Hello, As you know, magazines and books are crammed with advice about outsourcing, but the matter is always presented from the perspective of the businesses looking to outsource a process. There is not much out there describing the other side's perspective... If I decide to look for a partner (business or individual) that would help me with the development of a game (a relatively simple one like Bejeweled), where should I start? Where should I look for these developers? How much do you think would be the cost (the price the outsourcer would charge) for a game like Bejeweled? In the US, I know that developers tend to migrate towards warmer locations (e.g., West Coast). Does anybody know how is the game development industry in Chicago? Thank you for your time, guys.

Well this all depends on how you plan on developing this game.

If you are trying to have the outsource make the entire game, for a game like bejeweled I would think in the 10K USD range would be fair.

On the other hand if you are trying to pull in Freelancers to work on your game, with you managing or programming, then you are looking at anywhere from 100 to 1000 USD per Freelancer per Task.

The Game Industry has two hot spots that I know of: California and Austin, Texas. I don't know of any "game industry" infiltration up north. I'm sure there are game studios, but they aren't as large or communicative as what you'll find West and South.

As to where to look for developers, this is a great start. I also suggest you become a Gamasutra member and use their EXCELLENT Help Wanted/Given boards. I also recommend the IGDA forum and you should also visit the software forums for what you intend to develop on (the Torque Boards for eg).

In general, when outsourcing you're looking at paying base salary for that job x1.5 or so. The outsourcer mangages his own office and supplies, and saves you from the long-term commitment.

So when doing a casual game, for example, most teams are looking at 3 people (programmer, artist, producer), and a project cycle of 2-4 months. Assuming you will be the producer, you'd be budgeting somewhere between 4 and 8 manmonths. Depending on the experience level of your outsources, where your outsourcer is based (SanFran or Kiev?), and your ability to make this sound like an interesting project, the final cost of production (and the risks associated with it) will be varying wildly.

10K USD is probably on the low end; you might be able to convince a relatively inexperienced group in a low-cost country to sign on for that, but if you have little understanding of the game development process, I'd say the risk becomes unpallatable. You'd probably want to pay a premium and hire someone more experience, or pay a premium and hire someone close enough that you can go down the street and shout at them when they're not performing :)

Allan

thank you guys.

is there any available information in regard to how to estimate the cost of a game? how do you valuate a game? this is extremely important as it is the foundation in any negotiation with an outsourcer or a team of developers...

You can find a bunch of post mortems and price tags for complete games on the net, especially gamasutra.

But since these are their games and have zero relevance to what you are actually doing, your best bet is to do a through inventory of all your needed game assets (art, sound, and programming), do a through inventory of all your needed business assets (computers, office space, taxes) and that will give you a rough idea of how much it would take you to create this game in-house.

thanks.

$10K sounds extremely high to me. Why don't you check out rentacoder.com, you could probably get a small game for $200 there.

Quote: Original post by bpj1138
$10K sounds extremely high to me. Why don't you check out rentacoder.com, you could probably get a small game for $200 there.

LOL. Well, yes.. you probably could get a 'small game' there for $200. Actually, for $50 in the Help Wanted forum, you could probably get a small game as well. I wouldn't put my hopes of getting a game that's actually SELLABLE for $200, but that may not be your #1 priority.

This article from the IGDA Casual Games SIG looks at the technology and development issues for Casual Games. The people interviewed are responsible for the bulk of the 80,000,000$ generated in the casual games industry last year.
http://www.igda.org/casual/quarterly/1_1/casual.php

As you see, none of them are looking at the sub-200$ market; they may be missing something critical, but I doubt it.

Average Casual Game time/budgets from most teams I've spoken with is (3 months x 3 people) + 25% for risk/polish time.

Factor that into monthly salary for a designer, producer and artist, and pick an outsourcing destination to fit your risk appetite / wallet.

Allan

Yeah, I guess it all depends on who the buyer is. I was talking about individual buyers. $200 is the bare minimum, which is $5/hour x 40 hours, which should be enough to program a simple game like tetris for a cell phone or web page applet. No, this probably won't be sellable to end users, but maybe the buyer can sell it to a cell phone game distributor or a game collection web site, maybe even for $1000.

--Bart

One critical point:

Any contractor (the outsource person) is probably smart enough to have a good contract that either:

(1) Limits / prohibits redistribution, or
(2) gives them a percentage of all future sales in addition to regular payment.

I've known one person who opted for choice 3, give them all distribution rights for a huge lump of money, but it was only because he knew it was the most profitable.

Good contracts also limit the liability exposure of the contractor, so any bugs will be your fault and your expense to fix.

Think about that before you decide to have a contractor develop your game.

frob.