In my previous posts i outlined my main goals and ideas about why i'm going in to the gaming market. Like i mentioned before, i wanted to make sure that i could actually learn the basic stuff to manage and even create game content or at least manage and/or lead a team of game designers/coders/writers and so on.
Many things have happened sins my last 2 posts wish i will write down below,
- I realizes a fatal flaw of myself and thats that i'm not good teaching myself. I realized this when i learned php and even basic html a couple of years ago. After trying for months i just couldn't get the pieces together and then i decided to start evening classes wish gave big improvements to my learning process.
Same problems are facing me right now, and i can't see that trees behind the forest. I'm currently watching videos on 3dbuzz.com and some amazon programing book about c & c++.
Yesterday i wrote down all mayor questions i have and these will hopefully give me a better understanding of what needs to be done. Hope to get a lot of responds so i can get a better understanding and get a little closer to my goals (baby steps are still steps right).
For anyone who hasn't read my previous posts, here is a little recap.
I want to create my AAA multi-player game, i have the investment to fund a semi large team but don't have programing skills, i have extended knowhow and experience in "entertainment marketing" but again, no experience in working or leading a team of developers. Thats why i'm here to see if i can learn the necessary knowledge of game programing to "maybe" make my project a reality.
Here are the questions that i would like to get answers to.
1. I would like to select a game engine to speed up the procces but still haven't figured out wish would be best to use for MMO & multi-player games.(my personal interest goes out to unreal because it has proven itself and theres a lot of documentation about it.But maybe you have better suggestions for me.
1a. The Unreal Engine 3 licenses agreement got my confused. I want to purchase as many licenses as required but don't really get what i need to purchase so the 25% rev deal applies . Can't imagine all developers using unreal engine are paying a 25% cut. (i know its free but not when used commercially).
2. I'm looking for guides,blogs, books that cover "making a game" but then on a manager, funder, producer perspective. (like i mentioned before, i don't want to become a developer but want to know what the developers are doing)Good developers blogs are also nice to have. (outlining the problems they faced and so on...)
3. Is there a way i could have a more 1 on 1 training or mentoring so i have somebody to run to when questions arise and guide me to my process. (like the questions i'm asking right now) Any online service or school or anything that resembles my question. A mentor would be best to describe it.
4. Like i mentioned before, i have been very lucky to have the option to invest my own money in my own projects without outside investment. But i still need to get a better picture on project costs such as employment costs, servers, licenses, and so on...
So thise are the most urgent questions on my mind and hope to get lots of advaci from everyone reading this (i know there are a lot of questions but i would really appreciate it to got your input.)
Cheers
If you are planning on hiring developers and not working in development yourself as you mentioned this topic really should be left to your engineering team. There is nothing worse than having someone select a technology without having development experience. There are a variety of game engines available and one of the most critical aspects is the content pipeline, which engines like Unreal and Unity have nailed.
UDK has no licenses to purchase although as you mentioned there is a 25% revenue share agreement for using it. Also note that currently UDK only supports the PC platform. The majority of commercial game developers using the Unreal Engine are not using UDK but have the actual engine license which gives you source and allows you to license for multiple platforms.
The only way you will get this is through experience. Realistically as you are new to the industry you will need to find industry veterans in production and development that you can trust as they will be your window into the project.
You could take a look at Game Institute if you are looking to be taught with audio/videos and workbooks. I have a friend that actually went through a bunch of the courses (I believe they were the C++ and DirectX) and learned quite a good amount. That being said I should warn you that the vast majority of software development is based on self-teaching and problem solving things that are new to you. Being able to learn on your own is highly essential to a successful developer. Maybe you are just trying to push a little too fast? The same friend I mentioned above did this when he started and was just trying to motor to the end of learning so that he could create his game, and in the end he walked away frustrated until he came back to it with the primary goal of learning.
You really won't know anything close to this until you have a producer and lead tech on your team and start really planning your game and technology. You mentioned an MMO game earlier so excluding engine middleware costs, etc you are still easily looking at the 7-8 figure range to be competitive against commercial games in that genre. If you are looking to make smaller "facebook-type" social games then of course the bar and costs are lower but still in the 6-7 figure range. The smaller games such as iPhone/iPad games you could easily start building a game company with 150-250k as long as you have short release cycles. Developers have done it at a lower cost of around 10-60k (depending on genre) as they did all of the development work themselves and only contracted art.
Hope that helps.