Hi, I am a newbie, so please be kind 
We would like to develop a site for kids to learn vocabulary through playing arcade style of games. We would need about 50 games.
Developing games from scratch seems like an overkill as we would want to use common games that already exist but add a vocabulary learning component to it.
How could we speed up development? by licensing games that already exists? Any other idea or suggestions?
Looking forward to your expert input
Vincent
Hi, I am a newbie, so please be kind
We would like to develop a site for kids to learn vocabulary through playing arcade style of games. We would need about 50 games.
Developing games from scratch seems like an overkill as we would want to use common games that already exist but add a vocabulary learning component to it.
How could we speed up development? by licensing games that already exists? Any other idea or suggestions?
Looking forward to your expert input
Vincent
How complex are the games ?
How different are they from eachother ?
Making a single arcade style game doesn't necessarily take that long and if they're all reasonably similar you could probably hire a small studio to make 50 of them in just a few months.
Are you new to game development?
Game developers don't typically license their games. They would license their tools if they choose to make it available to the public. There are many free game-development tools available on web, ranging from one specific aspect (e.g. graphics, sound, physics engines) to a whole "game-maker" package (e.g Unity, Unreal).
The tools help you to make games, but it means that you still have to develop the games yourself. Developing games include writing the code for it, adding the graphics and animations, adding the sound effects and music, and adding the game elements. In your case, you know that the game will involve learning vocabularies. How do you design your games that your players can learn vocabularies quickly? What are the vocabularies to be learned? How quickly do you want your players to progress from one level to another. All of this must be thought out.
You want to make 50 of these. How do they overlap? How do they differ?
It's a LOT of work.
If you ask, why can't I just license Pacman or Breakout, and just add vocabulary elements to it? The thing is, when you add one extra feature, it will end up with a whole different game. Different code, different graphics, different mechanics. Let's use board games as examples, how do you add poker to Monopoly? The rules would have to change, wouldn't they? When the rules change, it's a whole different game.
Vincent,
Why do you need fifty? Can't it be done with twenty-six? Or twelve?
It would definitely not be "fast."
If you're looking to build an arcade site, you can definitely license games. PC and console developers don't typically license their games, but licensing is a very common business model for Flash and other browser based games. There are a few sites dedicated to helping publishers find and license games from developers, the flash game license site (www.fgl.com/) is one example. I'd suggest checking out sites like that to see if there are already completed games that match your requirements, since licensing (especially if a non-exclusive license will do) will probably be cheaper and much faster than hiring a team to make games from scratch. You'll definitely be able to find a few existing vocabulary games that would be well suited, but if you need to customize other games to fit with the vocabulary theme, you could probably just try contacting some companies that make a lot of these kinds of arcade games, I'd bet you'd find some that you could contract out to make some custom games for a reasonable price.
Thanks very much for this input. It's a great start and has provided me with a good base. Cheers,
