TL:DR: I have no budget and need an artist and general team (art/music/sfx). Offering rev-share feels wrong to do. It also doesn't feel like I have a chance with publishers given I cannot work full-time and the game is full of placeholder art, making a potential pitch look horrible. The entire goal of seeking a publisher is finding funding to hire an artist/musician/sfx-magician, but it seems like to make a pitch in the first place I already need an artist. What do I do?
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Hey.
Earlier this year (after making a bunch of test projects to learn the ropes) I started seriously working on a game - alone, with a Budget of 0. I am a university student, but made it a goal to at least fit 5-4 hours a day into the project, 7 days a week. I didn't think about art, I didn't think about music, I didn't think about marketing - I wanted to get something on it's legs first.
Fast forward several months and what I have is a very deep in development - often tested - game with all kinds of systems in it, a decent amount of content and seemingly fun gameplay as testers seem to tell me. The Problem: It's almost all Placeholder Art. 90% of it - Art, Sfx, Music, it's all Placeholder.
The gameplay loop works, I have a vision for the scope of the content of the game and I am tracking along this path very well. It's just that the game has reached the point where the backlog for art, sfx, music etc. to be done is absolutely massive and I have no clue what to do to fix that problem. Design/Context/Programming-wise the game is easily over 50% done, but all other fronts are at 5% at best, or 0%.
This week I made it my mission to finally figure out where to go, because it can't stay placeholder stuff forever, especially because the game is intended for commercial purposes, too.
However I simply do not know what the hell to do given I lack a budget. No talented artist will want to waste their time on a project that promises “rev-share”.
I have considered maybe contacting a Publisher, but I run into several roadblocks going that path:
- I am a student, I can't work on the game full-time. Is a publisher really up for that?
- The game is still placeholder art. A Publisher won't be “wowed" by placeholder art and sfx, why would a publisher care if I can't offer a vertical slice?
- The entire idea of contacting a publisher is to potentially get the funding needed to hire an artist, but to pitch to a publisher in the first place most sources seem to suggest that you already need an artist for the pitch itself to look good - which I can't hire because of no budget. It's a vicious circle.
What the hell do I do? Is my impression of Publishers wrong? Do I just suck it up and learn to do art/sfx/music by myself? Are there really crazy people out there that work for “rev-share” that aren't naive beginners? Offering rev-share feels like I am scamming people. I can't do that.
I feel very lost and without direction and wondered if someone here could maybe offer advice. I am confident others were in a similar situation and found a way to deal with it.
Thank you for your attention.