人工智能 项目筹集不到_为游戏筹集资金的三种方法

人工智能 项目筹集不到

Creating a game is no easy task, but most people who undertake this mission are motivated by a passion and love of games. Raising money for development, on the other hand, isn’t on every game dev’s list of favorite things. Still, in order to see their babies come to life, many a game maker has gone in search of funding. While game publishers are the source most game developers turn to, this post looks at three alternatives. In the end, who you turn to will depend on the nature of your game and the stage of your development lifecycle when you approach them.

创造游戏绝非易事，但大多数承担这项任务的人都是出于对游戏的热情和热爱。 另一方面，为开发筹集资金并不是每个游戏开发人员的最爱。 尽管如此，为了看到他们的婴儿复活，许多游戏制造商都在寻求资金。 尽管游戏发行商是大多数游戏开发者的来源，但本文着眼于三种选择。 最后，您选择的对象将取决于游戏的性质和开发生命周期的阶段。

1.爱钱 (1. Love-money )

If you’re just starting out, and all you have are some mad skills, a lot of determination and an idea that you believe in, then sometimes the only place to go is to family and friends. Or as some game creators have been known to do, show yourself some love by backing your own work via loans, your regular day job, or client work.

如果您只是刚起步，并且所拥有的只是一些疯狂的技能，很多决心和信念，那么有时唯一的选择就是与家人和朋友在一起。 或像某些游戏创作者一样，通过贷款，日常工作或客户工作来支持自己的作品，向自己展示一些爱。

好老爸妈和汤姆叔叔 (Good old Mom & Dad and Uncle Tom)

Yes, sometimes loved ones may be the only ones willing to back you. This was indeed the case in Unity’s own history when the three founders turned to family for help back in the day with their idea for a game engine.

是的，有时亲人可能是唯一愿意支持你的人。 在Unity自己的历史中确实是这种情况，当时三位创始人带着游戏引擎的想法回到家庭寻求帮助。

“We had been living in a sublet room on a ridiculously cheap budget watching whatever money we had saved up from past jobs slowly dwindle, surviving on a daily diet of kebabs, and basically working around the clock,” says David Helgason, one of Unity’s three founders.

Unity的一名员工David Helgason表示：“我们以前住在廉价的分租房间里，看着我们从过去的工作中积saved下来的钱慢慢减少，每天吃着烤肉串，而且基本上都昼夜不停地工作。”三个创始人。

“We were young with no family commitments, so we could afford to live like that and invest the time. But when the money we had saved from other jobs ran out, we turned to family and borrowed around 100,000 euros to see the project through,” Helgason says.

“我们年轻时没有家庭承诺，因此我们有能力过上这样的生活并投入时间。 但是当我们从其他工作中节省下来的钱用完时，我们求助于家人，借了约10万欧元以使该项目顺利通过。” Helgason说。

不一定要冒很大的风险 (Doesn’t have to be a huge risk)

Of course, in this case, the story had a very happy ending with the birth of the Unity game engine, but had it failed, the borrowers would have had to face the consequences. Still, even looking back, Helgason doesn’t consider it a crazy risk.

当然，在这种情况下，随着Unity游戏引擎的诞生，这个故事有了一个非常幸福的结局，但如果失败了，借款人将不得不面对后果。 尽管如此，即使回首，Helgason也不认为这是疯狂的风险。

An image from Gooball, the game developed by the Unity co-founders in 2005 on the original 1.0 version of the Unity game engine.

由Gooball拍摄的图片，该游戏由Unity联合创始人于2005年在Unity游戏引擎的原始1.0版本上开发。

“If worse had come to worst, we could have worked it off in a few years. Yes, it would been dreary, but it seemed relatively safe to us, and we believed enough in what we were doing,” he says.

“如果情况变得更糟，我们可以在几年内解决它。 是的，那会很沉闷，但对我们来说似乎比较安全，我们对所做的事情深信不疑。”他说。

However, Helgason does see some truth in the old saying: ‘Don’t raise money when you need it, raise money when you don’t.”  He says that if they were just starting out today, they probably would have done things differently.

但是，Helgason确实有句老话：“不要在需要时集资，不需要时就集资。” 他说，如果他们只是今天开始，他们可能会做不同的事情。

“The environment is much better and healthier today; there’s a lot more people willing to assume risk. And tools have gotten cheaper. You can tap into the game engine community, and things like the Asset Store make it easier to lower the cost of production,” he says.

“今天的环境变得更好，更健康； 有更多的人愿意承担风险。 工具变得更便宜了。 您可以进入游戏引擎社区，诸如Asset Store之类的东西可以更轻松地降低生产成本。”他说。

一点自爱 (A little self-love)

An alternative to turning to your family is to back yourself up. Many a studio butters their bread via freelancing, consulting, developing business apps, or some other “grown-up job,” in order to finance their dream project, which they run on the side. Or sometimes, as in the case of Fireproof Games, they save up until they can afford to bring their baby to life.

求助家人的另一种方法是支持自己。 许多工作室通过自由职业，咨询，开发业务应用程序或其他“成年工作”来充实自己的面包，以资助他们梦想中的项目，而这些项目则由他们一边进行。 有时，例如防火游戏，他们会积save下来，直到负担得起使自己的婴儿复活为止。

Fireproof Games built a business foundation on freelance projects for other studios as an outsourced team of artists and game design experts. They then used that base to finance their own creative pursuits when they’d gathered enough resources and the time was right.

Fireproof Games作为艺术家和游戏设计专家的外包团队，在其他工作室的自由职业项目上建立了业务基础。 然后，当他们收集了足够的资源并且时机成熟时，他们便利用该基础来资助自己的创意追求。

旅途有时很漫长 (The journey is sometimes long)

It took Fireproof Games four years from their start in 2008 before they were ready to create their own game. And even then, it was only the emergence of the Unity engine that enabled them to do it with limited programmer resources.

Fireproof Games从2008年开始花了四年的时间才准备好创建自己的游戏。 即使到那时，也只有Unity引擎的出现才使他们能够使用有限的程序员资源来完成此任务。

“In early 2012 we had saved enough money to hire our first programmer and got to work building a creepy tactile puzzle game with Unity for tablets and phones. We named it ‘The Room’ and released it in September 2012, and to our great surprise it was an instant hit,” they wrote in a Made with Unity story.

“在2012年初，我们节省了足够的钱来聘请我们的第一个程序员，并开始使用Unity为平板电脑和手机构建令人毛骨悚然的触觉益智游戏。 我们将其命名为“ The Room”，并于2012年9月发布，令人惊讶的是，它立即获得了成功 。”

Able to pursue their creative vision, Fireproof Games went on to become an independent studio working full-time on their own games. The Room was followed up with two sequels, and altogether, the series has sold over 10 million copies. To learn more, you can read the Fireproof Games Unity case story.

Fireproof Games能够追求自己的创造力，因此成为一家独立工作室，专职从事自己的游戏。 《房间》之后是两部续集，该系列总共售出了1000万本。 要了解更多信息，您可以阅读 Fireproof Games Unity案例故事 。

2.众筹 (2. Crowdfunding )

有时需要一个社区来筹集比赛 (Sometimes it takes a community to raise a game)

Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowdfunding sites that focus solely on games, like Gogetfunding, Fig, and GameLaunched, offer an exciting, (relatively) new way to raise money. However, people often underestimate the amount of effort it takes to raise cash via crowdfunding.

Kickstarter， Indiegogo 和其他仅专注于游戏的众筹网站，例如 Gogetfunding ， Fig 和 GameLaunched ，提供了一种令人兴奋的(相对)筹集资金的新方式。 但是，人们常常低估了通过众筹筹集现金所需的精力。

“Well, I can always just do a Kickstarter,” I saw one optimistic game developer comment on a fundraising forum.

“好吧，我总是可以做一个Kickstarter，”我在一个筹款论坛上看到了一位乐观的游戏开发商的评论。

This simply isn’t the case. A crowdfunding campaign has never been easy,  and as the popularity of platforms like Kickstarter grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to gain attention for one’s own campaign. The truth is that a successful crowdfunding campaign is hard but not impossible. The Kickstarter video game project success rate for the first half of 2016 was around 18 percent.

事实并非如此。 众筹活动从未如此轻松，并且随着像Kickstarter这样的平台的普及，使自己的竞选活动越来越难以引起关注。 事实是，成功的众筹活动很难但并非不可能。 2016年上半年， Kickstarter视频游戏项目成功率 约为18％。

As with anything else, success requires a high level of focus and the right kind of effort. You should start developing your community at least nine months prior to your campaign launch, and you should plan on one to three months to prepare the actual campaign. Setting a realistic target goal, starting to plan early, involving your community, and, not least, remaining hyper-active on social media throughout your campaign are some of the important best practices.

就像其他任何事情一样，成功需要高度的专注和正确的努力。 您应该至少在广告系列启动前九个月开始开发社区，并且应该计划一到三个月来准备实际的广告系列。 制定切合实际的目标，尽早开始计划，让您的社区参与进来，并且最重要的是，在整个广告系列中对社交媒体保持高度活跃是一些重要的最佳做法。

“You need to have all your preparation in place before you start because Kickstarter’s rules mean that it’s all or nothing, one shot,” says Mark Folkenberg, whose Books & Magic studio’s Kickstarter Project did not meet it’s goal.  “You’re going to have to spend so much energy on it that you should do it right the first time. And if you find that you’re not ready, then, postpone it, and reuse some of the work when you are ready,” he advises.

“您必须在开始之前就做好所有准备工作，因为Kickstarter的规则意味着一无所获，” Mark Folkenberg说，他的 书与魔术 工作室的Kickstarter项目未能达到其目标。 “您将不得不花很多精力在它上，第一次就应该正确地做。 如果您发现自己还没有准备好，那么就将其推迟，并在准备就绪后重用一些工作。”他建议。

Books & Magic later found investors to back their project,  an augmented reality book, which brings new life to Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid tale.

图书与魔术后来发现投资者支持他们的项目，这是一本增强现实书籍，为汉斯·克里斯蒂安·安德森的小美人鱼故事带来了新的活力。

A scene from Books & Magic’s augmented reality version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

Books＆Magic的增强现实版本的汉斯·克里斯蒂安·安德森(Hans Christian Andersen)的作品《小美人鱼》中的场景。

Getting featured on Kickstarter

在Kickstarter上获得推荐

Careful marketing planning and intense activity helps you in two ways. First, it addresses the fact that you can’t necessarily depend on Kickstarter to find new backers. Second, if you do hope to get discovered on Kickstarter, it’s important to get featured on the default setting of their advanced Discover tool known as “Magic.” This setting toggles between a prominent display of most popular posts and staff picks. An abundance of social activity could go a long way to getting your project featured.

仔细的营销计划和激烈的活动可以通过两种方式帮助您。 首先，它解决了您不一定必须依靠Kickstarter来寻找新支持者这一事实。 其次，如果您希望在Kickstarter上被发现，那么在他们的高级 发现 工具(称为“魔术”) 的默认设置中发挥作用非常重要 。 此设置在突出显示的最受欢迎职位和员工精选之间切换。 大量的社交活动对于使您的项目脱颖而出大有帮助。

Team Niche, which reached the funding goal for their genetic survival game after just three days, have written about the lessons learned from their success.

Niche团队在短短三天后就达到了其基因生存游戏的资金目标，并撰写了有关从其成功中学到的经验教训的文章。

“We could never have reached the same level of funding without our small, but dedicated fan-base. Over the past year, we visited various events (such as GDC, Gamescom and Game Connection) and posted frequently on social media (mostly Facebook and Twitter) in order to connect with people that are interested in our game idea,” Team Niche wrote on Gamasutra.

“没有我们的小型但专职的粉丝群，我们永远不可能达到相同的资金水平。 在过去的一年中，我们访问了各种事件(例如GDC，Gamescom和Game Connection)，并经常在社交媒体(主要是Facebook和Twitter)上发布，以便与对我们的游戏创意感兴趣的人保持联系 。 Gamasutra 。

3.投资者 (3. Investors)

Although the lines between the categories can get blurred, there are basically three different types of investors: incubator/accelerators, Venture Capitalists (VCs) and angel investors.

尽管类别之间的界限可能会模糊，但基本上有三种不同类型的投资者：孵化器/加速器，风险投资家(VC)和天使投资者。

加速器：从构思到原型 (Accelerators: From idea to prototype)

Incubator/accelerators, like GameFounders, Microsoft Greenshoots in London and Stugan in Sweden. tend to back projects from the initial idea to the prototype stage. In addition to funding, they also provide resources meant to accelerate your development cycle (although in some cases, they actually only provide the resources and not the funding). Resources can include capital, free rent, networking and coaching, for example.

孵化器/加速器，例如 GameFounders ， 伦敦的Microsoft Greenshoots 和 瑞典的Stugan 。 倾向于将项目从最初的想法支持到原型阶段。 除了资金外，它们还提供旨在加快开发周期的资源(尽管在某些情况下，它们实际上仅提供资源而不提供资金)。 例如，资源可以包括资本，免费租金，网络和教练。

风险投资帮助您将其提升到一个新的水平 (VCs help you take it to the next level)

If accelerators often only take a game creator as far as the prototype stage, VCs on the other hand often get involved later in the project cycle. In fact, game makers who turn to VCs may already have a full team in place and even a prototype with some initial community interest, but for whatever reason, they are unable to take it to the next level on their own.

如果加速器通常只将游戏创建者带到原型阶段，那么VC通常会在项目周期的后期介入。 实际上，转向风投的游戏制造商可能已经拥有一支完整的团队，甚至拥有一些最初的社区兴趣的原型，但是由于某种原因，他们无法独自将其提升到一个新的水平。

VCs avoid backing just one game; and instead look at the whole team and their long-term vision. Before investing, a VC will take a thorough look at who’s on your team, what they’ve done, and how they complement each other. They want to hear about your team’s long-term vision, the kinds of games you plan to make, to see a technology roadmap, and to be sure that there is potential for the game to scale and the studio to grow in value.

风投们避免只支持一场游戏 ; 而是着眼于整个团队及其长期愿景。 在进行投资之前，风险投资公司将彻底了解您团队中的成员，他们的工作以及彼此之间的互补。 他们想了解您的团队的长期愿景，您计划制作的游戏种类，查看技术路线图，并确保游戏具有扩大规模和工作室价值增长的潜力。

风投们玩了很长时间 (VCs play the long game)

VCs are betting on you for the long-term, and as such, the resources they provide can be more far-reaching than what accelerators offer.  But VCs that are interested in game development can be difficult to find. What’s more, even VCs who do focus on games, like Execution Labs, will only back projects that that offer serious commercial potential.

风险投资商长期以来都在押注您，因此，它们提供的资源可能比加速器所提供的资源更为广泛。 但是很难找到对游戏开发感兴趣的风投。 而且，即使是专注于游戏的风投，例如 Execution Labs ，也只会支持具有巨大商业潜力的项目。

“We’re a commercial investor, and we ourselves are venture funded. We’re not a charity and we’re not an arts council,” says Jason Della Rocca, Co-Founder of Execution Labs. “Obviously, it helps if it’s a cool game or a concept that inspires us, but that’s just one part of it.”

“我们是商业投资者，我们自己是风险投资。 我们不是慈善组织，也不是艺术理事会，”执行实验室联合创始人Jason Della Rocca说。 “很明显，如果它是一款很酷的游戏或一个激发我们灵感的概念，那么它会有所帮助，但这只是其中的一部分。”

PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist was developed by Outerminds with the support of Execution Labs in 2015, and became the top-grossing paid game in the United States App Store less than two hours after its release.

PewDiePie：《 Brofist传奇》是Outerminds在Execution Labs的支持下于2015年开发的，并在发行不到两个小时的时间内成为美国App Store收入最高的付费游戏。

In order for them to be interested, the game or idea must have the potential to scale and generate huge revenue.

为了使他们感兴趣，游戏或创意必须具有扩大规模并产生巨大收益的潜力。

“The upper end of the scale has to be so high that it can’t even be calculated,” Della Rocca says. “We won’t make millions every time, but when a game wins, we want it to win big..”

Della Rocca说：“规模的上限必须很高，甚至无法计算。” “我们不会每次都赚数百万，但是当一场比赛获胜时，我们希望它能赢大。”

Ultimately, VCs are professional investors that need to seek a return on their investments. As such, your game and studio must be an actual opportunity to catch their interest and support.The missing resources you don’t have in-house

最终，风险投资人是需要寻求投资回报的专业投资者。 因此，您的游戏和工作室必须是抓住他们的兴趣和支持的实际机会。 您内部没有的缺少资源

While their expectations may be high, VCs do extend more resources than what the average accelerator might offer. For example, Execution Labs resources include marketing and PR aimed at acquiring new users, on-staff experts in analytics and business planning, and the ability to expedite deals with a broad network of other investors, publishers, and global distributors.

尽管他们的期望很高，但风险投资确实比普通加速器提供了更多的资源。 例如，执行实验室的资源包括旨在吸引新用户的营销和公关，分析和业务计划的在职专家以及与其他投资者，发行商和全球发行商的广泛网络加快交易的能力。

天使投资人 (Angel investors)

Angel investors are affluent individuals looking for an exciting project to invest their own money in. Whereas VCs are more focused on the numbers, angel investors can be driven by other factors.

天使投资人 是富裕的个人，他们正在寻找一个激动人心的项目来投资自己的资金。尽管风险投资人更加关注数字，但天使投资人可能受到其他因素的驱动。

“While VCs look at things like sector growth and potential valuation, it can be much more personal with angel investors,”Della Rocca says. “Of course, they’re not going to just throw their money away, but they can be influenced by thoughts like: ‘Am I going to want to come by and hang out with these this team and be able to mentor them.’ There’s more emotions involved.”

戴拉•罗卡(Della Rocca)表示：“风险投资人着眼于行业增长和潜在估值之类的事情，但天使投资人可能会更加个人化。” “当然，他们不会只是丢掉他们的钱，而是会受到诸如以下的想法的影响：'我想去和这些团队一起闲逛，并能够指导他们吗？” 涉及更多的情绪。”

这些天使(和其他资金来源)藏在哪里？ (Where are those angels (and other funding sources) hiding?)

You may be a young, inexperienced beginner looking for love money, an established team seeking a push for your idea from crowdfunding or accelerators, or a studio that already has a prototype, which needs backing to take it to the next level. Whatever the case, a good way to increase your chances of success is to build relationships in the gaming community, industry, and with potential investors by networking actively.

您可能是一个年轻的，缺乏经验的初学者，他们正在寻找爱情钱，一个成熟的团队正在寻求通过众筹或加速器来推动您的想法，或者是一个已经有原型的工作室，需要它的支持才能将其提升到一个新的水平。 无论如何，增加成功机会的好方法是通过积极地建立联系，在游戏社区，行业以及与潜在投资者之间建立关系。

Mark Folkenberg, who found private investors with knowledge of the gaming industry for his studio’s AR book project, says it’s important to give yourself good time to find the right investor.

Mark Folkenberg在其工作室的AR书项目中找到了对博彩业有知识的私人投资者，他说，重要的是要让自己有足够的时间找到合适的投资者。

“Finding the right contacts can take months, and then the pitch itself can take months as well, It’s better to give yourself the time to work on potential leads than to have a launch date and rush it through when time and money are running out.”.

“找到合适的联系人可能要花几个月的时间，然后推销本身也可能要花几个月的时间，所以最好给自己一点时间来处理潜在的潜在客户，而不是先确定发布日期，然后在时间和金钱用完时匆匆完成。 ”。

But Folkenberg does have a final word of warning for fellow fund seekers.

但是，福尔肯伯格确实对寻求资金的伙伴们有最后的警告。

“When you’re out there pitching your product, listen to what everyone says, but remember that in the end, it’s your project, your vision, and you have the final word.  Don’t fall into trap of thinking that because you heard it ten times, it’s true. No one knows your project like you,” he says.

“当您到处推销产品时，请倾听每个人的意见，但请记住，最终，这是您的项目，您的愿景，并且您有最终决定权。 不要陷入思考，因为您听了十遍，这是真的。 没有人像您一样了解您的项目，”他说。

翻译自: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/08/08/three-ways-to-raise-money-for-your-game/

人工智能 项目筹集不到