. I suggest you work on developing or art, or whatever it is you do best (even if you do it terribly) and work on that. Once you get good enough, start a small (microscopic in comparison to this) project or join an existing one.
unfortunately i did try and start small. i got a few no name developers when i was working on the android platform and every single one of them ended up being flakey. they wanted to make games like Tictactoe instead or something really pathetic instead of an amazing game. im not even talking about THIS game i have hundreds of games i could make in a week with a single programmer. the problem is everyone i come across is a complete flake who cant commit to anything they say they are going to do. thats the problem.
Perhaps it's because they understand that an MMO is almost entirely unrealistic. Ideas are a dime a dozen, everyone on this forum has a ton of ideas for how their perfect game would go. Unfortunately it's not ideas that development teams are after, it's skills. They want people who have the knowledge (and funding) to put their ideas into action. Not someone that can sit around telling them what to do, any 10 year old kid can do that. Perhaps if you could tell them how to do it, if you had an idea for a breakthrough graphic streaming process or knew how to create the fastest and most reliable netcode ever built... then yeah, you'd get a place on their team. Ideas are seriously the most common thing in the world. If a dev team wants an idea, they'll come to a forum like this one. They'll make a post asking what people want to see and they'll get potentially hundreds of replies for free. What they definitely will not do is choose one of those people to be on the payroll and lead the entire team.
if you got money - i'll help i just finished up a $5000 US project for a customer in los angeles - around 80 hours of work and it looks great will be submitting to the app store this week, just waiting for client approval. i dont do tic-tac-toe type games either the more involved; the better - especially if its your budget
oh.. $5000 was a small project - i have also put together different upfront/royalty calculations for people as well. ideally; if it is work for hire - you pay through the nose.. if it is a partnership - you make sure i can put food on my table and we share profits.. of course; i would need to be convinced there is some potential in sales - even 100% percentage of nothing is still nothing. there is no such thing as a free launch.
Wait, so you tried to make a small project, but everybody you met was too lazy to finish it, so you thought the logical thing to do is make a project that's ten times bigger? By the way Midian, great sig.
i tried something different. if i did the same thing everyone else did i wouldn't be very original would i.
The only way is to do. If you have an idea - why not learn to code and play about with making some graphics. Then find out what you are good at. The best thing anybody can do is make a simple game from start to finish and see what the process is that goes into making one. Pick a simple idea... Space Invaders or Pac Man and just make it. Don't even think about selling it because all you want to do is get some experience and skills together. Then just build upon that. And don't go in with the attitude that you will be super rich. To even get into that position will take years of dedication and a lot of hard work. I don't mean to put a downer on these type of threads - but the above advice is sound advice. There is nothing worse than starting something and not finishing it... it drives motivation down to the point of giving up altogether. Where as starting simple and building on each small step will reward your satisfaction to learn more to the point where you can build your ideas. I hope this advice will help would be game makers
i already know what im good at.. i cant draw. i dont have the memory or the concentration to code unfortunately. i run a bunch of different companies right now and that takes up all my time. i have a website thats going to cost me 500k to make. but its going to change the world of muisic forever. most of my money is going twords that. if there isnt a way, i will make a way. theres other ways of doing things, than whatever one else is doing. i have zero experience coding. and i have no desire to start coding. ill hire someone who is willing to take the risk. no risk no reward. im not sayin its going to be easy for me. but this is the way its gotta be done for me. im not going to explain my entire lifes circumstance but im presenting it in this way because this is how it HAS to be done for me. i have to give out royalty, if your not interested in thats fine. eventually ill find somone who is interested, then hopefully ill make games that people will say damn i shoulda jumped on that. im not going in trying to sound arrogant but i know a good idea when i see one.
Maybe you should wait until you earn some money of your musicsite, so you can pay your coders and artists.
