I am starting a video game company. I need startup capital & am looking into stocks & grants. Any suggestion?

Question:

Currently I have a team that is working on starting this game. We are all working FREE right now until we get funds so we can quit our jobs and work full time on this and 4.. i repeat 4 other games we already have lined up. A friend of mine has friends that are CPA's and they are "going to help us" however the advice I am getting is to stick with grants and buy what we need, working for free in "spare time." The game plan from the start has been to release this game within 2 years and that won't be feasable if we can't work full time on it. We are interested in creating a demo, website, concept art, and other such in order to create an interest in our company so we can start as a C-Corp and sell enough stock to get our company running atleast long enough to sell our first game and get a return that will support us throughout our next games. anyone who could offer advice or even if you're a CPA and would be interested in helping, please help us.

Answer:
Depending on where you live, some cities have moneys available, up to $25,000.00 per job to help create new jobs. So if there were 4 of you, plus an accountant, attorney. You could qualify for up to $150,000.00. However you would have to keep your corporate headquarters in that city. The city would get it's money back from income taxes from the employees. Also check with your local economic development agency, as well as with your local SCORE agency, some of those retired individuals would be willing to help.

If you want to start a business you need to apply for a LOAN. Grants are for other uses.

Nobody is going to buy stocks in your company if you have never sold anything to anybody. It's just common sense. People would prefer to buy stocks in Atari, Activision, Electronic Arts or other public companies which already have years of experience and millions of dollars in sales.

The only thing you can do is develop your videogame (Not a Demo but the entire videogame) and sell it to a bigger company for $100,000.00 and then use that money to hire more people and build another videogame and sell it for $200,000.00 to the same company (Asuming your first videogame actually sells)

Your first videogame is not going to be profitable. Because the costs of developing a videogames is much higher than $100,000.00 but since you are nobody the Big Corporations are just going to take advantage of you.

The idea is to make money for them and they will come back for more.

Videogames Companies are starting to be bought by Big corporations because the industry is now bigger than Hollywood and like your chances of recording a hit album with an Independent Companty or the chnces of making a hit film with an Independent Company are extremely low. The chances of making a hit game will be reduced over the years as the Industry is taken over by the Big Corporations.

Midway is now a Part of Viacom.
Blizzard and Sierra are now part of General Electric.

And it's only a matter of time before News, Disney and Time Warner buy videogames companies.

I am starting a video game company. I need startup capital & am looking into stocks & grants. Any suggestion?

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