Calculating a game budget

valentin-galea · 2008-10-20T14:44:07

Hello everybody! I have about $12 000 and I want to spend it on making a game! A 3D low/medium-poly space racing game, something in the vein of Zero Gear but Wipeout-ish:) It will be multiplayer centered with in-game lobby and matchmaking. Trouble is I have no frame of reference if the money is enough, or how to lay a financial plan. Personally, I won't dip into the money, I got a part-time job that covers that. At the same time I feel they aren't enough to start a (minimal) physical studio and start paying some people full wages and dental plans. I will be lead programmer and designer, but I must out-source pretty much everything else: the assets (be it graphics or audio), additional programming, testers, a bit of promotion later on, hardware resources, licensing of software (but about 80% coding will be based on LGPL stuff starting with Ogre 3D). Where do I start laying a more detailed financial and fesability plan? How do I find wages and prices for artists and designers? How should I go about recruiting people? Any good books on the subject?:) Any postmortems for guys who already tried/do this? Thanks in advance! Valentin Galea