Im not saying I know anything about all of this money gibberish, but;
In my mind, I think you'd want to go into the race running. You should work on establishing a name for yourself right now, make a site, put a bunch of quality free games on it (that means you and maybe some buddies willing to work for free in the sight of a good paying job in the future have to get to grips with game making and design), kind of like miniclip.com. You do have 50k, so maybe put 10k aside for things you feel you need a proffessional to do, like the site design and some of the graphics for your games.
Get the site popular, but not just as one of those "coffee break" sites that you play games on while your boss is gone, thats the wrong audience to get, instead look into getting other gaming and game developing information on the site as well, perhaps more so than actual games. Sort of like IGN.com, but dont bother with cheats as they;ve pretty got that market cornered. Pretty much you've got to think of something that gamers would want to read everyday, just like the thousands of gamers that go to ign to read up on the latest games. Once the site gets as popular as it can, then I'd suggest putting 5k away for non-company related things, and spend the rest on making 1 game. Top notch graphics, awesome game design, stuff that's cutting edge, though in reality it doesnt even have to be cutting edge as long as it attracts some attention. Look at Bungie with Halo 1, it's graphics were complete crap, the voices were all done by the same person, but Microsoft loved the idea and bought it, from a small little company.
THEN, assumming you've got an awesome idea on your hands, try and get a big company like MS$ or E3 interested in buying it, let them buy it and pay you the royalties, but dont let them buy your company. Now you've got a game thats being sold on X-Box, assuming its a big hit like Halo 2 or close to it you can set up a fan base for people to talk about cheats, clans, whatever. Bungie's fan base is HUGE, and its still expanding. With all that extra traffic and a console game under your belt, plus the cash you've gotten from the game (Didnt Halo 1 alone make 40 billion or something?) you'll be able to start hiring lots of developers and graphic artists and all of the rest that are needed to make a game, and you're on your way to hitting it big.
Thats almost exactly what Bungie did IIRC, you just cant get too cocky. I know I've been using Bungie a lot as an example but they're a good one, its important to keep your workplace fun though, look at Bungie's videos of inside the HQ, its like a gamer's dream in there. Bean bag chairs in the lunch room, arcade machines everywhere, enough pop and candy and - redbull - to satisfy any programmer's sugar cravings, and an all around fun and laid back feeling. Not so stressfull like EA, where the only thing that matters is sitting in your cubicle and finishing the game or your fired.
ANYWAYS.... like I said I dont know anything about starting companies and whatnot, but that seems like a logical way of doing things to me.
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