Pitch budgets: How much is too much?

Ian Eborn · 2021-02-09T07:33:30

I'm working on a pitch to send out to publishers, and I'm finding myself a little uncertain on the matter of the budget. Now, I can figure out more or less what I'd want, looking at various costs. That's not a major problem, I think. (Presuming that I'm making no serious mistakes in the matter, of course.) However, I find myself a little anxious about the idea that I might ask too much, and so incur rejections where I might otherwise have had interest. There is some data online, but what I've found thus far is all fairly old. (In particular, I've found GamaSutra's "2014 salary survey", and Tom Sloper's “Game Biz Finances” page from 2001.) It's also not clear to me how salaries map to publisher pitch budgets. So my question: What would be an approximate “ceiling” for a budget given in a pitch to an indie publisher? How much would be “too much”? A few specifics regarding my case: This would be my first commercial indie game I've released two much smaller free games I've previously been employed in a small game-development company The game in question is at a fairly advanced state--well into production, with all major features implemented, multiple levels implemented, and overall somewhat polished, but not done A public demo of the game is available, including a few levels I do suspect that there's no simple answer to this, but a complex answer would nevertheless be preferable to sitting and wondering and being anxious, I imagine!