Feature: 'GDC: The Birth And Growth Of Independent Game Studios'

In another of today's main Gamasutra features, and spanning two sessions, this feature from GDC takes a look at the business of starting and growing a sucessful game development house, drawing on the experience of Online Alchemy's Michael Sellers and Vicarious Visions' Guha and Karthik Bala. In this part,the Vicarious Visions duo discuss part of their guide to success in the game business: "From that moment in the life cycle of a studio, Guha and Karthik Bala's session kicked in, providing financial tools to convert a mid-sized studio into a profitable business, possibly ending in an acquisition as proven by Vicarious Visions' recent integration within Activision. The talk followed the evolution of their company from its incorporation in the nineties, and the problems encountered along the road, providing the audience with a no-doors-barred insight on the strategic decisions taken at the financial level. The core idea was that game studios often forget finance and focus on making games, and so whenever a project falls apart or takes too long to get signed, the studio goes bankrupt. The Balas exemplified these problems with their own experience, and how they learned to overcome these issues." You can now read the full Gamasutra coverage on the matter, including detailed information on these intriguing duo of talks (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).