I think the cost will be determined by how many servers you're going to need (which will be determined by the bandwidth you expect you'll need), how secure you want them, how reliable you want them, etc. A lot of this stuff will come from the game itself.. documentation of an existing engine will probably (that's an assumption) tell you how much bandwidth you will need per user, and how much hard drive space you'll need to store the game itself. I'm not sure it's possible to estimate that type of cost before you know exactly what you need. Once you DO know, you can probably just get quotes from people who actually rent servers.
Maintenance means you're going to have people working on the game all the time to keep it bug free and updated, so that's just a sallary and head count. The only other thing you'd have to worry about past that is how much it costs to rent those hardcore servers.
You can probably do some math to work out an optimal number of servers to start with based on how much bandwidth each user needs, and how long it will take you to reach your maximum capacity (given a starting # of 1000, and adding 500 a month).
But I have no idea how much it costs to rent a big fat game server like that (all I know is it isn't cheap :P).
cost of running and maintaining a mmo
In all honesty, this is probably the worst place to ask such a question. For starters, most people here are just going to tell you that you're stupid for even trying an MMO in the first place. Second, very few people on this board understand the economics of maintaining a server, this is primarily a programming site after all. If I were you I would try to contact the people with the actual servers. Either contact a company about outsourcing their servers, or the companies that sell the servers you want. (Dell, Sun, IBM, ...)
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Thanks for the informative feedback folks. In hindsight, I admit that this was a rather foolish question. I guess my frustrations got the better of me...just looking for quick answers.
Sorry to have gotten your panties in a bunch, ap. I promise not to quote "some dude on the internet" in my bplan. I am a bm at an ibank though...not that I'm proud of it. It's just a way to save up cash for my startup. Wish me luck!
Sorry to have gotten your panties in a bunch, ap. I promise not to quote "some dude on the internet" in my bplan. I am a bm at an ibank though...not that I'm proud of it. It's just a way to save up cash for my startup. Wish me luck!
Quote:Original post by jungolayasituation, what would be the costs of creating and maintaining such a mmo? I'm working on a business plan for a loan app and I have a rough idea of what things cost but wanted to get a general consensus.
I know there are a ton of variables, but given the hypothetical
-develop a high-end mmo using a licensed engine (assuming 1 yr dev)
-sustain the game world for 1000 initial users with 500 monthly adds
I have a good idea on the required headcount and salaries but not so sure on the tech and maintenance costs.
The problem with this is, it all depends on what *exactly* you are trying to do and how the technical lead has designed the back-end. And wether you are outsourcing the actual server hosting, like virtually any MMO does that I know of, or attemping to keep all the hardware in-house. If it's a 3d game you'll need a bigger team, if it's a 2d game you can probably use a slightly smaller team.
If your design was similar to say, RunUO (or any other efficent UO emulator), you'd initially only have a couple high end servers since that particular design is meant for individual servers hosting ~2000 users concurrently without issues. However, that isn't a 'high end MMO' but a free emulator of a 7 year old MMO.
Long story short, if you have interest in making a MMO you are going to need a couple technical people to talk to which have done it before and a basic design for your back end to get even a ballpark-level amount for a buisness plan. At least that is what I think, I've never made a MMO so I could be wrong.
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Quote:Original post by idinkin
Read this: http://www.igda.org/online/IGDA_PSW_Whitepaper_2004.pdf.
Holy Crap! Thanks dude...that's exactly what I was looking for!
Fun fact: these days lots of Amish work in technological fields, they have had to move with the times to make money and provide for their families. They just don't use any technology in their home lives is all.
Quote:Original post by M2tM
Yes, let me also say that a one year development cycle is not something that can be bought easily. [...]
Well, there is a very good reason why 9 women can't have a baby in 1 month.
More programmers isn't necessarily going to help you. A MMO can release in as little as 3-4 months, if you downgrade the requirements...
You should start with the design of the MMO because unless you nail your major decisions soon, the estimate is anywhere from 300 to 1000000 USD per month.
All you need is a colocated server and bandwith for the smallest of project types monthly. A good machine can probably handle 1000 users, if well written.
Key words, outsourcing, pay good money to architects/designers, especially if you are a coder or a guru ;).
About that report, isn't alarming you that style of "this market is going to be worth 100 zillions by 2012" ? I find that hard to believe if you are indeed who you say you are.
my 2 cents
A critical factor nobody's mentioned yet are support costs:
Technical support (for hardware)
Customer support (for billing / enquiries)
Game support (for in-game assistance / bug-rescues)
Don't make the mistake of assuming your only company outgoings will be your hosting, rent and utility bills once development is finished.
Technical support (for hardware)
Customer support (for billing / enquiries)
Game support (for in-game assistance / bug-rescues)
Don't make the mistake of assuming your only company outgoings will be your hosting, rent and utility bills once development is finished.
You might assume that you can just throw money at something (a MMORPG project) and get it done, but you would be wrong. It takes several key people (game designer, main programmer,network/cluster expert) who often have to have been doing the design for years ahead of the ramp up. A MMORPG is a fricken three ring circus and failure at any point (via misdesign) can sink it or delay it interminably. The design must be pretty much worked out ahead of time and planned to handle all the complicated problems inherant in an MMORPG. If you dont already have the key people lined up (and their design consolidated), dont expect to simply be able to buy them for this '1 year' project (it will take that long just for them to get their heads together to beat out the detailed design).
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