The Alternate Scheme Fund

[frsgalaxy 0]

The Alternate Scheme Fund

 

The Alternate Scheme Fund is an Idea that I had a little while back, Now this is only an Idea its not an actuality yet, The basic premise of the fund is to allow people (who have some understanding of business) to ask for a discretionary donation/loan/investment to be made to that person to set up a game orientated business.

 

I started to come up with this idea because as of yet I have not found anybody (person or entity) that provides a small loan/investment/donation for anything to do with the games industry (whether it be testing games, creating games, providing resources for games etc. etc.).

 

Now the aim of this fund is to provide (on the basis that all necessary checks are completed and verified) a small investment/loan/donation to an individual (or a small/medium/large group of people) to set up and meet the running costs (for upto 1 year) of said business.

 

The requirements to be able to receive anything from TASF are as follows:-

 

1. Must be over 18.

 

2. Must have a credit check (so we know that you can pay back a loan if a donation is not approved)

 

3. Must own/mortgage or live in an owned/mortgaged property (this is a prerequsite for ANY business not just a requirement of TASF or at least that is the requirement set by the UK goverment)

 

4. Must already have adequate workspace (a bedroom in your house does not count, A garage is at the loan/donation/investment giver discretion and can be refused because of this, An office no matter how big in a building that is not your home will be considered as adequate)

 

5. A CRB Check (Criminal Record Bureau Check) (To make sure you are a upstanding citizen of any country and not a convicted felon for anything relating to money or business)

 

Many Thanks for reading

 

Kind Regards

Daniel Hall

Founder of Flesh Render Studios

&

Founder of The Alternate Scheme Fund

 

This fund has been set up by Flesh Render Studios and they are the copyright holder of any and all documentation that is provided with this electronic message, If this electronic message is edited, copied, pasted, cut, or any other form of theft of this message on any website that the original poster "frsgalaxy" has not allowed then the perpetrator will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by UK standards

 

Copyrighted by Flesh Render Studios 2010 - 2015

[Broken Messiah 20]

I cant really have a opinion on this since I'm under 18

[frsgalaxy 0]

you can have an opinion :) you just can't receive funding until your over 18 lol :)

[joman195 9]

Sounds like a good idea. But it won't do me any good for another 3 years...

[frsgalaxy 0]

Thanks Joman195 :op There nothing in the fund atm anyway and probably won't be for a year or so which is when i plan to release my C&C game The Dragon Scrolls:- Valendroth :op

 

It's one part of a 4 part epic :op there will be a total of 8 games, each 1 of the 4 parts will have a full version of the game and a collectors edition of the game (which has additional content, different missions, poster art, original soundtrack and character art + a discount voucher for another FRS game (10%))

[madanchi 18]

I like the idea, sounds good and could help starting a games design business thing :)

[frsgalaxy 0]

I like the idea, sounds good and could help starting a games design business thing :)

 

That was the initial Idea hehe :)

 

There is currently nothing in the fund until 1. We get some donations or alternatively 2. Until I finish making my game, Sell it and put part of the profits made from the selling of the game into The Alternate Scheme Fund Pot.

 

If anyone is willing to donate to the pot either a personal donation from your own pocket or willing to donate some profits from selling one of your own games then please PM me.

 

Additional Note:- Please do not copy this Idea in any way, shape or form as it would be against my copyright agreement, The scheme is an official idea created by Flesh Render Studios and any breach of the copyright will ensue in legal action.

[frsgalaxy 0]

The amounts that I believe to be reaaonable are as follows:-

 

Small Donation - Upto £750

Large Donation - Upto £2000

Small Investment - Upto £5000

Large Investment - Upto £15000

Investment are repaid on a basis of 15% of any profit that your company makes, This could include selling games, testing games, marketing games or any other form of profit made relating to a game being produced by you, this profit share will be ongoing until the 15% is bought back from the investor.

Small Loan - Upto £2000

Large Loan - Upto £7500

If a loan is agreed upon a repayment plan will be made, A repayment plan will be set for 36, 48, 60 or 120 months.

The interest on the loan is 5%APR, 10%APR or 15%APR, this is at the loan providers discression.

An example of repayment would be:- £3500 to be paid over 48 months at 5%APR = £92.99 per month, Total amount repayable £4,463.68

 

What do you think of the above amounts for donations/investment and load? Are the loan repayment reasonable? Are the investment profit share acceptable? Are the donation amounts big enough?

[Marked 197]

I'm pretty skeptical over the concept of loaning money to game makers.

 

These days you can get some pretty amazing games really cheap. There are so many professionally made 3D games that have had hours and many thousands of dollars invested into them.

 

My point is, can you give someone (obviously without any established game making company because they're getting this loan) £15,000 to make a game that will compete in the market and make enough revenue from it to get a profit?

 

However its a cool idea. It would be awesome for example if I could generate revenue with google adsense here and then put it into a fund to help our members make their games.

[frsgalaxy 0]

With the loan it will more scrutainous than just saying yeah ok its a good idea here take 15,000GBP (The pound sign don't work on this damn keyboard :op), The contributing factors would be things like:-

 

Already have a business plan

Have set out expected targets

Knows the target audience for their game/s

Have a discussion forum/blog (bonus points awarded for this)

Have a website dedicated solely to the game (rather than a company or list of games as this can be used to assess the total amount of interest in a game, visitors must be unique to increase the total, Bonus points for this)

Total amount of completed resources (similar to assets, Bonus points awarded for each 8x2 character chipset, or 3D Model, Each resource or model or similar asset must be recorded in a book and must be copyrighted by you/company)

Some previous experience with business (Bonus points for amount of months of checkable business related work history)

 

You must get a total of 250 points to obtain a loan (Plus because the loan creditee has to have a owned house/mortgage, if payment is not met then equity from a house can be requested by UK Goverment to repay the loan, repossession will not happen but property value will decrease due to black mark against the property)

 

For an investment you need to get 175 points, 15% of ANY profit made by your business (not just the game that the loan was requested for) will be taken to repay the investment (also known as an Equity Share), If you wish to stop paying the profit share to the creditor then you can buy back the equity at a price set by the creditor (Will never be more than 30% inflation, To buy the profit share back the investment total must of already been paid over)

 

@Marked - Thanks for your kind words :) if you ever did wish to add AdSense or similar software to the site so that you could make a donation to the fund then please go ahead by all means, We are all here to help each other, That is why i created this fund :)

[Marked 197]

I actually really like this idea.. I just think pulling it off is going to be insanely hard. I think we should setup a website immediately to get attention.

 

Maybe the currency should be USD? I think that will make the business side smoother. Even my currency is NZD so I'm not being a bias US citizen here :P

 

As I told you I am a finance student but sadly at the current point in time I haven't been too far into it to offer advice or anything like that...

 

But one thing I did notice as a difficulty is that they have to give 15% of their profits. At the very minimum this requires some accounting on the part of the game makers. Profits are total revenue minus costs. So for example, if you sell your game for $10 and sell 100 copies then you made $1,000. Lets say it costs you $500 to make the game. Revenue is $1,000 and profit is $500. As I stated before I think that making profits in todays market is very very difficult.. And how do we know how much revenue they made? They could say well, we made negative profits so we can't give you anything back for your investment. They could potentially make up the costs.. for example, I paid a spriter this much, etc, which further decreases profit. Perhaps we could lower the percentage and take part of the revenue? So its almost a guaranteed return.

 

 

I had an idea. How about also help to sell the games also? You could set up a site (or part of the main site) a section for promoting and selling the games online. But this could kill the sites reputation. The games would have to be worth the money... and you can already get some nice free games out there.

[frsgalaxy 0]

I actually really like this idea.. I just think pulling it off is going to be insanely hard. I think we should setup a website immediately to get attention.

 

Maybe the currency should be USD? I think that will make the business side smoother. Even my currency is NZD so I'm not being a bias US citizen here :P

 

As I told you I am a finance student but sadly at the current point in time I haven't been too far into it to offer advice or anything like that...

 

But one thing I did notice as a difficulty is that they have to give 15% of their profits. At the very minimum this requires some accounting on the part of the game makers. Profits are total revenue minus costs. So for example, if you sell your game for $10 and sell 100 copies then you made $1,000. Lets say it costs you $500 to make the game. Revenue is $1,000 and profit is $500. As I stated before I think that making profits in todays market is very very difficult.. And how do we know how much revenue they made? They could say well, we made negative profits so we can't give you anything back for your investment. They could potentially make up the costs.. for example, I paid a spriter this much, etc, which further decreases profit. Perhaps we could lower the percentage and take part of the revenue? So its almost a guaranteed return.

 

 

I had an idea. How about also help to sell the games also? You could set up a site (or part of the main site) a section for promoting and selling the games online. But this could kill the sites reputation. The games would have to be worth the money... and you can already get some nice free games out there.

 

I can understand how you think it will be insanely hard, And I think a website would be a good idea :) But useful things on the website would be a loan calculator (w/ Sliding Bars), A marketing page (for the additional marketing service, With BUY & SELL YOUR GAME buttons), An info page so people know what its all about, A contact us page, A facebook "like" button would be sweet aswel :) Which means I will need to create a facebook group for TASF so I can get a Like Button Code :) Oh and a currency convertor would be weet so people know how much it is in there native currency :) Would need to be linked to Stock Exchange Server for a guess so the rates are always correct :)

 

Also I know how to work out profit hehe :) But I can also understand your concerns as to people lying about total profits, Maybe as an additional rule the games MUST be sold on our site, If not sold on our site then we will require the Reference number of your product that is being sold by each vendor to whom has the file, I guess that with each download a certain amount can be deducted from the total money made to pay for the investment, I know you can ask a vendor to provide you with this aswel if you approach them and say "we invested in this product, Here is the contract to say that "Client" has agreed to pay 15% of all profits to TASF as per the agreement", obviously this will have to be signed by both the Client and a representative of the creditor + a witness of signature.

 

Additional Note:- Investment has been changed to 7.5% of all revenue made (This is not profit based, Revenue is game price x units sold / 100 x 7.5% = Total revenue cut)

Edited March 26, 2011 by frsgalaxy

[FranklinX 37]

I don't see a need for this type of fund. RPG Maker developers only need $60 bucks. Gimp is a freeware program. If they are really serious they can learn how to script.

[Marked 197]

Well that relates solely to software. How about resources? There has to be a reasonably high standard of resources which probably includes completely custom works. If there was a very well coordinated team who knew exactly what they needed and wanted, they could pay to have their ideas come to life. I think the challenging part is selling and making a profit from the games.

[FranklinX 37]

Well that relates solely to software. How about resources? There has to be a reasonably high standard of resources which probably includes completely custom works. If there was a very well coordinated team who knew exactly what they needed and wanted, they could pay to have their ideas come to life. I think the challenging part is selling and making a profit from the games.

 

Resources can be made with Gimp that is a freeware program. It works almost as good as Photoshop.

[Marked 197]

Yup, I'm sure it does. I personally use photoshop. The money is for paying people who are skilled with those programs.

[frsgalaxy 0]

@RATED - If you read the OP you will find that this fund is not just for RMXP/VX its also for UDK, Torque2D/3D, Unity and many other engines.

The fund can also be used to obtain valuable programs such as Photoshop and Particle GFX Engine.

 

@Marked - I have changed the investment repayments from Profit to Revenue :) What site provider do you think we should use? I was edging towards joomla because of your experience with it and your experience with coding the little widgets, On the other hand I could just use a free site and get the people to contact us :) I would buy a domain name though so they dont have to go to www.freesite.com/TASF or something similar, I will get www.tasf.com short and simple :)

[frsgalaxy 0]

UPDATE:- I now have an accountant to keep the funds in order :)

UPDATE #2:- Donations are now being accepted from members of the public and game sales from those who wish to help others, PM me if you want to donate a sum of money into the pot, The Pot Total will be displayed on the OP when I update it in a second :)

UPDATE #3:- Game Formats that are supported is now as follows:- RPG (When using RMXP, RMVX, RMNDS, LastEnd), Real Time Strategy (When using SAGE, Must buy license), MMORPG (Restrictions Apply) and MMO Real Time Strategy (Restrictions Apply).

[Marked 197]

your experience with coding the little widgets

If by little widgets you mean major components then yes, I do that. Haha just kidding, but they are more than little widgets... I've done more than just what is the "Other" menu. :(

 

I'm not sure what's a good free host these days.. but before you buy a domain name, or buy hosting, I think you should definitely setup something on a free site and when you got something to show, then get the domain and start getting it out there. That way it looks legit and pro right off the bat.

 

Joomla is a good choice, and I will be able to assist you with that :)

[kat.dea 0]

It's a great idea, I'm also a little sceptical though. Especially when dealing on an international basis.

Are you looking at controlling the fund yourself or setting up a board of trustees to oversee the fund and make decisions on who funding is awarded to based on a group decision?

[frsgalaxy 0]

If by little widgets you mean major components then yes, I do that. Haha just kidding, but they are more than little widgets... I've done more than just what is the "Other" menu. :(

 

I'm not sure what's a good free host these days.. but before you buy a domain name, or buy hosting, I think you should definitely setup something on a free site and when you got something to show, then get the domain and start getting it out there. That way it looks legit and pro right off the bat.

 

Joomla is a good choice, and I will be able to assist you with that :)

 

I'm sure your a joomla salesman in disguise lmao :) Im gonna set it up on Zetaboards first then we can mess around with that (because it has quite a lot of customization options) until it looks real nice :) It takes HTML and Java based code :)

 

 

It's a great idea, I'm also a little sceptical though. Especially when dealing on an international basis.

Are you looking at controlling the fund yourself or setting up a board of trustees to oversee the fund and make decisions on who funding is awarded to based on a group decision?

 

Yes a board of trustee's is being set up to make the final verdict if the Auto-Calculator comes up in the Undecided section, There will be 3 sections on the Auto-Calculator and the dial will increase based on the answers that you provide to the questions that are asked and also the amount of resources that are uploaded to the sites server during each upload phase, There will be 6 upload phases:-

 

1 for character sheets (only 96x128 will be accepted by the uploader during this phase and must be in .png, .jpg or .bmp format),

 

1 for Music (this will encompass all sounds that are used in the game),

 

1 for Parallaxes (any size accepted over 544x416, muist be in .png, .jpg or .bmp format),

 

1 for Battlers (These can be any size as long as they are exactly or over 32x32 nothing smaller)

 

1 for Game Story (must be over 50 pages, must also contain atleast 15000 letters)

 

and finally

 

1 for screen shots of game maps (any size in .png, .jpg or .bmp)

[Marked 197]

Wait, what are these categories for exactly? Where does uploading resources to a website come into play?

 

And I'm not a joomla salesmen :blink: first of all its opensource, and 2nd I just know how to use it and wanted to help :unsure:

[frsgalaxy 0]

Wait, what are these categories for exactly? Where does uploading resources to a website come into play?

 

And I'm not a joomla salesmen :blink: first of all its opensource, and 2nd I just know how to use it and wanted to help :unsure:

 

The resource uploads to the site will be counted and you will get a various amount of points depending on the resource that is uploaded, The points that you accumulate through the resources being uploaded (and checked by a TASF Staff Member to make sure the requirements are met for that particular type of upload)will be added to your total score once all resources are checked (This could take upto a week per case per staff member), If you manage to accumulate the necessary amount of points to apply for the Donation, Investment or Loan then this would be classed as the person applying for the product is reputable and is actually willing to work hard to get what they want, Also the uploads will become the property of TASF until they are removed after the games completion, So this can also be used to store you data online just incase anything is lost (I recommend uploads be done every 3 days or so just so nothing major happens to your project).

 

Also I was joking about you being a salesman lol :) and I do want you to help me out :) but cant afford Joomla at the moment until there is funds in the pot or until I sell a game and make some profit :) until then unfortunately I'm going to be using ZetaBoards :) I will PM you the address once I've started working on the site so we can both have some input :) Oh by the way would you like to be a Board Trustee? there are 8 positions available :)