FAQ?

The first step may be to outline the idea in the form of a Game Design Document (GDD). There are many examples of GDD that can be found on the internet, and GDD for games is similar in difficulty to a movie script. Once you have your GDD developed to a certain level, or at the same time as you are working on it, you can also look for a team. The team depends on the type of game, as 2D games will need 2D artists, 3D games will need 3D artists, narrative games will need a narrative designer, and so on. There is no perfect team for any project. Another option is to first find a team that works well and then see what kind of game you can make together. A good idea would be to test the team's compatibility through a short small project – perhaps by going to a GameJam as a team. If you don't have a team, a good step is to assemble one – either with money or, in the absence of money, by agreeing on shares, but then people will have to believe that your idea is more interesting than someone else's, for which it is useful to have a GDD ready. Also, it's good to learn a skill so that in a small team you can contribute with programming or drawing or level design, not just with an idea.

This is extremely rare in the video game industry. Almost every studio has a ton of ideas of their own, and, if they are successful, they will not seek out other people's ideas, unless it is a paid job.

If you are making a game as a hobby, and everyone on the team has a steady income, it will take a little longer, but it won't cost much, except that you may sometimes have to get better computers and graphics tablets. If you are making a game professionally and full-time, the biggest expense, apart from the aforementioned equipment, will be in wages. Wages depend on how you negotiate with the workers, and there is no standard for that. As the project gets closer to the prototype stage, part of the costs will go to going to professional conferences like Germany's Gamescom (where CGDA has a booth every year where you can arrange meetings) in search of publishers or investors, and at some point you will also have marketing costs. Depending on the type of game, the price and development time can vary from several days/weeks for hypercasual titles to several months/years for PC titles. Many things can affect the price - actors who lend their voices to the characters in the game, localization into different languages, porting the game to several different consoles, and the like.

Registering at partner.steamgames.com is a relatively simple process that involves filling out a form on the Steam website itself regarding where your company or business is based, whether you are a US citizen, etc. The survey results in a completed form (W8 for non-US citizens) that needs to be digitally signed.

We highly recommend not starting your career on Steam but on itch.io, because Steam is a highly saturated and extremely competitive market where you will be "buried" in a sea of ​​titles that are released daily and without exceptional marketing you will most likely not be able to recoup your investment. If you still want to take this step, contrary to professional opinion, creating a new game on Steam costs you $100, which Steam returns after the game earns the first $1,000. In addition, the developer must put together a Store Page and once it passes an internal review by Steam (to clearly explain what the game is), the store page can be published to the public. Two weeks after the public release, the game can be released on Steam for all users. Don't forget to ask Steam for pre-release keys before the release to send to journalists, streamers, and the like.

The itch.io platform is a place where budding indie teams put their titles, and the revenue share is much more favorable for developers. If the game is successful, you can always put it on Steam after or instead of Itch.

The process of producing and releasing a game on consoles is a bit more complicated, but the first step is to request an SDK and hardware developer kits through the official websites of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, which they do not have to approve, and depends on the quality of the game itself. The alternative is to find a studio that can “port” your game to consoles for you.

Approximately 50% of what the game earns. The explanation follows. If a product (premium game or in-game microtransaction) costs $10, for example, and you sold 100 products this month, that appears to be a revenue of 10×100 = $1,000. However, first of all, regional prices are looked at – on Steam, the nominal price of a game in the US and in Russia is not necessarily the same (so-called regional pricing). How much regional pricing affects the final price depends on which region your game sells better or worse, but on average, the average price of a game worldwide is 8% lower than the price that is common for Western Europe or the US. So if your game costs $10 in the US, it will cost the average player $9.2 due to regional pricing. So for 100 copies sold worldwide, the game earned $920. Also, you need to consider chargebacks, i.e. players who requested and received a refund. Their amount is on average between 5% and 10%, and depends on many factors, including the quality of the game in the eyes of the player. $920 minus 10% is $828. After that, Steam takes a 30% withholding tax for all US customers because if you are a company registered in Croatia, the US and Croatia do not have a double taxation agreement. If US customers make up 25% of your total customers on average, i.e. $207 of your $828, Steam will keep their 30%, i.e. $62.10 of the tax on account of US taxes. Of the remaining $765.90, Steam as a platform keeps 30%, i.e. $229.77, and sends the remaining $536.13 to your account. It should be taken into account that bank operators, depending on the contract you have, can take a larger part of that amount, but for example we will assume that they take 2%, i.e. $10.72. This means that you have $525.41 left in your account. If you have a publisher, this means that $525.41 remains in their account, and you only get a part of it (the average publisher takes 30-50% of the game's revenue), so they would send you even less, but if you publish your game yourself, this is the amount you can count on.