Reputations: Part 2

The games industry is a small world in which to work. It's fair to say that pretty much everyone worth knowing knows everyone else worth knowing. Word gets around the industry grapevine very quickly, so you need to make sure that the words that concern you and your business are good ones. This means that word-of-mouth marketing also applies in your business-to-business relationships. If you build up a solid reputation for your company, you will attract more attention from traditionally conservative publishers.

If you plan to play with the major players, rather than start with smaller, cheaper games, you'll need to look to publishers or other major sources of funding. This has the unfortunate side effects of (a) making them your customers, and (b) giving the funders a huge chunk of control over your business.

Giving away control is not always a bad thing, but as with most options in life, it needs to be analyzed in context. If you have absolutely no way of getting your game off the ground without funding, you will simply have to bite the bullet and sign. However, if you can recruit a board of directors full of savvy financial executives who know your business, they might be of great help to you—especially if this is your first attempt to run a business.