Finance for game developers: helping you create a best seller

The UK is not only the world’s 5th largest video game market, it has more than 2,000 companies whose business is creating games. They include world-class talent across all games technologies - from mobile, PC and console, to new sectors such as VR / AR, e-sports and Artificial Intelligence. Gaming is so important to the UK economy that it even has a special tax concession, Video Games Tax Relief (VGTR) for qualifying games businesses.

It’s an exciting market. Setting up a business to create games offers exciting opportunities if you have technical knowledge, a creative flair and an entrepreneurial approach. But the biggest challenge of all will be getting the finance you need.

The funding that is right for your games business can depend on the games you want to create. A simple Android or IOS game could be done by a single person at cost of man-hours alone. A full production multi-console and PC game could take a team of developers and artists a decade of development. Their skills could cost tens of millions of pounds.

Conventional funding is suited to conventional businesses – where products are sold, and income comes in almost from the day they open their doors. The games industry is very different. You need innovative solutions that can help you get through months or even years of development time.

At Rangewell we can help you find the finance you need.

The funding you need

You may have long-term ambitions to become a major games developer, but you are unlikely to produce something on the scale of GTA V as your first project. You will probably plan your first titles with a development time of a few months.

Even once you have dealt with the set-up costs, your games business will generate no income until your games find players. You need a source of funding to keep you afloat and pay staff and suppliers during the development stages - which can last for months.

You will need to provide for the costs – salaries, premises, equipment and overheads - during that time, until your first title is ready to ship or for download via platforms such as Steam.

Understanding your funding options

Fortunately, there are solutions for all these costs. At Rangewell we have found that the key to successful funding is to identify the right type of funding option for each purpose.

You need funding to allow you to:

• Set up a new business
• Access grants
• Provide working capital until you start to generate profits
• Acquire premises
• Acquire equipment and assets
• Deal with tax

Setting up a new games creation business

Setting up any business will take investment. Raising finance for a start-up is never easy and very often involves ‘sweat equity’. This means founding and building a company from your personal resources, and hard work. You’ll need to support your own efforts with business finance.

There are two main types of business lending:

Secured Loans

Secured Loans are ‘secured’ because the lender will require security in case you cannot pay the loan back. This could be your home or other business assets that you may have. They can be used to borrow large sums of money, of £250,000 or more. These may be appropriate for many of the large costs you will encounter in the early stages of establishing your business.

Unsecured Loans

Unsecured Loans can be suitable for smaller sums, from £5000 upwards, although some lenders will not let you borrow more than one month’s turnover with an Unsecured Loan.  

Buying an existing gaming business, perhaps because it has existing valuable titles or IP, could shorten your own development times or even offer an already established revenue stream.

However, the costs may be substantial, depending on the assets it already has and the skills of the staff who will stay with the business.

Grant Funding

If you’re a games developer with a great idea for a game, a team in place to make it and a passion to build a great business, you may want to apply for support from the public sector.

The UK Games Fund has been created to help stimulate growth in the industry by supporting companies to become more diverse and innovative, create new IP and grow in strength and size. The UK Games Fund offers prototype grant funding following the UK Government’s pledge of £8m of funding to the industry back in 2015. The UK Games Fund also offers assistance through access to expertise, work areas, management and networks. The Skills Investment Fund is a match funding scheme for training in games and other creative sectors.

Similar funding may be available in Scotland.

With grant funding, government funds may need to be matched with commercial funds. At Rangewell, we can help you find lenders who can help you raise the cash you need to demonstrate the commercial viability of your business, allowing you to access further funding from the government.

Working Capital and Growth Finance

You will still need funding while your new business develops its first titles. Lenders usually require an established trading history and record of profits when they are considering funding for conventional businesses.  

Fortunately, at Rangewell, we can help you find funding during the development phase.

There are a number of options:

• Publishers, clients and the business angel network can often provide funding for the important first months of the company. Gaming companies are often supported by trade partners which provide funding in return for development contracts and ownership rights. This can either be in the form of royalty advances to cover project costs, or paid on a milestone basis as a percentage of net revenue.
• There are specialist private equity funds with a strong focus on the gaming industry.
• The business angel network is also active and is well suited to the gaming industry.
• It is also possible to arrange working capital as a commercial loan. Working Capital Finance is designed to provide the operating expenses, from staff costs to supplier bills, while cash flow is slow. It is usually designed to be repaid in the short- to medium-term, once your games business is fully on its feet with an established income stream.
• Find out more about Growth Finance here.

Funding for premises

Your business will need premises. You will need space for each developer, and you may also need studio and meeting space. A tech hub may be able to provide a suitable environment - but even a serviced office or studio suite will require an upfront payment.

If you want to move straight into your own office complex, you will also have additional costs, including power and business rates to budget for.

Renting may be unavoidable in the early days. However, renting premises restricts what you can do with your space, means ongoing costs, and puts your business at risk of rent increases. Buying premises with a Commercial Mortgage could be a sound investment. If you already own your premises, a Commercial Mortgage might also be a cost-effective way to raise funds to use elsewhere in your business.

Find out more about a Commercial Mortgage.

Funding your equipment

You will need the full range of conventional office equipment, as well as high-powered purpose-built workstations with multiple monitors. You may also need additional equipment such as production quality microphones.

There will also be substantial costs for software, such as Photoshop. You will also need other software tools such as Autodesk, Maya, Unreal Engine 4 and Visual Studio. Some of these may be available as freeware, but the most current version is always the best, and if you are making commercial products, you might need to pay to use them.

Asset Finance -  Hire Purchase and Leasing - can help make virtually any type of equipment you need affordable. Asset Finance works by making the equipment or ‘asset’, the security for the loan itself. This means that if you were unable to repay, the lender could simply repossess it. This reduces the risk to the lender and consequently the cost to you.

There are several types of Asset Funding:

Hire Purchase

Hire Purchase lets you spread the cost of buying the equipment you will use for the long term. Arrangements generally last between 6 and 60 months. You pay a deposit plus fixed monthly instalments for the agreed term, after which the assets become yours. At Rangewell, we can often help set up HP agreements that undercut those of equipment suppliers, or which let you take advantage of the lower costs of pre-owned equipment.

Finance and Operating Leases

Finance and Operating Leases work like rental agreements and let you spread the cost of equipment with no upfront payment. This type of finance could be the best option for equipment which will have a limited life. You can simply return it to the finance house at the end of the lease, leaving you free to update to the latest technology. This may be particularly appropriate to the gaming sector, where the pace of technological change is rapid and the latest spec machine is essential.

Tax Loans - helping deal with demands

Whatever your revenue stream, you will face quarterly VAT or annual tax demands. These can cause serious problems with your cash flow. Tax Loans help you to spread the cost of your tax demands into affordable monthly payments.

• Better control of cash flow
• Fixed monthly payments
• Quick and simple to arrange
• Avoids issues with HMRC, potential penalties and professional liabilities

Find out how a Tax Loan could help you smooth your tax flow.

Equity and Mezzanine Funding

Many lenders will simply not be able to lend you sufficient funds for major costs. Building a state of the art studio, or funding a major production may cost several million pounds.

Equity Funding could provide the scale of funding you need. There’s nothing to repay because you are basically selling a share in your business. It can mean losing control of your company – it will certainly mean sharing all future profits with your investors. Equity investors make their return from your growth.

It may be feasible once you have established your reputation within the industry by producing some successful titles, but may have the drawback of diluting your control of the business. You may not be prepared to make creative compromises to placate an investor impatient to see a return.

Mezzanine Finance might provide another way to raise funds. A lender will provide the investment, secured on the future of your business. They will offer a high level of funding, but you will need to repay the debt and interest charges. If you fail to repay, they will have the right to take an agreed proportion of equity interest in the company.

Find out more about how Mezzanine Finance can offer a high level of funding.

How we help you capitalise your gaming business

At Rangewell, we work with businesses throughout the gaming sector. We understand your business and the potential it offers, as well as the challenges you face.

We can use the expertise we have built up to help you find the financial solutions you need to capitalise your business, whether you want to fund your start-up, capital expenses, working capital or growth.

As well as conventional finance products, we can help you find Alternative Funding, using new loan providers and styles of funding. We know the lenders who can offer the most competitive rates for the sector. Whether you have a straightforward finance need, or require a complicated ‘Jigsaw’ funding plan made up of a combination of products, we can work with you to find the answers.

Call us now to get our experts working for you and the future of your gaming business.