I’ve always wondered how these companies such as Epic or Bungie came to life and made these games? What do you get ideas, people like concept artists and the like and propose your game idea to Microsoft or something…?
I believe Bungie started off as a group of friends and then Microsoft bought the company to be a branch of Microsoft.
Then they just grew from there for Halo 2.
O Brave New Worlds, Bungie’s ViDoc explains it well.
Well you know what they say: You have to spend money to earn money.
And every company starts small.
Investments, connections and a bit of luck
look up extra-credits they give a lot of helpful advice on this topic.
> I’ve always wondered how these companies such as Epic or Bungie came to life and made these games? What do you get ideas, people like concept artists and the like and propose your game idea to Microsoft or something…?
The same why all companies start out, a small group of people who want to start a business, which then hit it off, and then grow into a very large company.
Lets take Bungie, they started has a small hand full of guys in a small room developing games.
Rooster Teeth: Started out as a group of college students in a spare bed room filming them selves playing Halo.
Even the very large Microsoft started out as Bill Gates and a few others selling computers and software out of the back of a vehicle, or in a house.
Most companies you see these days started the same way, a group of people, and an idea.
Most game developing studios start off very small - a group of friends, and they produce small titles. Get through the LLC paperwork to make your studio an official company, then when you find a publisher to sell your games, you take what money you’ve (hopefully) earned to expand your studio. More money = more stuff you can do; hire more employees, move to a bigger studio, develop more titles, etc.
If your studio keeps creating successful games, more popular and powerful developers/companies will take notice. They’ll either acquire you (such as Bungie), or you can remain independant with publishing parterships (Bungie circa 2010), or you can remain fully independant as your own developer, publisher, and distributor (Valve). Most studios need help from larger companies at one point or another.
In the case of 343 Industries, Microsoft put out word that they wanted to put together a powerhouse studio to develop the Halo franchise, that’s how they came into fruitation. It was a different scenario, however when the Halo franchise is complete, the stuido might be disbanded.
> I’ve always wondered how these companies such as Epic or Bungie came to life and made these games? What do you get ideas, people like concept artists and the like and propose your game idea to Microsoft or something…?
What you do is come up with a idea for a game and work to make that dream come true.
Now is the best time ever to do that because of the nature of the App stores you can be a no one and write a fun game that could skyrocket so you end up making ten’s of thousands.
Then you take that cash invest in your company make you next game and grow from there to become the next Bungie, Epic, Valve, ID, etc.
It’s not easy but if you work hard and enjoy what you have done who knows how far you can go.
Here’s the History of Bungie it’s a good read to see how far they have come. Link
Valve’s History via Wikipedia. link
Many studios that are currently started as two guys making small things. For example, both Bungie and id software started as such and I’m rather sure Epic games was at first just Tim Sweeney all by himself. But that was back in the day. However, founding a game studio with just two people is still possible these days, and there being only two people doesn’t mean you have to start out small. One of the more recent examples of such a studio is Theory Interactive, it’s basically two guys sitting in a room, building a game that looks graphically as good or even better than games like Crysis and Battlefield 3.
Of course, these days I believe founding a game studio might be easier in terms of at least getting more people to work with you. Then again, it might not be as easy to get your games noticed when bigger studios make much better stuff. That’s why starting with small games is usually better idea. And with the new market of smart phone games, starting a game studio might be quite a good idea when you can get some starting money with small and cheap games for smart phones. Of course chances are you won’t be the next Rovio but I believe that those cheap games give you some nice starting money.
> I believe Bungie started off as a group of friends and then Microsoft bought the company to be a branch of Microsoft.
>
> Then they just grew from there for Halo 2.
>
> O Brave New Worlds, Bungie’s ViDoc explains it well.
This is how Bungie formed. Lots of other companies form differently.
> > I believe Bungie started off as a group of friends and then Microsoft bought the company to be a branch of Microsoft.
> >
> > Then they just grew from there for Halo 2.
> >
> > O Brave New Worlds, Bungie’s ViDoc explains it well.
>
> This is how Bungie formed. Lots of other companies form differently.
Not really. I’m rather sure most companies formed in the 90’s were formed just like Bungie, few guys starting to make games and many companies still do the same. Because in reality, you usually don’t get to gather 200 people together. 343i is very much of an excpetion as the whole studio was solely designed and founded on the basis of continuing the Halo games and attracted many developers who want to work on a Halo game. But most companies, regardless of are they completely new to the business or old veterans just starting a new company, they are pretty small when they start.