Hi,
Admittedly, I'm completely unfamiliar with the professional world of game development, but I have two questions:
What should I expect to pay a programmer to develop a fairly simple, top-down 2D video game based on my idea.
And the second question is about how long it would take, and I just mean a ballpark figure. 6 months? 2 years? etc...
Thanks
I know I'm being vague I guess I just don't know what information to add. What I'm thinking of is something sort of like Paperboy, but just a little more detailed.
n00b question on 2D game programming
The short answer is: Everyone one has great ideas, but it's not as easy as finding a programmer, paying them to make your game, and then becoming rich.
The long answer is: http://www.sloperama.com/advice/idea.htm
Author
Thanks, I'm going to read this now. But I'm not really looking to get rich and famous. It's more like an art project, I'll probably just offer it for free. I'm just wondering how many people I would need to work on it and how long/how much money I should expect it to require...
Moving to the business forum.
Please do some reading from the FAQs.
You have not given enough information for us to make a decision. A "simple" 2D game might take two developer months, or might take many development years. If you can do it with GameMaker:Studio or GameSalad or a similar engine that means you won't spend the time writing engines yourself.
As for how to estimate...
Cost to develop = number of developers * cost of per developer month (often $10000, cost is not just salary) * number of months
Cost to release and support = cost to develop * 3.
The 3x cost comes from things like QA, marketing, support, ESRB/PEGI ratings, post-production, and so on. In the professional world marketing is usually as much or more than development cost.
Author
Ok. Thanks. From what I've seen I think it could be done in Game Maker. I guess maybe I need to speak with someone in person who knows about this though to be able to describe what I want to do.
What should I expect to pay a programmer to develop a fairly simple, top-down 2D video game based on my idea.
And the second question is about how long it would take, and I just mean a ballpark figure. 6 months? 2 years? etc...
What I'm thinking of is something sort of like Paperboy, but just a little more detailed.
One programmer? Nine to fifteen months, depending on the platform.
Figure $10,000 per man-month, so $90,000 to $150,000.
That's only for the programming. Art and audio not included.
I'm just wondering how many people I would need to work on it and how long/how much money I should expect it to require...
You should probably have 2-3 programmers and 2 artists. Will also need some audio. Figure total $500,000 to $1M (depending on platform).
I think it could be done in Game Maker. I guess maybe I need to speak with someone in person who knows about this though to be able to describe what I want to do.
See, that's important information you didn't give us before. You want it to look cheap, you can make it for cheap. You still haven't told us the platform, or any other information we'd need in order to give you a good answer. We've had to go on a lot of assumptions.
It really depends on the scope of your idea, what your expectations for polish are, and whether you want a professional to do it or someone else (say, a student or serious hobbyist) -- also, whether you can use a toolset like Unity to do the work or it has to be written from scratch. 2-4 people turn out competent, limited-scale games in 3 days using tools like unity for competitions like Ludum Dare, given a month that same team could polish, refine, and double/triple the content and have a reasonable, small-scale game that would (hopefully) be fun -- If they're student or amatuer types who mostly just relish the opportunity to do this, you're talking 5-10k for 2-4 people, for a month. If you need a professional frelancer, Tom's figure of 10k each, per month is about right.
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