Money from publisher

Hi,

If I ask a publisher for money, for example €200,000, do I have to pay taxes or duties on this sum that I will receive?

 

You should speak with your lawyer and accountant.
But most likely yes, as this is the income.

 

Oh so i should ask more that the estimated budget i need, bruh.

 

It all depends on how taxes work in your country. Part of the taxes may be deducted if you have costs like a salary to the employees. Probably it's a good thing to hire an accountant if you work with such money as mentioned above

 

i think the publisher will be able to help you

 

Depends on the country you live in. In the UK corporation tax is only paid on profits, if you have no profit there is no corporation tax.

Speaking from past experience, getting money out of a publisher can be difficult and can lose you a significant percentage of your ownership of the title, and a lot of the time the company itself. A lot of publishers expect 30% just for the publishing side, as in without funding included. So expect a figure much higher than that, if you expect that level of funding in addition to everything else a publisher does.

 

My guy, my dude, my fella, you aren't even gonna get $200,000. We have already been over this in your other thread. You're like ten steps beyond putting the cart before the horse.

 

Wow...okay I didnt realise how much delusions of granduer are at play here.


OP, So you want not only for a publisher to publish your game, but literally fund you setting up the team and the entire game, and you want them to commit to this when you have 0 experience and dont have a solid marketable demo?

Its simple: not going to happen. Get a demo together and then talk about funding.

Publishers do not fund indies with 0 experience to build a game, it just doesnt work that way. They also pretty much never fund a game fully, at most it will be last stage funding. Otherwise It would be such a high risk investment, and the games industry is already incredibly high risk.

You really need to do the bare minimum and you have not done that. Putting up pictures of a bunch of low poly assets, and asking for an entire team to be assembled in a forum thread, does not give anyone any confidence that this is a project worth getting on board of, let alone a publisher.

If I was a publisher and I asked you "how do you intend to make this game without a team yet?" what would you reply? Because that first question would be the end to your pitch right there (if they even bother to respond to your application, which is unlikely based on info provided). Saying to them "we are recruiting the team" is basically saying "we have no way to guarantee the completion of this game, and therefore no way to guarantee you can even release something for your 200k let alone make a profit on it".

Also I hate to be that guy but....you honestly think even if you did all the above that you can get 200k funding for a low poly zombie survival game? Out of all the over saturated genres you could have picked, you picked that for funding?

 

I have a team. We also have some level design and gameplay mecanics, it is isn't random picture.

 

Nope; noone taxes imaginary money.

 

Alright perfect, so can you list some of your team members experience on past commercially successful titles? Because you will get asked these type of questions, theres a difference between a team of amateurs and hobbyists vs experienced developers. Even just having 1 commercially successful title per team member would be enough to prove something.

If you have an experienced team then its going to be that much easier to get funding (once you have an almost finished game to pitch, at minimum a highly polished vertical slice that shows exact quality of the final product).

If not then, see all above replies.

Its possible to do it with an inexperienced team but again, you will need a polished vertical slice showing end product quality that has some sort of hook and a really good pitch. You also need to prove that you can maintain and keep the team throughout the project, meaning you need to prove what incentives the team has to stay if you have no funding of your own.

 

I'm currently with a group that started up a few years ago and developed a vertical slice. We presented it to a publisher then another. Finally after 50+ publishers were contacted we found someone willing to work with us.

Sounds like a great success story, right? A few months back we stopped development because they massively screwed us over. Be careful who you try to team up with. We're likely going to have to throw out everything we made with that publisher. Over a year lost.

 

Really sorry to hear that @Ryiah , I hope your luck is better in the future!

 

What happen ?

 

We have no commercial success to show.
We are people with experience in another field and personal projects.
That's why we apply ourselves to our pitch and why we're not going to show random images but level design and gameplay mechanics. (If we will only have random images, this will already mean that we have created the scenes.)
Did you look at my project presentation before saying that I only have random images ?

 

The publisher asked us to develop a game for them. Once we reached the point that it was almost complete they started shifting the goal posts and used it as an excuse not to pay us properly. We went more than a year with no funding trying to come to an agreement.

Eventually they found an excuse to cancel the project but then they started demanding we turn everything over to them. Our lawyer came to the conclusion they were trying to take advantage of us. Likely from the very beginning with the goal of getting a mostly complete game to finish and publish themselves getting all the rewards.

Unfortunately this is why we were turned down by 50+ publishers and investors. Based on what I have seen of your game I have to conclude our vertical slice was much further along and it demoed our tech very well yet it wasn't a complete game and that's all they cared about.

If I look back on it the best thing we could have done would have been to make a complete game. It wouldn't have had to be fancy either. A basic mobile game that a team can complete in a few months would have been sufficient in my opinion.

 

Next step:

combine the prototype gameplay into some of your art scenes.

Work out any major bugs, polish the gameplay until it feels at least semi-decent. Put a play test on steam and get some strangers to play it.

Forget step 1,000,000,000,000 and focus on step 2.

 

Yes I did, its mostly just a post of low poly images, many looking like assets from the asset store, and a very basic prototype of some shooting and building (and I mean very basic, its far from what you could ever show to a publisher). The description of the game and GDD are meaningless without a playable prototype and ample videos etc showing actual playable high quality, end product quality gameplay.

By the way, Are the assets from the asset store or did you make them all yourselves? That would also be an influencing factor in whether you get published, a publisher (especially those with 200k to give to a project) will not be enticed if they know you are just cobbling together stuff from the asset store mostly. So lets start there first before focusing on funding - are all the pictures you posted containing like at least 90% art you created yourself/ your team created ,or is it from the asset store? Creating a scene from assets from the asset store is very different to creating your own art, then using that to create scenes... I say this because they look like assets made by Synty - are they?

As said above, focus on whats next not many steps down the line. You are far away from fundable right now. Without an almost if not complete game, or at least seriously polished vertical slice AND pitch, good luck getting any funding at all let alone a publisher.

Your best chance based on all the above will be do to a kickstarter, but again you are far away from ready for that based on whats visible on your project presentation so far. $200k is a lot for a kickstarter too, expect more like $50k target at most for initial funding.

 

@Pytchoun whatever you got so far, it shows you started game making, with wrong end of the stick.

You started focusing on visuals, before having any proper mechanics in place. You need to show gameplay. Because literally everyone can grab random assets, put them together to look decent, make some screen shots and pretend they got a game. You are not the first one here, to try this approach. Usual leads to nowhere, until start focusing on mechanics and building prototypes.

 

If you're trying to start a company, and you don't have anyone in the company that can answer this question, you're in way over your head.

People in this thread are focusing on how hard it is to get funding without a proper pitch. What's getting skipped is how insanely bad of an idea it is to take on an investment of 200k euros if you don't know the basics of how money and such works for a company.

 

Incredibly good point @Baste - its sort of implied in what many are saying but definately a good idea to directly point this out to OP as you have done to be sure they are aware of this fact

 

What was the publisher ? I don't understand why they decide the game they want you to do ? You ask fund for fundind your own project not for doing the project of someone else.

 

Of course it is what we do now. Nowhere did I say what I intended to approach a publisher with.

As stated in the GDD, we used Synty asset packs to create our own universe.
I also made a pitch deck where I got the template from a well-known publisher.

 

Folks, I think it's time to let this go.

Sometimes people need to hit walls themselves.

 

Ok, and you thought using the most used and most recognized asset store art packs (to the point of even being recognized by youtubers etc who dont make games) to make almost all the art in your game is going to convince a publisher the project is worth $200k in funding?

Alright I think im done here, but I think everything I need to say has been said in this thread already.

I really hope you are succesful, but this just simply will not get funded anywhere outside of a kickstarter, and the hopes there are also pretty slim.

Wish you the best of luck

 

It's actually amazing how many people who have actual experience with publishers and releasing games are telling you how your plan is utterly absurd and your funding request entirely ridiculous and how you're listening to literally none of them.

 

The one with the money has the power. Thats how it works. If someone invests 200K to make the game they will have a say in everything that you will do because you're spending their money.

My advice is forget the funding for now. If you're passionate enough you will find the time and energy to develop your game even if you still have to go to your day to day job to pay the bills. Hang in there and just develop your game, ship it and there you have it. A released title to show for if you're still going to look for funding in the future.

 

Sorry, but I don't feel comfortable giving away that information since I am not the team leader.

We were asked to do it before they would do our game. We agreed since money was involved and having a game released would give us more leverage on future deals. Which would allow for our game to be better than it would have been.

 

This wont be just a failed project, but a 200000€ debt, which ends in a vicious circle.
@Pytchoun, make sure you know what are you doing, you can ruin your life.

 

"That will be an important lesson"?

Spoiler

“You can't give her that!' she screamed. 'It's not safe!'
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
'She's a child!' shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
'What if she cuts herself?'
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.”

― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

 

It is a famous publisher with a portfolio ? It is strange pratice.
You can take a look at my pitch deck if you want here.

 

If somehow you get close to signing a contract, have a lawyer read it first. Do not trust the publisher even if it is a famous and well known one.

 

You are not getting any funding with that pitch.

Second slide mentions "made by independent developers". That screams inexperience, which is a red flag for a publisher who's looking to mitigate risk. And a team of independent developers is a bit of an oxymoron.

4th slide on the concept of the game describes a generic zombie shooter that's been done countless times before. There's no hook. And what are "some interesting things along the way"? You're communicating that you don't have a clear vision for this game.

Also, the text is grammatically problematic.

5th slide:

"Chill players" is not a demographic.

Some slide after that:



All 3D action games use particle systems. You're continuing to communicate inexperience.

You need to make a vertical slice of the game and pitch with that. This document will convince no one.

 

Here is, what CodeZ may want to look like, when got basics mechanics working.
Maybe replace model with low poly models.

 

Why?

 

Yes.

What you have is very incomplete. A great deal of the actual content of the pitch is spent on things that we as game developers are interested in but you've spent almost no time at all on the marketing and monetization.

You said that you have a team but nowhere in the presentation do you present your team and what they bring to the project. If you have artists you should be listing them as the 660€ you have listed for artwork is extremely suspicious. In fact that just looks weird period.

Your roadmap is indicating that you are currently in the phase where you are developing a prototype but the video is just a repeat of the visuals section with no prototype gameplay at all. Go add the prototype gameplay you have to that scene and make a video of that instead. You've already showcased your art in the screenshots.

 

English is not my first language either, so I'm no expert here, but a lot of the text feels like it's being translated from another language without the necessary understanding of English.

What was born?

What does it mean to "run" a survivor? Sounds more like gamer lingo, not necessarily something the upper management money suits will understand.

"Apocalyptic" is a descriptor. You want to use "apocalypse" there.

It looks like the text has gone through some grammar checker like Grammarly but those tools catch only basic errors.
___

The language barrier can also be a red flag for a publisher. But grammar is the least of your problems. Document pitches like this work for established teams with a proven track record. As far as I know, you have none. So you need to start with making a game first to prove that you can deliver. No amount of documents or the quality of said documents can compensate for that.

EDIT: Someone already explained to you how publishers work in the other thread. It's not only that one publisher, it's how most reputable publishers operate: https://forum.unity.com/threads/list-of-publishers-to-publish-an-indie-game.1264349/#post-8035199

They don't hand out money to people who can format a PDF nicely. They give money to real game developers that have delivered a viable product in the past, which indicates that they can repeat that for a future project.

 

Weird.

The team slide is private, I will not share personal information publicly.

We don't have an artist, we use Assets packs so the amount of 660€ represents the cost of the assets.

And yes, we are currently working on the prototype to integrate it into the scene presented.

 

@Pytchoun
You also should be providing size of the current team.
The breakdown roles of the team.
And what is actual your role in this project.

It is not weird.
You are just inexperienced to recognize the risk.

 

The concept. It is the title of the slide.

Yes, it is on the Team slide. (which will not be disclosed here)

 

there is no team. It's just a kid.

Look, @Pytchoun , you aren't going to trick anybody to giving you money because you did a couple hours of work arranging some 3d art that you didn't make. Anybody with a computer and at least one finger can do that.

Make at least one game and then forum denizens may actually take you seriously. Make a technically noteable game and maybe some employers take you seriously. Make some commercially successful games and some publishers may take you seriously.

So far you haven't demonstrated diddly squat and the more you draw out peoples patience the less they'll help you in the future when you need real help with real problems.

Get more of an actual game going and people will be eager to help you. You done step one which is something, now work towards step 2.

If you focus on developing yourself as a game maker and let your first couple games be tools towards that goal, it will pay off.

 

I'm sorry, you spent this much already?

 

Yes, more or less, why?

 

I mean he is using the asset store as intended -to wring money out of children inexperienced devs that think they’re going to make a game.

 

Because you're wasting your money. You do not spend money at this stage unless it is absolutely mission critical. What you have effectively done at this point is ensure yourself a loss.

 

Do you think a publisher will accept a game with art that you dont made?

 

Concerned Ape a la Stardew Valley didn't get approached by publisher Chucklefish until the game was pretty much finished and they were about to release it.

I think at that point they had spent at least 5 years crafting every aspect of the game themselves.

What in the world makes you think a publisher is even going to glance at you with images comprised of art assets you didn't even make?

 

Also if you want a publisher nowaday, it's best to build a community around the game early, to prove there is a market, using twitter, twitch, youtube, instagram, or whatever else, at which point you probably don't need a publisher...

 

I don't see this restriction somewhere. You can buy what you want.

Yes something i will do.

 

Yep, but it can appear someone with the same aesthetics, and you cant do anything, because is not your art, just a package you downloaded.