Need advice on Investors

[Dvg]

Hey all,

I own a new game development and publishing business that is already in the process of developing an excellent game with huge potential ( we have estimated a revenue of at least 2 mil within the first 4 months and the game will take 6-8 months to develop)

I have created a business plan, done market research and created social media accounts/branding.

I am looking to get an investor for the game but as i am completely new to the world of investment i feel i need a little guidance as too where to start to find someone who would be interested in investing in a game.

Any information you could give would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

I understand mumsnet is a wierd place to ask but you never know!

[W00t]

What platform?

[Dvg]

@W00t initially pc (steam) but we want to create a kickstarter to open the possibilty of having on xbox, ps4 and maybe nintendo switch.

The game is inspired by zelda :botw, stardew valley and my time at portia as all of these games did very well but put together would make an amazing game.

We have a small team already that includes a programmer, artist x2 and a social media manager/Marketer.

We have spoken to a couple on investors who have said they believe we could do very well and earn alot of profit but they only invest in certain areas not games ( property and cryptocurrency etc)

[Shen0102]

how much cash are you looking for? If not a lot you could start with friends and family.

[Dvg]

Unfortunately family dont have alot as i only have my mum and step dad and need 100k -150k as it is a very graphical game. Would cost us 400k to make hence why expecting a minimum of 2 million worth of sales :) but we have a lot of friends in the business so have received really good rates :D

[Dvg]

Problem is... it's so hard being patient when your so enthusiastic about something :D me and my team are literally excited every day working on this project and we just want the chance to share that.

We are doing regular updates via social media and plan to create a demo to market at game events and kickstarter but to be honest we want our demo to show the full potential which will cost atleast 15k to make and then a further 100k for development.

I have reached out to investors on Linkedin but they either dont read the message or only invest in a specific market :(
Its especially hard knowing your business could be worth at least a million in profit in just a year max haha ^^

[MickeyMouseEars]

Can you not use kickstarter for the initial game as well? Once you've made your £2million you can start thinking about developing for other platforms. You may well find that investors start coming to you as well once it's a success on PC.
I realise that you want to show the game to it's full potential (graphically?) but a good video game is about so, so much more. I think you need to build up a big social media following (perhaps you already have?) and start getting stuff out there. Demos, alpha testing, short gameplay clips etc. People are very forgiving of a game in it's early days of development but if they see potential then you will probably find that crowd funding is the easiest option. You never know, you might also find that a video game investor sees it too and wants to get in on the action early. Don't forget, if they're seasoned game investors then they will be used to looking past the janky controls and the poor graphics and see a bestseller....

[Dvg]

Problem is, the amount of money we need to keep developing is too much to get from Kickstarter.

We are currently making a Demo as we can afford that but after that we cant afford to keep developing but Kickstarter wouldn't earn us the amount we need to even get to beta unless we changed our whole game to a simpler game but i would just rather find an investor.

We have social media accounts that do daily updates but we are very new so getting a following will take its time, same with Alpha testing.. we want to do that but we need the money to get to that stage, we figured we could get a Demo out and Kickstart just using that but we need to think beyond that as getting an investor can take a while and after the kickstarter we may only be able to continue developing for a month or so as i will have salary's to pay and such :)

[andhardlyanywomenatall]

I work for investors (ip Lawyer) but they don’t usually thank us for sending people to them because we are not experts on their criteria.

Are you sure you can’t borrow the money and keep the equity?

If not, your “only”(ha!) problem is to find funds that specialise in your area.

Have other games secured investment? From whom?

Good luck!

[delightfulzwodder]

Have you seen Nesta's work on funding in the industry? A lot of it is older & might be completely out of date by now, but it might also help you identify potential investors: //nesta.org.uk/search?search_api_views_fulltext=Funding%20games