Plagued by Bankruptcy

[Mongoosey]

Despite having read a few of the newer tutorials, I continue to go bankrupt while playing the new "test" build. This sucks.

[Proteus]

Don't try too early to develope your own software ... better first try to get 200k or more on your account, via jobs for other companies, before starting your own development

[Mongoosey]

Originally posted by Proteus:

Don't try too early to develope your own software ... better first try to get 200k or more on your account, via jobs for other companies, before starting your own development

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a shot.

[Qoff]

Right now the tip I can give to you is:

1- Get few contracts enough to sum up 30k +-, train your main character in 2D design, programmer and artist enough to fill it to the maximum.

2 - Get a few more contracts to get 50~100k of money.

3 - Hire a marketer

4 - Start developing the best 2D software you can

5 - Set the marketer to release the press and to hype

6 - Release a press build when the software is almost done (4months before +-)

7 - When you release it set 10k month to marketing and 20k copies.

8 - You'll sell a lot in the first month so buy more copies and hire a huge team to support the software

9 - Repeat the printing until you earn 20 millions or more

10 - Move to your own building.

[RlyShadow]

It's not that hard. Just as Qoff said, my very first program was an OS system... I've made over 20 million $ and even without continuing to market it i've hit over 100k active users and growing.

[Nickjet45]

This is how I made 18 million off of my first software, on normal difficulty

1.) I did contract work up to 30k in the bank
2.) My main dude was specialized in audio, can do 2D or whatever, just specialize in 1 thing
3.) I began to develop my audio tool and only had my main dude work on it
4.) Once I was close to release I hired market and give him budget of 5k and continued to increase
5.) I printed small until I saw I was going to make a large profit, once you get going always just set a limit
6.) Made sure I did reviews to have atleast a 7 hopefulyl an 8
7.) Make sure that your software comes out before the competition and that it's good!. If it's trash and comes out before it will sell poorly, and if it's good but comes out after competition it usually sells poorly unless you made a name for yourself in that market

[Trenze]

I usualy stick with contracts till about 160k, this is about a year worth of work. I hire 1 marketer just to help promote my work. I then choose something like 2D Editor and create that at least twice just so that people know my product. Once I do this and things seem to work, I usualy end up with about 500k on my first product and if not then on the second, thats where I start hireing 2 coders, 1 designer, 1 artist, 1 lead, and another 2 marketers + lead.

By the time I've created my third product I'm already in millions and I need a new staff of just support workers so I hire another 5 coders with a lead and let them do the support work.

I make sure every group has their own room to work with, this is good enough to get me several millions 50-100m, at which point I move to a bigger building.

Tip:
One thing I do when I create a new game, I completely remove the lead skill, theres just no point in having it. You could increase one of the other ones, or like I always do, I just lower the lead skill and leave everything else alone, so your good at everything, even if it is a little. It helps because then your main can do everything when you get your core team started, which helps when you need 3/3 coders 2/2 artists, ect... He fills those rolls, -1.

Another tip, if you need to save on money, leave the lead skill alone and when the time comes let your main lead your core team. You can do this with other teams as well, just make anyone in the group a lead and that works, then when you get get an actual lead and train him in HR if you want.

[Mongoosey]

All great advice! Thanks everybody! :)

[LzDK14]

Qoff's advise is pretty solid, so I just expand it a bit

1. Create a main with Optimistic Introvert traits. That'll give you nice high quick learner and middle stress levels. But there's a bug, or feature, that Introvert Optimists can't find amazing compatibility recruits, so you may want to switch to Introvert Generous, same quick learner but worse stress levels (they are lazy, bad for 6 hours support teams).
Dump leader, marketing and art skills. Designer and Programmer focus - System. That will allow you work faster on low level contracts.
Put your main in Leader, Designer and Programmer roles.

2. Work contracts till you hit 30k-50k, hire amazing compatibility (or Introvert-optimist) artist (low salary, always low salary, they are young and have good discipline rates but bad general skill rates), put him(her) in artist only role, and start working on general contracts + game art contracts. Side work on your first 2D editor, no marketers, this will be your base to build fan base (:-)). Don't' forget to run outsourced reviews, that'll give up to -10% bugs and +5% quality. No selfprinting, just buy 2-3k copies of your software.

3. Contracts and learning till you hit 100k. Start developing your second 2D editor. Hire 2-3 amazing compatibility programmers on the day you release your second 2D. They'll be running you support. Buy around 5-10k of copies. Hire 2 marketers, any traits really, but they should have amazing compatibility among themselves.
Your fan base should be high enough by now to shoot for big bucks.

4. Maintain your cash level at >100k around 3 month, to make sure you can handle it, and go in for the kill. Hire recptionist, if you haven;t alreasy, accept design deals, lots of them. They have long completion time and no penalty for not working on them.

5. Develop you third 2D software, start marketing it at 3 month before release, your marketers should write press review (only 1 review, with text audio and video), send out daily press builds. Print(!!!) around 100k copies in beta phase.

6. Ka-ching!

7. Expand you support. 6 teams to make it 24h uninterrupted operation, 6h per team. You'll need to build 2 separate rooms for them, 3 teams/room, no intersections in work time in teams sharing room.
Expand you marketing team, same as support.

8. There you go, you have money, respect of your peers and all the women (or men) in IT industry you can want. Live the dream:-)

PS:
- all hires should have amazing compatibility with team, that'll save some greef in the future.
- When chosing features, always go for maximum possible market share. If some hot, new feature is supported only by already dying OS with 10k users, exlude it from project.
- Training is essential, if your employees have free time - send the to the courses, always send up to 50% of you support teams after step 5. That'll give you to-die-for level programmes in a couple of years.