With an indie game studio you create a game or demo build a following and then create the studio.

You are going about this backwards.

As for how many people you need in an indie game studio? It could just be one or it could be a hundred. That answers you question. The absolute minimum is one.

As for raising money on Kickstarter you have two problems:
1) No demo = no investors
2) Kickstarter as an indie fund raising source has pretty much had its day. Unless you have fairly well known ex-AAA developers on your team the chance of raising a realistic amount of money to develop a good game is pretty low.

Look you have a good idea of the game you want to create. You seem to have already decided on the tools you are going to use. What you need to do is go away and produce a playable demo and see if your game ideas actually work. If you still think you are on to something after creating a small demo then set up a social presence and see what other people think. If you start to build up traction then you may actually be on to something. It is then that you should consider founding a games company.

I'm on a cloud just like you.. I too want to develop a game (others should make the game, I'm just the investor) and by developing I also mean that I'm going to be the legally owner of the game without any partners and whatever and I want to be the publisher as well. I'm still in the finding out about a lot of things stage and I can tell that you're not even at that stage.. and the stage where I'm at is just tying the shoes part before walking a marathon.

I have some projects in my mind. I'm interested in the process of building from the ground a studio (both management & economical part), how to find people to hire, and the process of making games and publishing them.

Before even writing this post you should had already Googled this!

I'm making music, so I can tell you everything it takes to make an album.. from songwriting to producing to recording to mastering to publishing. I know it all! When it comes to games, after reading a lot I now fully understand who should be doing what (when it comes to developing my game)

2. What are the roles in a game studio and how much everyone should be paid?

I Googled "what it takes to make a game wiki" and this is what I've found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development

Everything needs to be covered, how many people you want for the job depends on how big the job is and what type of money and time you have.

Google has been online like uhm, so you could have easily wrote "hiring game developers" and a lot of results show.

What people should be paid depends of course on what you expect them to do, on https://www.elance.com/ you can look for all type of freelancers / employees. Look for example for a 3D artist, then you could compare prices and then go by a price you think is reasonable.

1. How much does it cost, first to found, then to run a game studio (yearly)?

What I'm doing is asking on all type of forums how long it would take to develop certain aspects of my game, by doing that I can place hours on my project.. those hours you multiply by what people asking per hour so you'll have an idea what everything costs.

Like I said, I'm on a cloud thinking wild.. but for real when I'm ready I'll fly to Japan to visit certain developing companies to pitch my idea. The reason is that the game I would like to make looks like (but the gameplay is very different) DBZ and Naruto (cell shaded fight games) and those developers are located in Japan.

But that is just me, on elance you could contact companies as well. So write exactly what people need to do to develop this game, find someone who build levels and give him / her an example of a map that comes close to your idea and ask him how long it would take to make that map.

If it takes him 2 months, and you want the game done in a year and you had 6 maps in mind. You can choose to let him work for you a full year or you look 5 more people who work in a time frame of 2 months.. connect them as a squad and there is the map building part of your company.

The best thing is to hire freelancers and Google for yourself why I suggest freelancers and not employees "freelancers vs employees"

Now to jump on other quotes replies:

You aren't ready to start a studio until you've worked in games yourself.

Yeah yeah yeah, but no.. study and look a lot of things up and talk to different people. Once you understand the basics you still need guidance, this guidance could be a project manager.. like if you wanted to start a record label you could ask my all questions you want to ask. I'm your project manager and I'll answer everything and when it's possible I'll give you the source (like I did already) for you to study yourself.

Because even tho I know it all, you never know if I have alternative motives.. so find someone you can trust but you can't trust nobody!

Talking about money, I have some money, but not sufficient even to think to put someone to the development for a few months,

Get money first! I already explained you how you could calculate what you need.. don't have just some money laying around and you already paying your developers and half way through you find out you need more money but you don't have more money so now you can't pay your developers so you wasted your money on a project you can't finish.

The risk inherent in Kickstarter is not that you won't get the funding, it's that you'll get the funding and then be unable to deliver.

This is not a risk at all, I mean what risk.. if you can't deliver nobody is going to sue you or anything. If you can't deliver it's more a risk for the founders, but even they know that they are not partners and just fund money because they believe in you. The risk however is to start a campaign and meet people who will derail you, like "hey buddy, I really like your idea.. tell me more because I'm a private founder" and things could go from them stealing your idea to you ending up signing a contract giving a way some rights. Like I said, you can't trust nobody.

Currently I live in Italy, where, unfortunately, the game industry is not taken seriously, and it would be very difficult to find someone able to support(work in) such a project. So I thought to move to the UK, thanks the European Union would be very easy to relocate for work, or in the US, where, however, I would need a visa that would allow me to work (the best one is the EB-5, but where you have to be willing to invest at least $ 1 million and employ at least 10 people for at least 2 years).

Stay home, everything could be done from a laptop.. if you hire a single company to develop your games then of course fly over but just stay home comfortably and Skype and facetime and whatsapp and whatever to communicate.

On the publisher/ developer part: in my non gamedev business, going into a new market with a new product is called suicide. It might be a bit similar in your situation where you want to go from zero to both being the developer and publisher. You might wanna consider starting to grow to be a developer and find/ convince a publisher (better one thing right then 2 things 50%).

Yes and no, I can tell in your case that it is suicide.. you need to study a lot about this! Just like I am, once I'm taking that flight to Japan could nobody talk me into some bull because I'm going prepared knowing what is what. A developer makes the game, a publisher brings the game out. Even tho I want to publish it myself, a publisher of course is already well connected so maybe if you're going to ask for add time they will charge you more than they would charge the publisher.. but.. in a lot of cases the publisher wants to be part of your project and at what moment you think them asking to be 49% owner of your company (just a made up number) will outweigh the costs and times you had without them.

I wish you luck on your journey, Google as much as possible and ask everything to different people and just not read but learn!

The risk inherent in Kickstarter is not that you won't get the funding, it's that you'll get the funding and then be unable to deliver.

This is not a risk at all, I mean what risk.. if you can't deliver nobody is going to sue you or anything.

This is flat-out wrong and extremely dangerous. You should read Kickstarter's Terms of Service. If the OP funds a project via Kickstarter, he or she engages in a legal contract with those backers. Kickstarter's TOS says of this:

When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.

Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, backers must understand that when they back a project, they’re helping to create something new — not ordering something that already exists. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised.

If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:

• they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;
• they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers;
• they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;
• they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and
• they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.

The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers

Failure to finish a project does carry the very real risk of legal action against the creator, and Kickstarter will not defend you. This clause in their TOS notwithstanding, you can generally be sued for anything, regardless of how valid that claim against you is. Completely spurious claims are often rejected early in the legal processing and at severe penalties to the person bringing the claim, and while no precedent exists in any legal system (that I am aware of) for a failed Kickstarter project yet, when you are talking about somebody failing to produce something after taking in a significant sum of money from backers you can reasonable expect that a claim against the creator would not be trivially dismissed.

A few points.

1). You don't necessarily have to scrap your idea.

I'd suggest to first make a minimum viable product (MVP). Just one level with only the base mechanics. Then, ask for feedback. If the reception is good, go ahead and make it. If it's not, then at least you'll get feedback and you're more likely to know what you need to tackle.

Because in the end of the day, if just a simple level with a few zombies is not fun to play, it will not be fun to play no matter how many features you throw at it.

2). Forget Kickstarter or any funding at this moment. You can't just make one level and ask people to fund you. That's the reality.

Build a product. It doesn't matter if you have a bad artistic ability at this moment. Just make the game with programmer art stand-ins, and you're more likely to get an artist to work with you for a revenue share. You said that you did collaborate with people, so maybe contact them, pitch your game and get them interested. But I'd suggest doing that, only once you have most of the game done.

That assumes you can program.

3). If you can't program and you're just an ideas guy, then I'd suggest to learn programming. And then do #2.

4). Scale it down. Seriously, even a 10 hour platformer (for myself, and I'm a veteran modder) is really pushing it for a first project.

Your first project needs to be manageable. Why not make a prologue to your original idea? That way, you can reduce the time and cost of making it, and you would know if the market truly demands it. Because you may be confident that the market demands it, but you need to really prove it if you want to be successful.

It also shows whether you do have the skills to manage and program a game. If you can't build a rocket to go to Alpha Centuri, you can't build a rocket to go to Mars.

So, first make an MVP. Test it out and get user feedback. Then, make a prologue and get user feedback. Only then, should you think about making the full project.

yes, that's very true and I think it's important to point that out to people who ask, it's not an impossible thing, because, obviously some people achieved that goal. BUT it's a question of investment.

John Carmack has incredible skill and spent every bit of his time to make things happen, while his friends made the business side == 50% skill, 50% time, 1% money

bill gates created Microsoft/dos: he bought from another company DOS while making a deal with IBM: 50% skill, 1% time, 50% money

I wont make an example for 1% skill, as that might sound a bit offensive and judging. (and it doesn't mean someone has 0% skill, it just means 1% of the investment for the success of something particular is skill)

if time == 0, but infinite skill and money, obviously you won't get it done, 0 days of investment is not enough. even if you'd consider to hire a person to do all the work for you, you'll need some time to find that perfect person

if skill == 0 but infinite time and money, you won't create it yourself, you also won't be able to hire anyone who can do it as you cannot judge other skills without having at least a bit of them (it's like trying to find the prettiest girl friend while being blind).

if money == 0, but infinite time and skill, you won't be able to buy food for the time, buying equipment or marketing.

but on the positive side, if you have infinite time (because you're unemployed) or infinite skill (because you're genius) or infinite money and a little bit of the other skills, there is a good chance you could make it.