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[Kinmoku]

I'm 4 months into development of my game. It's 90% just me, and some help from my musical friends on the side. In this scenario, do you think it's a good idea to have a company/ studio name? Or is it better to put the game out under my own name, or handle? Everything I've put out so far is under my name, and I think that has a nice personal touch, but perhaps it's too personal and not professional? What does everyone think?

I created a list of potential studio names for fun, but nothing's really stuck with me. Most studio names seem kind of meaningless anyway... hmm. I dunno what to do! Would love to hear your thoughts.

[RaconteurNick]

Hi Kinmoku!

If you intend to release this for commercial purposes, you should definitely think of using a company name, and then of course later you have to establish the business entity.

If you're just doing this for free, non-commercial purposes to build a portfolio, releasing them under your own name/handle should be fine since it seems you're building a brand (an important part of being an entrepreneur!). However, I would seek the input of the people you're working with if they would be okay with this scenario -- perhaps guarantee them a credit in the game?

Hope your project works out, and if there is any way I can be of service to you, please don't hesitate to reach out!

[Kinmoku]

Thanks for your reply Nick! Yes, I hope to commercially release the game so I guess it's better to come up with a studio name... A tricky task, but I'll give it some thought!

I've told my friends I'm working with I will credit them, but I'd also like to give them a revenue share and I've no idea how to go about this officially. If you have any information on this, that would be great. I have little to no money to spend on a lawyer however.

Thanks again

[RaconteurNick]

No problem at all, I'm glad to be of service to the TIG community.

As for revenue sharing: everyone does it differently.  Some devs are strictly in it for the one game, divide it equally and go about their way not leaving anything specifically for the company. That's all fine and dandy if you're doing this as a one-time thing and don't intend to take that game, company, and team into the future -- but if you want to build for the future, you'll need to think of a pay system for those who contribute as well as keeping some for the company.

How we're planning (we're paying via rev-share) is to basically set up a certain percentage to be the pool from which employees are paid. The divisions, without delving into our specific financials, are between investors/prior agreements with departed members, the company, and the employees. Investors/etc. get their agreed-upon amount, and then more or less the rest is between the company and the employees.

There are many ways to do rev-share and everyone has their own way. If you PM me, I can give an example of how we do it at Raconteur Games if you're interested. More or less you want to make sure everyone gets something, but obviously reward the hardest workers and in a way that doesn't ruffle any feathers. A performance-based system is the best way, in my opinion. You can count this by hours or by points -- we do the latter because of the varying degrees of education and experience on the team, as to not be in a situation where we're comparing apples to oranges.

[Hipshot]

I feel we pretty much just took our name (Crackshell) since we needed one, I don't really push that name around when I talk to people, friends or business, unless they specifically ask for it. Instead I tend to use the product name as my thing "a developer of hammerwatch", "designed ..." or "made all the levels for ..."

I've heard that it's important to have a logo and keep publishing the company name so people will see and remember it, but with just one game, it doesn't matter much I think. When we have more games, I will probably shift in my opinion, but again, I will always have to explain what games I make so - we are not EA or Ubisoft.

That being said, I don't think you should publish games under your own name, i think that's a bad idea and you might regret that in the future. You can still keep it very personal and so, by just constantly talking to the community, playing with them etc.

[darkhog]

The name, in case of one man teams, could be as simple as <your name> Games. Or just use your name as a brand. I've recently played a lot game called Bitless. It's a very fun platformer for Android and (I think) iOS, kinda masochistic though, but incredibly fun. On loading screen there is only message "Nicholas Rapp made this". Nothing more. It's very elegant and things like this works quite well for one man studios.


Of course it's more complicated with two people or more but there are name generators, which, while most of the time humoristic in nature, can inspire you or even flat out spit name that could be used.

I've already chosen name for the company that I plan to publish Computer Virus Simulator as, but won't reveal it at this point as this is not yet registered and I don't want someone to register it before me in order to impersonate me. Just a precaution.

[IonForceStudio]

@Kinmoku, what did you choose?