I’m no expert, but I have been doing many research for funding my indie game studio and I have compiled some good information that I am always happy to share with my fellow indie devs. I’ve been going on a journey recently in looking for someone, anyone to please give me money so we can be paid to make games that we want to make (the dream). There are a couple of different routes you can take with this with pro’s and con’s to each, but something to keep in mind if you’re looking for funding is that you should have a working prototype for your game (or demo for a more final product if you’re looking to fund just the last leg of the race), and a pitch deck (some also require a business plan). There are a lot of great resources on how to create a pitch deck:
Some routes for funding you can go to are crowdfunding (indiegogo, kickstarter), publisher funding (Serenity Forge, Annapurna, etc), and indie funding that is not from a publisher (this is what I’m doing!).
Crowdfunding can be great for small projects, or getting the last bit of money that you need. Some studios have just funded the entire game this way like Double Fine did with Broken Age, and Lab Zero Games did with Indivisible, but obviously these are well established studios. It’s definitely harder to get the funding you need from this as a newcomer on the scene. Tony from Black Tabby Games also talked about how he would never want to crowdfund a game in this way again, because of how the analytics work on steam, none of the users that had steam keys given to them from backing the project counted towards their steam numbers which made their game look like it performed way worse than it actually did. Double Fine games also have a documentary series that highlighs some of their pain points during the project that in general is just a great watch.
Crowdfunding is not for everyone, but has also worked really well for others!
Working with a publisher is another way to get funding, and can be a great resource to work with. There is a large range of publishers that go from mostly catering to small indie games to large titles. They also range in how hands on or off they are. Some can give you additional help with localization or help you hire additional team members if you need additional help. But, they could also have more of a say in some of the creative aspects of your game as well, so it’s important to look at all of what the publisher will and won’t do and read every contract before signing it. There are obviously way too many publishers to go over, but some publishers that I would be interested in working with maybe one day in the future would be Serenity Forge, Finji.
For right now, the funding route that our team is trying to do is the non-publisher funds. These are startup companies that are usually non-profit or other studios that want to give back to help startups. This type of funding also has a range of what financial assistance they will give and again you need to have a working demo or prototype and a pitchdeck. Some are startup funds that are non-profit that just give money out to help business grow (usually with focus on minority owned businesses), some are no-interest loans that needs to be paid back when you make a certain amount of money off of your game, and some are the investment of capital in exchange for stake in your business.
Here are some links to non-profit, just giving money out type of services that I have looked at:
A lot of these types are for businesses more in general and not necessarily indie games, but some of them still might be applicable.
For funding that does need to be paid back, but they’re meant to help with indie games specifically so the pay back options are insane compared to any kind of actual loan:
And, like I said I’m really in the process of applying, so I don’t know how contracts would differ from person to person.
And lastly, the investment in return for stake in the company is mostly with like angel investors and venture capital funds. I personally don’t like this at all. I feel like games need to keep their creative freedom and I don’t trust any finance guys to get that. I look at what happened with all the legal and financial bs with Disco Elysium and I’m just like noooo thank you. This could work out if you find someone with money that lets you have a lot of control, but that’s I think on a person by person basis. I think generally just know who you’re working with and read your contracts. Here is a video on the stuff that happened with Disco Elysium if you’re interested.
That’s all I really have so far, but feel free to add on to this if anyone knows any other sources!! c: