If I wanted to start a business writing games for mobile phones, who do I need to hire? For example, a programmer, designer etc.. Thanks for you time.

Game projects on my University with about 30 students will use about 10% of the time for actual work and 90% of the time for arguing and waiting for each other in a cyclic deadlock. None of those games came as far as the games created by 1 to 5 multiskilled game developers.

I would start by doing everything myself and get a bigger part of a smaller or even bigger profit. After making some money, you can get someone to work with you for 50% of the profit. Only hire people that know both design and programming since a designer will usually draw things that the programmer can't use (over 2000000 triangles without textures) and make it twice as hard when they don't want to use their level editor because designing everything as a static model will give better lightmaps but a boring game that takes forever to load.

Game projects on my University with about 30 students will use about 10% of the time for actual work and 90% of the time for arguing and waiting for each other in a cyclic deadlock. None of those games came as far as the games created by 1 to 5 multiskilled game developers.

Arguing and waiting for each other in cyclic deadlocks is a great way to make time for browsing the internet and overdosing on coffee though.

It sounds like a good example though - if a multiskilled, experienced game developer asks for hourly remuneration that's 6 to 30 times the price that the freshman in college want to charge, consider it par for the course.

If I wanted to start a business writing games for mobile phones, who do I need to hire? For example, a programmer, designer etc.. Thanks for you time.

Insolvency accountant.

Thanks for the responses. 6 to 30 times!!!!! Wow. I have no problem sharing he profits. That was and has always been part if my business models. Im just sort of a fish out of water with this one. I don't know square one about programming. In fact, my business is not necessarily about games/apps. Im just hoping to use it as an outlet to generate income to fund the "mother" business. But because the "mother" business will have need for skilled computer persons, Im thinking, why not just bring them in now, pay them hourly and give them a share of the profits.

I have no problem sharing he profits.

How much profit have you made in last fiscal quarter and how much over period of 5 years? What was per employee profit?

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If I wanted to start a business writing games for mobile phones, who do I need to hire? For example, a programmer, designer etc.. Thanks for you time.

What skills do you have yourself ?

Mobile games tend to be reasonably small, low budget productions and in many cases a single programmer will be everything you need, Everything else depends on the game(s) you're making.

For a game like WordFeud for example a single programmer is all you need while a game like Angry Birds would require an artist and level designer aswell. (Level design could possibly be handled by the programmer and/or artist but since it is such a key aspect of the game i would personally hire an experienced designer for it if i could afford to do so)
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I have no computer programming skills. I have an extensive background in business and marketing. Im also a writer, painter, sculpture etc....

I have no computer programming skills. I have an extensive background in business and marketing. Im also a writer, painter, sculpture etc....

Hire for the skills you don't have that you need.

Right now your biggest need is someone who understands the business, who can get you the right workers.

We do not know the products you intend to make, or the people in which fields you will require. We will not be able to interview those job candidates to ensure they can fit those needs.

So hire somebody who has those skills. Hire someone who has lead a small team and brought a product from concept to marketplace.

Since they will likely be expensive, an alternative is to hire someone who has not done it all before, but has done most of it before. In that case hire an experienced person who has been in the trenches, who has watched project managers closely, but who has not been put into that position at other jobs despite their interest. There is a bigger risk doing this since they don't have that experience, and they may have been kept from those jobs intentionally because past companies realized they were a bad fit. Hopefully they will be a good fit, instead being someone who wasn't promoted to that position because the prior companies didn't have a vacancy rather than a lack of competence.

That should be the person to hire.