How do you start a home based game studio?

Without having a large budget,





free software,





using blender 3d, Photoshop, and Microsoft XNA Studio/ Visual Basic/ C#/





And how to make games commercial (i.e PS2, I know you can make Xbox 360, and Wii)





And Copyrights, if you Copyright the game's story, do you have to individually Copyright each character?





So much to ask!!!

How do you start a home based game studio?
%26gt;%26gt; free software,





http://www.sourceforge.net





%26gt;%26gt; And how to make games commercial (i.e PS2, I know you can make Xbox 360, and Wii)





You'll need a distributor. Jump off that bridge when you have something to market.





%26gt;%26gt; And Copyrights, if you Copyright the game's story, do you have to individually Copyright each character?





You don't copyright software, you patent it. You would copyright the name of the game and the names of the characters / places, etc.





You receive a patent when you apply for one and the government issues it to you. You automatically have copyright by virtue of creating a work. You automatically receive a trademark on a game or character name the first time you use it to promote your product.





http://www.copyright.gov


http://www.uspto.gov
Reply:Hmm, difficult question :D





The trick is to start small. Most major games take years of development with a large team of designers, programmers, conceptual artists etc.





BUT saying that, if you have a great idea for something simple (pong was HUGE when it first came out!), go for it!





Business side of things, you would probably be best as a sole trader or partnership. If you live in the UK establishing such a business is really easy, look on Google for help. Set up a website where people can download your games (perhaps for a fee), and begin a games portfolio of things you've released. Things should grow from there.





Re copyright: this will only apply if you publish your game, as obviously no-one will have access to the source code otherwise. Standard copyright rules apply- you don't have to explicitly copyright your material (its automatically covered to some degree), but you could put a copyright notice on the first screen of the game and in the source code etc. Character names, place names etc *can* be copyrighted, but this will be a long and probably expensive process- and even then you might not get full protection, so this probably isn't worth your time unless you have a huge global mega bestseller on your hands!!





Good luck with it!
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