i like the way that Penny Arcade did it. They were approached by a business school grad who offered to work for free for two months. After that i believe they started paying him a salary. And, incidentally, i think those guys have done alright.

In other news, i promise that i do more here than write on the blog. ;)

Besides, they already reap sickening rewards in the form of bribes and tax breaks to locate their studios in any particular province or city.

The “they create jobs” argument bugs me the most because that is already covered by other provincial programs like targeted wage subsidy, etc. It doesn’t belong on the table when talking about the direction of the industry as a whole. Besides, speaking from experience, they create mostly low-salary, unpaid overtime, cubicle farm sh*t jobs where the ENTIRE STAFF tuns over every 18 months. The AUTO industry offers more job security!

If the purpose of the OMDC is to foster growth of the industry as a whole the the only way to do that is to support NEW companies and development. Lining the pockets of the big two or three studios won’t make any difference for the Canadian development arena as a whole.

The OMDC is an agency of the Ministry of Culture. Ultimately, it’s the Ministry that calls the shots for them.

What i’m concerned about is that the way the OMDC has structured application requirements is mismatched with the way they’ve promoted the Fund. Writing an app is a gruelling process – ask anyone – and yet, the OMDC sponsors and attends event like the Vortex Competition, where the room is filled with mostly students and recent graduates. If it is truly, honestly a priority for the OMDC to fund projects by large and small alike, the application requirements should reflect that. Big application for big money, and (as Jean-Guy suggests), a smaller time commitment (and smaller-budget approval process) for small money.

In fact, i would love to see a small fund structured by the OMDC and operated like the Vortex Competition (with a few tweaks to that contest’s ABYSMAL judging structure and rules). Like Jean-Guy says, you do a ten minute pitch, followed by twenty minutes of questions, with a $50k cap on the ask. That would be far less expensive for the OMDC to administer, and little guys would not have to compete with big guys.

Nearly ALL of the small Ontario teams i talk to are upset about the OMDC IDM Fund and the way it’s designed, but too many of them are afraid to speak up about it for fear that they’ll never get funded. i’ve resigned myself to the fact that i may not receive funding for my entire blessed life, so i WILL make noise and i WILL criticize and i WILL suggest ways to make things better. i don’t believe for a second that the OMDC is as thin-skinned or as vindictive as people make them out to be. If there’s a better way for them to serve their clientele, and they’re truly committed to their mandate, they’ll find a way to make this work without burying Ontario’s small companies in the process.

- Ryan

Would that do the trick? Going en masse to the OMDC that is..Are there any other avenues/forums where ppl can submit problems? Who actually started the OMDC? Who has power to influence OMDC decisions (obviously, other than the OMDC themselves)?

If they are committed to larger companies, it could be hard to change their minds I would think, simply because of the massive amount of jobs/money that larger companies can generate. I heard Ubisoft was creating a new office in Toronto and it was hiring something like 500 new employees. From the OMDC perspective, you would be stupid to not support that. But the question is, how do you compete with that?

That OMDC Mission Statement is: “The Ontario Media Development Corporation is the central catalyst for Ontario’s cultural media cluster. It promotes, enhances and leverages investment, jobs, and original content creation. ” Ok, so how does a smaller company compete with a larger company on the investment, jobs, and original content creation..well, 1 on 1, it’s silly to think you can (although, you could argue that a smaller company can create original content as well as the bigger guys). But what about en-masse? What about the contribution of the small game development studios as a whole? They argue that $40k isn’t enough for a game? But maybe they are missing the bigger picture…as a whole, the entire smaller game development sector requests $750,000 or the like, with many returns on the other side. I dunno, maybe it would be better to argue the issue from the perspective of the small game development sector AS A WHOLE, instead of from the perspective of you as a small indie developer on your own. Because you’re right, it’s silly to ask you to increase your budget and reduce your price point..what’s the motive there? They’re not used to small budget games? You can’t make anything good for that amount (total BS)? Maybe we need to arm ourselves with some ammunition first…show them real world examples where original content WAS created with LOW budgets. Maybe throw some job creation examples in there. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should target their mission statement with concrete examples and information, and try to show that, in fact, small indie game development is a very promising sector..

Hope that maybe some of that helped! Just my many cents. Good luck Ryan!

There needs to be a small fund that allows for tiny games. Fieldrunners was a small game made by two people. As successful as that game was it would never have received OMDC funding, nor BEll or Telefilm for that matter. Ryan and I have talked offline about this problem. The OMDC needs to have a small fund that would essentially have developers pitch their ideas in front of a small group of people. This is not expensive to administer and requires little work on the part of the agency. The amount of money doesn’t need to be much but also doesn’t require us to spend a month writing an application for a fund we will never get. That time needs to be spent making the game.

We need to go en masse to the OMDC with this request. Together we need to convince them as well as our government that funding many smaller projects is more beneficial to our local industry than importing outside companies.

jg

This describes my entire journey through the funding process, btw … the funders ask for all of these documents that i’ve never written or even seen, and they won’t show me exactly what they’re looking for. So i either have to guess, hire someone to write it or consult on it, or travel back in time and spend 2000-2007 somewhere other than at a Canadian broadcaster, where i was shielded from financial decisions and business development.

In the end, i guessed. i listed all the great ways that we’re going to market the game – specific press outlets, video trailers, in-house promotion, etc etc. Is THAT a great marketing plan? i have no idea. i guess i’ll find out after they reject my app and i schedule a post-mortem phone call.