The supposed stupidity of others is never a good reason to start a business.
I get quite a few start-up developers contacting me for advise. When asked why they are setting up their own business one of the (many) reasons quoted is often “the management of the team we work for are stupid. We know that we can do better.” There are several reasons why this is a bad reason to start a business… here are just some of them:
1. Development staff are seldom privy to the management decision making process and only see the results. A management team that cancels a game you think will be great and makes the team redundant isn’t stupid, if the current publisher has informed them that they are cancelling the project and no alternative publisher can be found. Carrying a team that aren’t earning money is the fastest way to kill an entire company so if management don’t act quickly to reduce costs everyone will be out of a job. Unless you are privy to all the facts it is stupid to pass judgement on a decision.
2. Just because someone else is stupid, it doesn’t automatically mean you are smart. Or to put it another way; just because someone else doesn’t understand the business, it doesn’t mean that you do. Game development is a creative endeavour and it requires particular skills to succeed. Those skills are not the same ones that are needed to succeed in business. If you expect a publisher (or any other investor) to give you money then you need to understand business side of game development.
3. Your stupid boss isn’t the only person you need to be smarter than. There are a lot of other companies out there that you have to compete with.
Conclusion
Don’t start a game development studio because your current boss is stupid. You need to have (several) great ideas for games and a solid plan as to how you will profit from them. If you don’t have a solid grasp of the business of game development you can be sure that someone smarter than you will be profiting from all your hard work.
