Dear Tom,

I'm sorry if you consider that my method is not good professional practice. I respect your opinion.
However, I prefer to spend time understanding issues and getting advices from experts in the field than relying on management consultants that would just want to look smart (and take the money). Sorry, it's my engineering background coming back! ;-)

Nevertheless, I just take your advice from what it's worth: a game expert (yup, read your CV, I did my homework!) answering a vague question on a fuzzy concept. But I'm more interested in "how" you get to these numbers, and "what to do" to simplify the idea and start small, while being able to grow.

Now let's take your points:
1. Maybe quickly is too vague: my idea is to get something within a few month of project start
2. Your input is really valuable here. Foundations need to be sound. This is why I think we should not reinvent the wheel and we should start with a powerful engine that would be able to scale with our project. Do you know which engines would fit that description? Unity3D? HeroEngine? OpenSpace Engine? Dubit? ... Am I going in the wrong direction?

Maybe people with experience of building on top of these engines can give me ideas of what they have achieved and the time/resources it took them: this would help me to understand the relationships.
Best regards,

Indeed I had million(s) in mind for the cost (and our company never thought to develop it alone!), but time is more critical for us: we need to deliver quickly.

If you have this level of anticipated budget, then why do you not have a initial budget in place to do the following:

consulting with NDA'd professionals with whom you share full details of what you're trying to do, and what constitutes a minimally releasable user experience.

This would not be an unreasonable expectation in any medium to large scale project - either source knowledge from inhouse expertise or from contracted expertise. At best you will get unpointed advice in this forum simply because you are unable to define more than a shallow description (due to your confidentiallity aspects I assume) though excepting those confidentiality issues you haven't defined your requirements beyond a very basic level. You need to obtain more pointed information from someone who is better informed of your project details than what we here are being told.

Best of luck to you.

You may obtain some ideas from here but the scale of project you are referring to really does require you to obtain the services of appropriate professionals.

OK, I need to admit I've also signed a couple of NDAs... but talking with someone who wants to sell you something, and chatting with men of the art is really complementary in my mind.

Moreover, I think that other people may be interested by your answers if they are generic enough. ;-)

However, I prefer to spend time understanding issues and getting advices from experts in the field than relying on management consultants that would just want to look smart (and take the money). Sorry, it's my engineering background coming back! ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_analysis

Just some of the ridiculuos number of issues you will need to address:

Renting, buying server space - type of server, potential maintenance, empoyees etc associated with servers.
Financial relationships - what payment types do you propose to include: credit card, billpay snail mail cheques etc
software creation maintenance updates - employees etc
Registration and security software.
Possible issues relating to population managements - trolling, harassment, legal etc



You shouldn't be looking for some management consultant persay who takes the money and runs. Your needs are ill-defined and you need to define them. If you don't have the expertise inhouse then obtain it on a temporary employment contract - define requirements into the employment contract - points to be met etc.

Dear Stormynature,

I agree that these issues are important (we operate a medium-size online store so I know it is important!), but I'm looking for issues that are more specific to gaming.
Indeed hiring someone to research these issues would be a solution. But which kind of expert? ;-)
Thanks !

Indeed hiring someone to research these issues would be a solution. But which kind of expert? ;-)

Unfortunately from my perspective you ask a question that I myself cannot provide an answer for not having the necessary technical skills to provide adequate advice.

If I were in your situation though, I would first check inhouse to see what existing skillsets you do have available to you first. This would allow you to "somewhat" refine the list of what requirements you need to meet. I suspect however that your needs are probably in requirement of more than simply one person. It also might simply come down to you carefully wording an employment advertisement covering your needs requiresd or alternatively contracting a headhunter to find you an appropriate qualified person.


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With regard your technical questions regarding engines and how they operate - you would need to post in a more relevant technical forum than the business one here. The licencing aspects of using pre-existing engines you could track through the relevant company websites - be aware that revenue sharing is often tied into using existing engines but again this comes down to the specific engine etc as to particular licensing arrangements.

This site contains a number of different forums covering issues pure software programming, interface issues, game design, visual arts etc. What you really need to do is probably extract and define your questions from your original post and create new posts in the different relevant forums. It is very possible that an answer you seek to a specific point is available in the right forum if posted there. You will find the site is very tribal in some respects and many people tend to stick to the forums where their skill sets are best utilised. For example:

We think about 2.5D graphic, and we will work with a studio or freelance graphic designers.

Answers along this line of inquiry could be found by posting in the "Visual Arts" forum.

If you are talking about a project with a multi million pound budget (which you are) you need to get someone who knows what they are doing to write a business plan. By your own admission, you don't, so don't bother trying to write a business plan. Perhaps you could handle the hiring of people who do know how / whether such a plan is feasible, and pay them lots of money. Maybe there is something else you can do for the project, like supervise milestones.

In fact, if you are really serious and want this to succeed, probably the most likely way to get things rolling would be to approach an established company that already produces a related product in the field, and get them to pitch for the investment cash to build the thing for you. They will know what they are doing, have some idea of feasibility / time scales / cost, and will be able to hire suitable staff to work on your project.

Indeed hiring someone to research these issues would be a solution. But which kind of expert? ;-)

If you are talking about a project with a multi million pound budget (which you are) you need to get someone who knows what they are doing to write a business plan. By your own admission, you don't, so don't bother trying to write a business plan.

I was just thinking along the same lines. Ber_, since you are asking the questions you are asking, you should not be doing the thing you are trying to do. You need to hire someone full time to take it over for you.

Dear all,

The more I listen to you and the more I dig on the Web, the more your latest advices make sense.
Thank you all for your feedback.


PS: Tom, as you can see, I have progressed in my reflexion thanks to the help of you experts! This was very valuable! ;-)

In fact, if you are really serious and want this to succeed, probably the most likely way to get things rolling would be to approach an established company that already produces a related product in the field, and get them to pitch for the investment cash to build the thing for you. They will know what they are doing, have some idea of feasibility / time scales / cost, and will be able to hire suitable staff to work on your project.

BTW, would you know good candidates for "established companies" that produce virtual worlds?
Thanks!