Hi there, I am in the process of a game studio start-up. I have two titles that I wish to develop. The first title would only take a few months at max to make (I'm pretty sure) and the second title would be our baby, the flagship to put us on the map. That one I'm thinking would take 2-3 years to develop. Let me point out we will not be developing our own game engine.. I think it will be a waste of time and money when we can get something like the Unreal Engine - Anyone know costs associated with a professional game engine? I'm thinking they are extremely high.. 250k-750k right? What I'm planning to do is hire a team to do all of this... I want to finish the small games as soon as possible to get a revenue stream then get the second game to a workable demo so we can look for a publisher/private investor at that point. My question to you guys is what kind of people do I need to hire? And how much should I pay them? I am located near Toronto, Ontario. I know we need: 3D Modeling and Texture Artists 3D Animators Programmers But how many of each...give me realistic numbers.. am I missing anything? I'd like to hire a project manager to oversee the larger project.. I have a pretty good technical background.. but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and I don't want to start things off on the wrong foot.. I want to succeed so I shall hire people with a proven track record. Also software/hardware? I was thinking of buying a bunch of iMacs and getting each workstation a copy of Maya, 3dsMax and a few with motion builder and parallels for a PC environment. If anyone with experience can take some time to consult with me I could even pay you for your time... This is the real deal - I've already registered the company - government grants are in progress..I've done all I can on my own I need some expert advice. Thanks P.S We are not ready to hire anyone at the moment, but when we are, we will post in the proper forum on this website.

This is a Business question, not a For Beginners (programming) question.
These articles should be of help:
http://sloperama.com/advice/lesson29.htm
http://sloperama.com/advice/finances.htm
http://www.igda.org/introducing-games-game-march-2003

my apologies - please feel free to move this thread..if you can.

I believe the exact price of Unreal is under NDA but its somewhere around $500k I think. Though there is the indie version now which is much cheaper but has its own issues. Are you making a FPS? Is there some reason you need Unreal other then its the big buzz engine currently? Gamebryo is much cheaper and does FPS quite well (Fallout 3). As well as other professional grade engines that can be had for less then Unreal.

Need sound, project manager, concept artist to be added to your list. You probably won't have time to properly run a business and make all the decisions on the games. Sound could easily just be farmed out near the end of the project. For the big project you would probably want somebody on site though. If you have more then one artist you need concept work to give them an idea of what the end project should look like.

Without knowing any specifics on what the first project is nobody can give you any numbers on people you would need. Many indie games are done with one programmer and one artist. In my experience you probably want more artists then programmers though. Good art takes time and its quite easy for an artist to fall behind. A project manager type person would be in a better position to tell you how many people you need. As for pay, look around what other game companies are paying in your area and match that. Being a small startup you might be able to pay a little less for the idea of getting in the "ground floor" of a new company.

If you are making PC games then use PCs, if you are making Mac games then use Macs. Either way you go make sure you buy the best computers you can. At least dual core stuff for programmers (quad core even better). You would be surprised how much time can be lost in a day just waiting for the game to compile. Make sure your artist computers are jammed full of RAM. They will be happy when they are working with high res textures or high poly models and the computer isn't sluggish. It would be a waste of money to buy both Maya and Max. Anybody who has experience in one will quickly adapt to the other. Again, without know the specifics of your games its hard to give you exact data.

Quote: Original post by stupid_programmer
I believe the exact price of Unreal is under NDA but its somewhere around $500k I think. Though there is the indie version now which is much cheaper but has its own issues. Are you making a FPS? Is there some reason you need Unreal other then its the big buzz engine currently? Gamebryo is much cheaper and does FPS quite well (Fallout 3). As well as other professional grade engines that can be had for less then Unreal.

Need sound, project manager, concept artist to be added to your list. You probably won't have time to properly run a business and make all the decisions on the games. Sound could easily just be farmed out near the end of the project. For the big project you would probably want somebody on site though. If you have more then one artist you need concept work to give them an idea of what the end project should look like.

Without knowing any specifics on what the first project is nobody can give you any numbers on people you would need. Many indie games are done with one programmer and one artist. In my experience you probably want more artists then programmers though. Good art takes time and its quite easy for an artist to fall behind. A project manager type person would be in a better position to tell you how many people you need. As for pay, look around what other game companies are paying in your area and match that. Being a small startup you might be able to pay a little less for the idea of getting in the "ground floor" of a new company.

If you are making PC games then use PCs, if you are making Mac games then use Macs. Either way you go make sure you buy the best computers you can. At least dual core stuff for programmers (quad core even better). You would be surprised how much time can be lost in a day just waiting for the game to compile. Make sure your artist computers are jammed full of RAM. They will be happy when they are working with high res textures or high poly models and the computer isn't sluggish. It would be a waste of money to buy both Maya and Max. Anybody who has experience in one will quickly adapt to the other. Again, without know the specifics of your games its hard to give you exact data.

I should have clarified what kind of games we are planning to make..

The first smaller game will be a 2D Scrolling type kind of comic book like graphics..this will be developed for the iPhone and Xbox Live Arcade, and possible MAC/PC... basically it will have x number of levels.. most of the work would be doing the background art work... and then programming... this wont be very in-depth..kind of an arcade type game.

The second will be a RPG with graphics similar to that of Dragon Age: Origins/Dante's Inferno.. I don't have my heart set on the Unreal Engine.. I just want something that is industry standard..that will work well with what we are planning to do.. no sense in developing something that isn't up to industry standard right? This will be developed for Xbox 360/PS3/PC Platforms

I've read that some companies use 3dsMax for Environment and Maya for more modeling/animation..

For work stations:

iMac 27-inch 2.66GHz
4GB RAM (that enough for artists? they say 4GB MAC = 8GB PC) can upgrade to 16GB
1TB HD
512 Video Card

I hope that helps

You should probably find your lead programmer (or technical director, whatever you want to call it) before you buy an engine.

the unreal engine is a beast (memory and processor hog) and definitely won't fit on an iphone ):

Gamebryo would however I believe (and some other professional level engines). I believe this because Gamebryo works on Wii, which is quite a feat. The wii is a pretty underpowered console.

It sounds like you are good to a good start and now just need some game development professionals to fill in the areas of knowledge and expertise you don't have.

Good luck to you! (:

PS: Your coders will probably want PC work stations.

In fact to develop for 360 i'm pretty sure you'll need them to be able to compile for 360.

Quote: Original post by Atrix256
You should probably find your lead programmer (or technical director, whatever you want to call it) before you buy an engine.

the unreal engine is a beast (memory and processor hog) and definitely won't fit on an iphone ):

Gamebryo would however I believe (and some other professional level engines). I believe this because Gamebryo works on Wii, which is quite a feat. The wii is a pretty underpowered console.

It sounds like you are good to a good start and now just need some game development professionals to fill in the areas of knowledge and expertise you don't have.

Good luck to you! (:

PS: Your coders will probably want PC work stations.

In fact to develop for 360 i'm pretty sure you'll need them to be able to compile for 360.

Thanks for the post Atrix - I wouldn't be using Unreal on the first game... the iPhone game I haven't found an engine yet but I'll look into Gamebryo for the first title.

Yeah I was thinking I would grab a couple PC work stations for the coders.. any idea what software they like to use? C++ etc.. I'll have to buy that as well.. lol

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/2010 is going to be what most are going to want. It's pretty much the standard in professional coding in Windows.

Vicious Engine 2 is something else to look at for your second game. PC/PS3/360 and you get a nice WYSIWYG editor to make everything with. Most of the WYSIWYG type game engines are usually Windows only (Unity being the big exception). Thats something to keep in mind when you are picking hardware. Also for programmer computers instead of one big honking monitor you should have two smaller ones. It's very nice to be able to run the game in one monitor and be able to debug in the other. For the artist computers I'd give them at least 8 gigs of RAM. Compared to the other things RAM isn't that expensive and its better to have to much and not enough.

For your first project you could probably get away with just one programmer and one artist. Depending on how detailed your backgrounds actually are you might need two or three. This is something I'd farm out the sound with as well. Be aware that unless you can get a deal with a publisher to borrow a dev kit you are going to be putting a game on XBLA as your first game. The Xbox indie section is doable though. But then you are writing a version of your game in C++ for iPhone and a version in C# for the Xbox. You will certainly need some PCs if you do go this route. Neither iPhone or Xbox indie is going to be a cash cow unless you get that real lucky game. More likely you won't make enough to even pay one programmers salary for a year.

The second one will require a quite a bit bigger staff. These are numbers I'm pulling out of thin air so take them as you want. 4-5 programmers, 7-8 artists, 1 concept artist, 1 sound person, 2-3 writers. The real important thing here is to have a solid, complete design doc to the game before starting. If you go into it thinking you'll have a bunch of cool ideas as the game goes and they will all work out it will just turn into a mess. The same should be said with the other game too.

Something to note if you are opening a real office you need support people as well. You are going to need a secretary unless you want to do that in addition to running the business. You will want some kind of local intranet and somebody to maintain it. You will want to keep your repository on site so you know its secure. There are a lot of other costs involved then just the people working on the games.

All good advice...I've sent OP a PM...I might be able to help.

Greg

Quote: Original post by stupid_programmer
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/2010 is going to be what most are going to want. It's pretty much the standard in professional coding in Windows.

Vicious Engine 2 is something else to look at for your second game. PC/PS3/360 and you get a nice WYSIWYG editor to make everything with. Most of the WYSIWYG type game engines are usually Windows only (Unity being the big exception). Thats something to keep in mind when you are picking hardware. Also for programmer computers instead of one big honking monitor you should have two smaller ones. It's very nice to be able to run the game in one monitor and be able to debug in the other. For the artist computers I'd give them at least 8 gigs of RAM. Compared to the other things RAM isn't that expensive and its better to have to much and not enough.

For your first project you could probably get away with just one programmer and one artist. Depending on how detailed your backgrounds actually are you might need two or three. This is something I'd farm out the sound with as well. Be aware that unless you can get a deal with a publisher to borrow a dev kit you are going to be putting a game on XBLA as your first game. The Xbox indie section is doable though. But then you are writing a version of your game in C++ for iPhone and a version in C# for the Xbox. You will certainly need some PCs if you do go this route. Neither iPhone or Xbox indie is going to be a cash cow unless you get that real lucky game. More likely you won't make enough to even pay one programmers salary for a year.

The second one will require a quite a bit bigger staff. These are numbers I'm pulling out of thin air so take them as you want. 4-5 programmers, 7-8 artists, 1 concept artist, 1 sound person, 2-3 writers. The real important thing here is to have a solid, complete design doc to the game before starting. If you go into it thinking you'll have a bunch of cool ideas as the game goes and they will all work out it will just turn into a mess. The same should be said with the other game too.

Something to note if you are opening a real office you need support people as well. You are going to need a secretary unless you want to do that in addition to running the business. You will want some kind of local intranet and somebody to maintain it. You will want to keep your repository on site so you know its secure. There are a lot of other costs involved then just the people working on the games.

Thank you for your very informative post!

For the first game I'll agree with you on the 1 programmer and 1 or 2 artists.. what I'd like to do is get it to a demo state (finish one level) and try to get the title picked up by a publisher that way we'll get more sales. How easy is it to transfer the programming from iPhone to Xbox 360 (C++ to C#)

I am aware of the need for a good design document and that will be completed for both titles before we hire any staff.

For the second game - we were planning on renting a small office space to start..I have a partner so we can spread out the management responsibilities. He is more business oriented while I am more technically oriented..which I think will work out very well.

I have most of the writing done for the second game but I would like to hire someone to polish it up.

Would you recommend hiring people as contractors? I don't want to leave them hanging if a year down the road we can't find a publisher or private investor to fund the further development of the game.. Right now all the funding we will be receiving will only last to finish the first title and get the second one to a really good demo + 3D game trailer state.

I'm not counting on the first game to fund the second.. it's more to get an IP under our belt to look more enticing to prospective publishers/investors.

I'm also not counting on running out of money.. If I have good people I want to keep them.. just planning for worst case scenarios