next »

[trilby]

Guys I have an opportunity where I may be able to get some financial backing but I need to make a business plan though in order to achieve this.  Does anyone have any experience with this or advice you could share?  The bit I'm hung up on is how do you project what you may sell?  In a way I suppose it is no different with any product, you can't accurately predict what you WILL sell but with a game it seems even more foggy to me?  As usual any help or advice is much appreciated 

[Muz]

Lol, there are entire books written on how to write a business plan, not sure where to start. My father (who was an entrepreneur for some multinational companies) used this format so I'm guessing it's good enough.

Like a resume or game design doc, there's no hard rules. Just has to be presentable, professional, answer all the questions, but gets to the point.

Oh, and remember, a business plan is obsolete at the printer so don't stress too much about it

[trilby]

Cheers Muz that helps some. 

[Mittens]

I had to write a business plan once, and making sales forecasts for games was the most annoying part of it.

In the film industry, box office sales are figures made available to the public, in the case of almost any movie you'd be able to see at the cinemas.
In the music industry, sales can be determined by the amount of blow found on an artists groupies
In games however sales figures for successful or unsuccessful titles are rarely every disclosed/published and even if they where it wouldn't mean anything.
Since your game could be similar to another in almost every way and yet it wouldn't necessarily mean it will sell anything like that.

In the end, after some degree of resignation, I resorted to doing all that I could, hunt down what figures you can, even really vague sales data like "has sold over 10 million copies", quote those figures, make up unfounded yet "realistic" estimates of your own sales and then attempt to somehow justify the connection between that estimate and your vague collection of industry figures. 

Hope that helps

[trilby]

In the end, after some degree of resignation, I resorted to doing all that I could, hunt down what figures you can, even really vague sales data like "has sold over 10 million copies", quote those figures, make up unfounded yet "realistic" estimates of your own sales and then attempt to somehow justify the connection between that estimate and your vague collection of industry figures. 

Hope that helps

That does help thanks.  I came to a similar conclusion myself after much debate actually!