Thought some of you might like to see this.
I have seen at least a few posts around here asking about how much it costs to make this kind of game and that kind of game.
Thimbleweed Park Development Budget
I personally cannot see it taking this much money but I think it all comes down to the people doing the work, the skills they have, the tools they are using and the duration of the project (which kind of goes back to the people, their skills and the tools… plus the scope).
Anyway enjoy.
There’s taxes too, and in some cases there’s employer’s tax. The money can disappear quickly once you get rolling! But if I had $500000 I’d hire graphics/audio people for just the deliverables, and any extra programmers if something is lagging behind in that department. But that’s assuming the project is planned well down to every last detail 
Which parts do you think are over-budgeted? (I realise that it’s hard to answer that since they’ve redacted a lot of the document.)
I guess this is the good thing about being a one man team for me, all my projects have a budget of about £50, most of that going on curry and ale
Definitely difficult to pinpoint exactly for the reasons you mentioned.
I just cannot see it taking $500,000 for myself to produce a game like this. Especially when the main people say they are working for peanuts. Of course, “working for peanuts” is a very subjective phrase. To me it would mean earning less than $2,000 per month. To others it may be $5,000 per month and for others (or myself) living in certain parts of the world it might be $500 per month. So maybe that accounts for some of it.
If I was working full-time 8 to 10 hours per day I’d think it would be very reasonable to complete all of the programming development within 18 months. Let’s say that is $60,000 worth. $440k. Allocate $100k for marketing. $340k. Not sure what they owe for Kickstarter. Maybe $40k would cover that? Down to $300k now. $50k for testing and the resulting updates. $250k. Where they are spending $1k per minute for music I’d allocate up to $100 per minute.
For pixel art… I work with two very skilled artists and probably $25,000 would cover all the art work. Based on their rates that would get me over 1,000 animated sprites. Or say 500 animated sprites (characters and objects) and over 3,000 tiles.To be on the safe side, let’s say I allocate $50k for graphics, music and sound resources. $200k left. Set aside another $50k as a buffer “just in case”. $150k left.
So I could burn through $350k sure. However I also believe it could be done with significantly less. I dunno maybe they just want to be on the ultra safe side. Or maybe they are investing the difference in infrastructure for marketing and help desk. You can always blow money on marketing. You can always spend $50,000 on a title screen for a game if you find the right artist. Or you can get nearly an identical title screen for $1,000 from other artists.
I think a lot of the money goes into things like graphics, music and sounds. And people coming from a AAA background (which may be the case here) are used to spending top dollar for that kind of thing. Where, on the other hand, those of us out here in the trenches know there are a lot of skilled people that nobody has ever heard of. These forums are filled with people capable of producing high quality art and considering they are making pennies from their work on mobile games do you think they would be pretty thrilled to make say $500 to make a title screen for you? Or $25 to $30k to do the graphics for the game?
That budget is fiction.
You think it is too low or just “made up” in general?
Wow, to have that many resources to help out. Trying to make a game all by yourself, doing everything yourself, all graphics, all programming, all design, music etc… with not much money to spend, its tuff!
Kickstarter’s fees are 5% to them and 3-5% for payment processing (differs by country, since non-US projects have to use different payment gateways). So probably $40k-50k, yeah. I see “Xbox programming” is a field in their spreadsheet though. If they’re going by it the hard way (classic certification), it’s probably pricey. If they had to hire somebody especially for that, it’s a potential money drain. Going by local standards, I’m actually amazed they can do it with that budget.
It’s too high as higher budgets are associated with higher worth. It’s like they way businesses would jack up prices when they knew Nortel is the buyer or the US government or similar. Well, Nortel is bankrupt, the US government should be bankrupt, and the writers of that article must provide evidence of their high worth to your lives.
You make an excellent point. I completely skipped that Xbox part. Yes, that would certainly change things around. Maybe that accounts for a good chunk of the money. Not sure what an Xbox programmer salary is these days although we could probably easily find out.
I definitely think a person could spend a half a million dollars. Heck if I won the lottery I could spend a million dollars remaking Space Invaders if I wanted to. And it could be these are just normal rates in the industry. Because I am not in the normal industry I do not know. I am “out here” with all of the hobbyists and so forth who spend their time developing and making art just for the fun of it. The artists I work with are that way. Their view is they are always drawing and making graphics just for fun anyway. So to actually be paid for it too is just icing on the cake. Different mindsets.
I think this article reveals one of the big reasons these Indie projects are taking so much money. I am not talking about the artists here I mean the lack of business sense. I figure a lot of the people doing this stuff have no to very little biz experience. This kind of thing probably causes some reluctance for people to support new games.
If that game ends up costing 500k then something was done wrong… It reminds me of the Hugo games from 1990, maybe Monkey Island too, but mostly just because that was such a staple SCUMM game. Does he expect to get those kinds of returns?
I guess he’s just being super liberal on his cost estimates because hes so freaked out about blowing his imaginary budget. There’s definitely some tickets that you typically don’t think of that will add up but a “just in case” of 10% is more than enough, even if you don’t know what you’re doing.
I wonder how much money he budgeted to making the budget and writing that blog posts about scary budgets.
There were articles I read yesterday that the ‘middle’ of indie development had disappeared because obvious indies can’t afford $500K. Indie is now all big business (i.e. not indie at all) or true indies with tiny budgets that make big businesses laugh. They are either a ‘indie’ face for a large business with plenty of money or they are indies exaggerating budget to seem more legitimate and to discourage others from wanting to make games when they look at the costs.
This is really interesting in my opinion how much it is related to marketing/PR.
To start with - these guys were (part of?) the team behind Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion so there is probably a fan base to begin with. Getting these fans to support there kickstarter for a new game allows them to do things which ‘indies’ can’t reasonably afford (time/money) to do - even create a budget and spend money for people to help them with the game.
Honestly though - this is also marketing - for the game. How often is there a blog post of an indie game development budget? Not very often. This draws attention to the game.
Here is the general ks info - 15,623 backers pledged $626,250 to help bring this project to life.
It just seems like there is a lot of wasted time (money?) in the marketing and PR of this - how much marketing is good for a game - until it starts to become a hindrance to development?
Pod cast every week, email newsletter every two days, blog post every two days or more, answering comments on website, blog, email, facebook, twitter, etc - 3 conference appearances.
I guess my question is couldn’t this game already be in the hands of the fans - if the extensive marketing that has been done on this game was cut in half - and in half again?
Yeah I do not see people with huge budgets as being Indies. I know these days they are considered Indies. I just don’t see it that way. In my (perhaps twisted outdated) view the true Indies are the Hobbyist Developers who are working on games (probably) in their spare time and don’t have even $5,000 to put into it; certainly not $50k or $500k. lol If you have that kind of money to spend (not from something like Kickstarter for a game) then I’d say you are pretty well off already.
Long live the hobbyist game developers. Just don’t take your first game to market if the hobby is new to you and you knocked it out in a few months. There is plenty of time to get there.
Good point. Small teams doing enough marketing to make an impact would have to dedicate someone almost entirely to PR, thus bloating budget and delaying development.
Beyonce, Celine, Elizabeth, Beckham and all these celebrities with their own perfume businesses and clothing lines and such I don’t consider indies. They were made big by big business.
Celebrities, that’s what I consider the makers of that blog post to be. More power to them, they’d never become independently wealthy quickly working for EA or another big business on a game but they are not indies. I don’t see it as a negative they do this as it leads to a slightly more balanced distribution of income if they succeed. I know it’s supposed to be a selling point to make out your ventures as a ‘whoa is me’ story that they overcome to succeed. I guess you need to spice up the boredom of a person sitting at a desk all day in comfort and asking your money to do that.
I agree. I am not against them doing it and hope they do very well. I think it is awesome to see some of the old games come back.
The bit that I don’t agree with is all of the media focusing on such people as representing Indies. Not sure how it got to this point really. In reality, these people are so detached from your average Jane and Joe they should not even be compared. Not saying they are superior. I am referring to the celebrity status. The fact they have already been in the AAA industry and “have a name” to some degree. It is great for them to be here now. You just cannot realistically compare such cases to the majority of people who see themselves as Indie Game Developers.
For me it roughly budgets out to $40,000 - $80,000 per year PP including tools, then we have like rent $1500.00 a month and bills around $500.00 a month. So in a team of 5 @ 3 years and a marketing spend of around $250K the game would probably cost around $1.25 Million.
For one person on average including tools (pro’s) with a decent wage and a meagre marketing budget for a game over 3 years, $400K would probably not be far from the target… But I’m talking big sort of A / AA games, not pixel art for that I wouldn’t have a clue how much it’s cost.
I calculated for me to live 15 years at my current spend rate in a southeast USA rural area I’d need to make $360K. That includes a mortgage though that is very low payments for 15 years and a car that is paid off. Considering the prices of things I don’t live in luxury although I consider it pretty luxurious when you don’t confuse luxury with a display of wealth. 1/2 of the $360K or $180K would be taken in taxes and such so really 15 years at $180K is about the official poverty level in the USA.