

Game Development: You Need $100,000 - robfitz
http://whatgamesare.com/2011/04/you-need-100000-game-development.html#more

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patio11
In addition to the fully-loaded cost of programmers being substantial, you
also have huge budgets for asset creation: art/animation/music/etc. Asset
creation is _expensive_. It also depreciates straight off a cliff: the core
audience will see it as novel for a period measured in weeks, days, or even
_hours_ in some pathological cases.

Many non-game applications have an adoption curve which looks something like
the sales graph on BCC (100x now what it was at launch) or the famous YC
"gradual adoption, spike, trough of sorrow, plateau, steady growth, traction"
narrative. Games almost universally have a big spike at lunch, declining sales
through the launch window, and then they fall off a cliff and _never recover_.
The exceptions to this rule are so rare that even non-gamers know their names.
My mom remembers Starcraft. You will not be Starcraft.

This greatly complicates post-launch marketing, iterating towards a game
design which achieves fit with what customers will pay for, etc. (The ability
to do that is one reason why social games work so well... that and fixing "our
industry has no effing clue how to do customer acquisition" with copious
helpings of spam spam spam your friends.)

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kiba
It doesn't seem to apply to dwarf fortress or minecraft.

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palish
Obviously. But you will not be Starcraft, Dwarf Fortress, nor Minecraft. :)

~~~
spacemanaki
I don't know what the GP was specifically referring to, but one of those
things is not like the other. If the GP was talking about lo-fi or procedural
assets, then Starcraft doesn't fit in there, as it required a significant
investment in asset creation. If the GP was talking about the kind of slow
growth and relying on a sort of "long tail" of fans, Starcraft also doesn't
make sense since it was a big budget game following several other hits from an
established studio.

If you just mean that your game won't be a hit, that's a risk no matter what
you invest in it, whether it's long nights in your free time or a 100
developers and artists and several years.

But I think Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft are examples of breaking out of the
mold of big AAA titles laden with creative assets and a heavy script, which
are closer to interactive movies than DF and Minecraft.

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coffeeaddicted
We run into this a few years ago. We spend around 25k euro (2 guys living in
starved artist mode for over a year) and then released because we couldn't
risk taking any further credit. We had a working game and it was even some fun
- but everyone playing it immediately noticed the parts still missing. And it
was pointless, people knew what to expect of that kind of game (a 3d-racer)
and so it never had a chance to sell.

But there is one more thing - we would have gotten a lot further with a second
game. That year was mostly spend on doing the base technology and also
learning to do a complete large game on my own (I had done a bunch of trivial
games before and worked a few years on big titles with teams in companies -
but never did a big title completely on my own before). So not sure if that
$100000 rule is still valid for the second title.

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noonat
I completely disagree with this article. Not too long ago, many in the game
industry probably would have said you needed a million to make a game; now,
mobile development and indie console development have changed people's
perspective. That still doesn't mean that the cost for a studio like Rovio to
make a game is the minimum.

Making a game for cheap requires realistic expectations and constraints.
You're not going to hit every platform, you're not going to have AAA graphics,
and you're not going to have 100 levels. That doesn't mean you can't have a
compelling experience.

You can make a polished, successful game with two people and a couple weeks of
work, if those people are experienced and you pick the right platform.
Canabalt (<http://www.adamatomic.com/canabalt/>) is an excellent example of
this. One developer did the coding, art, and sound. Another developer did the
music. The Flash version only took a week to make. When that version was a
wild success, a third developer ported it to iOS, which took a couple more
weeks.

There are numerous examples of this throughout the indie games community. It
takes a smart, experienced designer to make a successful game with such
reduced scope, but it can be done.

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dazzawazza
Non game developers consistently underestimate the cost of making a game but
not all games cost $100,000. A better metric would be man hours or man months
since not all areas of the world garner US/Europe scale wages. Fruit Ninja
certainly cost less than Angry Birds and made a healthy profit (allegedly).

I agree with the article that the money/time gets you to the point where you
can polish the game. Angry birds is not the most innovative game but it's
level of polish and crucially it's approachability certainly took half of the
budget to create.

As an indie it's hard to step back and fund that level of consistency but it
needs to be done.

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stonemetal
The guy who made Gratuitous space battles keeps a blog, and from what I
remember he contracted out the art for less than 10 grand and sunk over a year
into development. We could claim it took 100K or more to make but I definitely
agree man hours is the more important metric.

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mikeklaas
A year of a dev's time is probably worth at least 90k.

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bazookaBen
I'm assuming that this article is catered towards ppl intending to be game
developers, or ppl wanting to make a game by hiring a bunch of developers.

if you count in man-hours, then yes it's into the 100ks.

going from the single indie developer perspective,

assume you pay yourself $100/hour game takes 4 months to develop total cost is
100$ * 120 days * 10 hours/day = 120,000 $

the cost for game assets have not even been included!

but no indie developer I know take these costs into account. Who actually
cares about sweat dollars? If two-three people sit in room, code+draw for 4
months straight taking ramen noodles, launch and make millions off the game on
iOS, they're not going to tell you "We spent $120k of our own money+time".
Instead they'll say "We spent 4 months furiously making the game, living off
ramen noodles in mom's basement"

in summary, the development cost could be either be close to zero, or $100k.

if you're hiring a team, yes prepare to splash $100k, but if you go indie, get
some good game dev friends, and absorb all costs!

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MicahWedemeyer
_launch and make millions off the game on iOS_

Remember, making millions is not guaranteed at the end of the journey. Even if
you put in the right amount of polish and you've got a great game, there's
still no guarantee that you'll be a hit.

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eps
> _Some of my clients are surprised when I tell them that the development of
> Angry Birds cost $140k... because they physically cannot see where the money
> has gone... They can’t see the dead ends, the prototypes and the endless
> revisions that got Angry Birds to the point that it became brilliant._

This is not an Angry Bird specific problem. The exact same thing applies to
any polished software that appears simple and intuitive. A good example is
Things by Cultured Code and a permanent trickle of complaints in AppStore
reviews that an app that simple must not be costing that much. People just
fail to realize that simplicity does not come naturally, it's a fruit of a
long, laborious and exhausting process.

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davidsiems
Just as a reference point, in this article
[[http://whatgamesare.com/2011/02/you-need-four-coders-
product...](http://whatgamesare.com/2011/02/you-need-four-coders-
production.html)] the argument is made that you need four coders to make a
game.

I think formula being followed for these articles lends them to being a
little...exaggerated. (You NEED X to make a game)

I successfully shipped an XBLA game with one other programmer on my team. It
took us 14 months, and we delivered on time, in scope, and on budget.

We had two designers writing scripts, so I _guess_ you could say we had four
coders, but there was a vast gap in programming talent there. I had to go back
through near ship and rewrite most of the scripts to fix all the bugs.

What you need, is to be smart about how you work (make tools to make making
the game easier) and be realistic about what you can accomplish in your given
budget/time frame.

I'm not saying gamedev is easy, it's hard, and it takes nearly as long to
polish the game as it does to get it up and running. But there are so many
target markets out there at this point that saying something like you need
100k/4 coders/100 hours of gameplay is foolish.

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chaostheory
Braid (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_%28video_game%29>) is a great
example: "During the game's three years of development, Blow put about
US$200,000 of his own money into its development, most going towards hiring of
David Hellman for artwork and for living expenses."

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coryl
Game design is really its own beast, I'd say separate (but overlapping) from
typical customer development / MVP processes. Making something fun is
incredibly hard, let alone marketing, distributing, and profiting from it.

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int3rnaut
A few years ago I'd make an argument that the indie game market is slowly
turning things around in this battle of attrition, but now I'd say they are
not only encroaching on the lunacy but helping to fuel it.

Don't get me wrong, there will (knock on wood) always be cheaply made gems
popping up every year, but it really seems like there are more and more wolves
in indie game developer clothing trying to cash in on the robust and evolving
indie market--look no further than what Xbox is doing with the Summer of
Arcade, those are some very well polished/well oiled professional products
(Should Bastion really be considered Indie?), and some even have that indie
charm we all love.

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padobson
Games are a business with a very old model. They are sold the same way movies
and music and books have been sold for decades, and the initial release
provides instant feedback on the games success.

That being said, I wonder if games might be prepped for disruption. A big part
of any polished game is user testing. How do we know its fun? We watch people
play and see if they have fun.

Well, with the advances made in web analytics and the possibilities that
graphics acceleration offers in modern (or maybe future) browsers, I could see
studios and publishers selling games around a more iterative process.

An approach that finds the minimum fun experience and iterates from there
could work very well on the web. Games like Asteroids and Missile Command do
not need the polish others describe to be engaging, and then hosts of new
features can be added over time to make such games more engaging. Add in the
fact that web-based business models for games have proven recurring revenue
through micro transactions can be very viable, and I think there could be a
lean approach to game development.

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wisty
You mean, some kind of closed beta approach?

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padobson
The Minecraft example was a decent one. What I really mean is a game that is
discovered more organically than through the hype process that most games go
through when they launch. Sort of how like lean startups grow.

Some people will be turned off by the earliest form of the game, but there are
always more clicks to be had and leans startups using MVPs have to deal with
this too. The key is to be learning about how to improve the fun factor every
release.

As the game continues to improve, the user base will continue to grow. I'm not
totally convinced that this could only apply to mmorpg's, but I'm willing to
concede that it seems like the best genre to attempt this and to apply the
microtransactions model.

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teamonkey
I'd be very surprised if _ANY_ MMORPG didn't constantly iterate as you
describe (all the current major ones do, at least), and virtually all
multiplayer games allow for balancing at the very least.

The problem is that most single-player games are finite. Once people have
completed them, they're done. Replayability is something comparatively few
people can stand for any length of time, especially in a crowded market. Add
the problem of an exceptionally short tail for most games (20-50% of total
sales in the first month would not be atypical) and the value of updating the
mechanics of your single-player game becomes much less valuable. Best to make
another game in the series that improves all those flaws.

A few exceptions, all indie games: Minecraft, Eufloria and Darwinia. All of
these have had major updates to gameplay over time.

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dexen
If development cost is related to size, this 3D shooter game (a technology
demonstrator, if you will) is about 100kB:
<http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger>

100kB including graphics.

Uses procedural texture creation. The group also made available the tool they
used for generating those textures.

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ddorian43
It's not about the filesize, you have to polish/test/revamp/art/music/code.

I have only done 2d games small games and saw how hard it was.

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mkramlich
I've created many games for a total dollar cost of $0. It can be done. Yes it
requires using your time, but the opportunity cost is not necessarily in
foregoing paid work hours, but rather less time spent watching TV, going to
sporting events, going to movies, etc. all of which have their own cost and
thus you in a sense save money by not doing them. Not all games have to be
huge. Not all games require graphics, or fancy graphics. Or sound. Not all
games have to be 3D. It only has to be a game. If you have the right skill set
the whole thing can be made by a single passionate, driven person. Minecraft
is the recent "mainstream fame" example but was not the first and likely not
the last.

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davidtyleryork
Great post, I think the biggest problem with developing games is that it's
very easy to have an idea and say "this would be a great game!", but very hard
to actually execute. Many people get started only to see the long climb ahead
and stop.

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adjwilli
I imagine if you're the programmer-designer and hire recent university grads,
current students, or young people in underdeveloped countries for the assets,
you could get away with a lot less than $100,000.

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ristretto
At least this phrase is not true: "Most Facebook games of note cost at least
$200k to get off the ground and many of the more famous ones cost $1m"

Some very popular (not the most popular) facebook games started with $0 budget
yet have millions of users.

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zizee
_Some very popular (not the most popular) facebook games started with $0
budget_

Someone had to make them. Just because they were bootstrapped does not mean
they were free. You have to value your time at something.

That said, you are right, there are some success stories that don't have huge
budgets. The article does attempt to address this though:

 _It’s easy to look at outlier examples such as the early Facebook apps and
think that those games are normal examples of where dedication can get you,
but you’re failing to take account of context if you do that. Very early
adopters in a brand new market can afford to get away with appalling levels of
production because the market is so new that there are no expectations. Most
games are not developed for brand new markets._

