Hey wassup everyone, I just have a quick question. How much money is needed for a Start-up Cost for Developing and Producing a Game, getting a team and the equipment together? Because I might be starting my own game company, and I am looking for this information. I have emailed several companies and no response yet. Thanks if you can help

Why, just look right here in the archives of this very forum....not even 3 weeks ago:

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=83209

There are a lot of things that you have to factor in that a number of the people in that thread didn''t cover (though one did), which are taxes, insurance, building lease, software and hardware purchase (this may not seem like a yearly expense, but you can figure that you''ll be replacing software every 3-4 years, so go with 30% of the cost of your total software and hardware costs per year), lawyer fees (you did want to get some patents on the technologies that you develop, right?), accountant fees (you can''t do it all yourself no matter how good you think you are with numbers), employee benefits, industry shows (GDC, E3) and more.

If you want a shop of 20 developers (programmers, artists, etc...) then you can figure an average pay of around $40k/year, adjusted for the cost of living in your area. Calif, you''ll probably pay more, Florida less, etc...

Startup costs will probably run you around $3Million for the first year unless you can make some deals with the area that you''re in for tax breaks and with hardware/software makers. Everything comes with a cost though, whether it be that you have to advertise for them (effectively) or that they end up getting a ''piece of the pie''.

Some people will say that I''m full of crap, but more often than not I''ll be within 10-15% on those numbers. Obviously there are a number of costs that you won''t have to worry about after the first year (software costs), so you can pretty much write a lot of them off for the second year, but to keep those 20 developers working and with up-to date software/hardware, you''ll probably end up spending around $2 Million per year at a minimum. This is why game projects are usually ''get it done and lay them off'' ventures, you may have to wait another 6-9 months to start another project and that will cost you close to around $800k+ just to keep them on staff while you''re waiting for that next project to start.