Sunday, November 06, 2005
Entreprenurship: Is it for you?
I was wondering what to write. Finally I decided on entrepreneurship. That is, the process of organizing, operating and assuming the risks for a business venture. Is entrepreneurship right for you? If you are not sure, stick with this blog and we will find out together. This blog is where wish I share with you my journey to create a games business; namely, Hatchlings Games Studios.
The Soul Search
I realized when I was 15 that I want to create an intellectual property like Star Wars or Lord of The Rings. Those years were traumatic and life-changing times in my short life. I was having feeling extremely down and rather lived in a dream. The dream was creating a universe with on-going story by animating soft toys that my siblings like. Eventually I was spending five hours every night telling story to my brother. I was doing that for three years until I decided to make my dream real.
I have never wanted much money until then. However, I started to really realize that I can’t live off my parents forever. This is especially true for me since I have never liked the idea of spending a whole chunk of my time for the rest of my life to make money. I wanted to do something that I like and still manage to make money from it. After much thought and experiment, I knew what I wanted to do have to be informative and creative in nature. Since I loved playing video games, computer programming and creating worlds, making games is for me.
One way to do while soul searching (and at any time of your life) is to read. Read on anything. You should start by reading online. Two of my favorite game development websites are GameDev.net and Gamasutra.com. GameDev.net review new books quite often. Go to your favorite bookshop (mine is Borders at Berjaya Times Square) to look at it.
The first book that I read on games development was Game Architecture and Design by Andrew Rollings and Dave Morris. It is the book we use here at MMU (My University) too. It covers most of commercial games development. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in games development.
To be in games development you MUST read a lot. Besides that you must code a lot, design a lot, do whatever your skill is A LOT. If you want to make it into a business, you must also do HUMAN NETWORK a lot, that is to meet others in the industry. No one can really teach you how to be in the games industry if you don’t try it yourself. You have to have the mindset to do whatever it takes even if you are not sure. Keep at it, never give up and you will eventually be successful.
The Risk of Business
In my opinion, being a business owner is a lot safer than having a job. It is safer if you believe it is. You have to have the courage to be an entrepreneur. If you want to be an entrepreneur but you don’t think you have the courage, you have to do whatever it takes to build it (courage). It is not going to be easy – especially in the beginning. It has a very high up-cost (material, effort and time). You must have the courage and motivation to pull you through the initial stages.
I am a university undergraduate without a degree. Many people that I care about advised me to finish my tertiary education before starting a business. I prayed, calculated the risk, talked to different people, mustered my courage and really decided on this path only last week. This blog is my first step to maintain my courage and motivation.
Long Term Thinking
You have to think long term. No matter what others tell you, you should think long term. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to think short-term. You should too, but you must aim as high as possible. It doesn’t matter whether you will achieve your goals – but you must know what your goals are. You must have a vision – for yourself, partners and future employees.
For me, I want to create a game with an inspiring and entertaining story and epic science fiction universe within six years. Everything I do now is directly or indirectly related to achieving that. Like I said above, it doesn’t matter whether I am really successful. What matters is you are motivated, you believe you can do it and you think ahead and have a goal. Put financial figures into your long term planning to help put things into context – but I do not recommend making the financial goal the primary motivating goal. You usually won’t be really happy doing that.
Remember, you are supposed to enjoy what you do and as a business owner you are supposed to provide value. If you only work for money you are more a self-employed (you pay yourself money) rather than a business owner (a provider of service and product). ¶ 3:05 PM
The Soul Search
I realized when I was 15 that I want to create an intellectual property like Star Wars or Lord of The Rings. Those years were traumatic and life-changing times in my short life. I was having feeling extremely down and rather lived in a dream. The dream was creating a universe with on-going story by animating soft toys that my siblings like. Eventually I was spending five hours every night telling story to my brother. I was doing that for three years until I decided to make my dream real.
I have never wanted much money until then. However, I started to really realize that I can’t live off my parents forever. This is especially true for me since I have never liked the idea of spending a whole chunk of my time for the rest of my life to make money. I wanted to do something that I like and still manage to make money from it. After much thought and experiment, I knew what I wanted to do have to be informative and creative in nature. Since I loved playing video games, computer programming and creating worlds, making games is for me.
One way to do while soul searching (and at any time of your life) is to read. Read on anything. You should start by reading online. Two of my favorite game development websites are GameDev.net and Gamasutra.com. GameDev.net review new books quite often. Go to your favorite bookshop (mine is Borders at Berjaya Times Square) to look at it.
The first book that I read on games development was Game Architecture and Design by Andrew Rollings and Dave Morris. It is the book we use here at MMU (My University) too. It covers most of commercial games development. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in games development.
To be in games development you MUST read a lot. Besides that you must code a lot, design a lot, do whatever your skill is A LOT. If you want to make it into a business, you must also do HUMAN NETWORK a lot, that is to meet others in the industry. No one can really teach you how to be in the games industry if you don’t try it yourself. You have to have the mindset to do whatever it takes even if you are not sure. Keep at it, never give up and you will eventually be successful.
The Risk of Business
In my opinion, being a business owner is a lot safer than having a job. It is safer if you believe it is. You have to have the courage to be an entrepreneur. If you want to be an entrepreneur but you don’t think you have the courage, you have to do whatever it takes to build it (courage). It is not going to be easy – especially in the beginning. It has a very high up-cost (material, effort and time). You must have the courage and motivation to pull you through the initial stages.
I am a university undergraduate without a degree. Many people that I care about advised me to finish my tertiary education before starting a business. I prayed, calculated the risk, talked to different people, mustered my courage and really decided on this path only last week. This blog is my first step to maintain my courage and motivation.
Long Term Thinking
You have to think long term. No matter what others tell you, you should think long term. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to think short-term. You should too, but you must aim as high as possible. It doesn’t matter whether you will achieve your goals – but you must know what your goals are. You must have a vision – for yourself, partners and future employees.
For me, I want to create a game with an inspiring and entertaining story and epic science fiction universe within six years. Everything I do now is directly or indirectly related to achieving that. Like I said above, it doesn’t matter whether I am really successful. What matters is you are motivated, you believe you can do it and you think ahead and have a goal. Put financial figures into your long term planning to help put things into context – but I do not recommend making the financial goal the primary motivating goal. You usually won’t be really happy doing that.
Remember, you are supposed to enjoy what you do and as a business owner you are supposed to provide value. If you only work for money you are more a self-employed (you pay yourself money) rather than a business owner (a provider of service and product). ¶ 3:05 PM
