Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

The trick to persuading yourself to re-invest in your business

cliffski

Ok, here’s something I’ve mulled over for a while. I read a lot of business books, and websites, and am interested in everything from the very early movie entrepreneurs (talk about goldrush…) right up to the silicon valley startup mania. One thing that often sticks out to me is the incredible speed with which a lot of the big companies accelerate at the start. They can go from 1 employee to a hundred in a year. That sort of growth is just baffling to a tiny little operation like positech…

It often bugs me that I am aware that deep down, I am just too risk-averse. Running positech at a loss for five years in order to grab market share? total madness, I’d never risk it. Mortgage the house to get money for the next game? No…can’t see me doing that either. And I consider both of those things to be good, because without them, there is a real danger of ending up like ‘that guy’ who had a successful business once, but blew it, and now works in McDonalds.

However, I do seem to take it *too far*, in that the company actually has some money in the bank, is working on two projects at once, and yet I am often having to fight with myself to spend any of the companies money on expansion, artwork, music, promotion, PR etc. Why is this?

I think the problem is, because I own the whole company, I have a natural tendency to look at the companies earnings and companies money and think it is *my money*. And really, I think that is a mistake. We all know it’s much easier to spend someone else’s money than your own, and I think I need to trick myself into thinking that way. The money in the company account is not *my money*, it’s the current working capital of Positech Games, and Positech games should make sure it manages it’s money well in order to make great games. Some of that money will get paid out to the owner, which happens to be me, but that’s a business expense just like buying advertising space, sponsoring flash games, paying artists or buying new software or hardware for the business.

When I think like that, I find it much easier to look at the sales and revenue and expenses and realize that compared to almost any other business, Positech seems to be a super-cautious and incredibly unadventurous enterprise. I need to remember that ferengi rule of acquisition “The riskier the road, the greater the profit”.

10 thoughts on The trick to persuading yourself to re-invest in your business

  1. Same here. I tend to think of all profit in “family fed for x months”, but I do get in the mood for investments when I remind myself that money invested is money-not-paid-for-taxes… :)

  2. Ancient Chinese proverb may apply as well…
    He who saves today, has it to spend tomorrow…

    Which may mean of course as you probably already guessed, that while Positech Games may ‘never’ be Electronic Arts Games, it may certainly be around longer if EA Games goes bankrupt putting risky money into risky projects and continues to do so with gleeful and entrepreneurial abandon. :)

    Just a thought,

    -Teal

  3. I agree with Teal but would also add:
    I’d rather see Positech produce games and expansions that reflect the size and nature of the company that one “big” title that costs the earth and needs to grab a large percentage of mainstream audience in order to be succesful.

  4. I read every blog piece you make usually agreeing and there was one a couple of months ago that left me with a bittersweet taste. You said in that post that you cannot see yourself working with another person (crazy stuff since you already do that for art and sound and now another company), but why not?

    Since I really dont know you, Ill have to speculate a bit (Im truly sorry for this) but it seems to me that you may have a delegation problem and even be a sort of control freak and that used to fit in the size of positech but not anymore, ence your problems.

    Heck even your posts in having control about every part of your game engine and trying to reduce 3rd party software (that sound bug was a pain I agree) is a facet of that same delegation/control problem.

    That money in the bank is positech’s like you said it, why not use PART of it as an investment and start outsourcing some parts of your game (code related stuff) to another company or even worse hire another person to stand by your side. Think of it has helping UK economy as well as gaining benefits for Positech.

    You have too many hats for the size of positech, you probably have days in the week for doing the project administration part, other for coding others for the monetary part of the game, it seems to be just too much for just one person.

    Also I may have gotten the wrong impression from the post, but its not a black and white situation, its not a invest all versus an invest nothing. If I recall you spent 20K in the art for GSB back in the day, that was a risk right there and you gained more from it. It was a calculated risk, but in an area that you cannot excell alone.

    And just because the company is getting bigger it needs not to “sellout”, it can continue to make great games and still make money, the bussiness man in you knows this to be true.

    PS. If I seemed to be attacking you or offending you, my point came out wrong…

  5. If you’re making enough money to live comfortably, why worry about expanding? I don’t see what’s wrong with being a one man shop.

  6. Is your blog your private press release system? Do you use it for subtle advertisement/hype? Or your venting platform?

    If your torn, you have to decide what you want to do: lone programmer? cooperative team programmer? business man? manager? You have worked hard and it sounds like you are in a position to decide this for yourself. The risk and reward are purely yours. IMO, do what you want at this point. Its your life’s vocation and your own sweat, after all. If it’s more profitable, but you hate it, is it still worth it?

    If this is a press release that future expansion is coming, where do I send my résumé? :-D

  7. The problem with investment is that t is extremely hard t tie any particular dollar of spending to actual revenue from sales of the game.
    for example, GTB has a small amount of voice acting for the infantry. This cost some money. Did it lead to more sales? I noticed it was mentioned in one review, but would skipping the voices have reduced sales? It’s obviously impossible to really know.
    Which means you are always wasting some money somewhere on stuff that made no difference, and naturally without exact data, it’s extremely annoying to know you are wasting some hard earned money :D

  8. “it is extremely hard t tie any particular dollar of spending to actual revenue from sales of the game”

    Taking your voice acting example, it’s not necessarily immediate revenue. I know that sometimes when I’m playing a game there will be some little detail that makes me think “oh, neat” and that helps me associate the company with fun products and I’m suddenly more open to future offerings by the company.

    Unfortunately that’s probably one of the hardest links to be able to track.

  9. It depends on your goal. You talk about booming companies, but also safety and security. Those do not usually mix.

    Do you want to become a bigger company then invest, after having created a buffer that guarantees a certain income for x months. If you fail, revert back to business as usual.

    If your goal is to go as you are now, then do that.

    There is no right or wrong answer here. As a business owner you do have to look forward. Think about your future and how you want it to look. I run my own business in a totally different field. I too have to choose how /if to invest my money. My choice for the next 5 years is safety, making money to pay off my house. After that we’ll see.

  10. As a one man company you do take all the risk if it goes belly up.

    Have you considered expanding your vision via a 2 man or 3 man indie shop?
    Look at SPAZ, made by 2 people. If you get another 1 or 2 likeminded indie guys, each of you chips in 1/2 of their worth in investment to your like vision game…
    That way you have double or triple your current resources in money, but if all goes belly up you only lose half of your own property.

    Also if you make a duo or triple man programming team with 1 or 2 like minded guys, not only does the money resource double, the programming resource doubles.
    When your on a hot-streak in programming, you can plink away at it for weeks while guy #2 does light programming, but takes care of website and forum posts, then you take a rotation break so guy #2 can have a hot 2 weeks programming and you do the website, emails while he does the programming bit he excells at….

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