dear gamedev community, today I come for an advice and some insight.

when I was a teenager I started playing carom3d a billiard game, the game was good and I was addicted to it.

after some time I quit playing it, only to return now to find out the game had shutdown by the dev company because the server`s cost where too high.

A thought crossed my mind to purchase the rights for the game and re-launch it, so I reached out to who I know has the rights and they said that it is possible to negotiate for the copyrights of the game but I should of course give them a formal proposal.

So now I stand here in front of you guys to help me find out what would be a good estimste value of the copyrights, and what do you think will be the costs of re-launching the game.

p.s. : yes I have no experiance in the game industry so go ahead crush my dream and advice me.

Tom: that is what I`m currently doing gauging the price range with unofficial talks.

thought there maybe some way to estimate the true value just like a business before diving in, but obviously that can be done in the due diligence proccess.

frob&brain: yes I completly understand the need for a team to be able to re-launch the game and obviously support it.

what is the estimate of a small team 2-4, and what skills they need to posses?

what is the estimate of a small team 2-4, and what skills they need to posses?

In the US, the rough guide is that an employer pays $10,000 per month per employee. That includes the direct cost of salary, but also many indirect costs like taxes, employment insurance, tools to work with, supporting the person, and so on.

So 2-4 people is $20,000 to $40,000 per month, approximately.

As for their skills, depends on the project. Get the skills you need for your project. Don't get C++ programmers to support a project written in Java, don't get Java programmers to support a project written in Ruby, don't get Ruby programmers to support a project written in C++, etc.

What you are trying to do is basically a business valuation. There are a variety of ways of approaching this, but for something like you describe then a cash-flow model is likely the most ideal.

To do this you need to estimate the costs associated with operating this game, as well as the estimated inflows (i.e. revenues). Typically such estimates are projected on an annual basis for a number of years, then discounted based on time value of money. If your net discounted cash flow is positive then that's a good thing; if it's negative, then it's usually not something you'd want to invest in unless you are willing to take a loss.

The other thing to do is a risk analysis, to determine what types of risks you can be exposed to and their effects on the business. Risks could be related to anything include customer base, financial, talent/employees, etc. Ideally you want to go in with an idea of what the risks are and a mitigation strategy. For example, a specific risk could include not attracting the right talent to support the game; you'd then want a strategy to address that in the case it occurs.

thank you shpongle will take that in account