You kinda left out a big detail of what kind of gameplay is it. Can you explore worlds and do real time combat where you control the pets? Or is it like a turn based thing with very simple exploration if any? Those details could make a huge difference how much this would cost (how long it would take to finish).
If it’s an online game with pet vs. pet I would imagine it’s turn based combat in which case 150k sounds like a huge rip off to me. Hell I’d be hesitant to pay someone even $10,000 for a game have you tried the collaboration forums? If you find someone who really likes your idea they might help for free.
But a top of the line game will take a LOT of man hours, so if you are paying top of the line programmers/artist/sound guys then ya it could cost over $100,000 but I wouldn’t recommend doing something like that if it’s your first game.
You ever consider learning how to do this yourself? If you have no previous game design experience that earned some money I think you’re taking a big gamble sending another group any amount of money and counting on them to make your game the way you envision it and also profitable.
Also you’d pretty much have to move over to where they work to make sure they don’t screw it up. It’s possible to do it all online, but I wouldn’t ever do that if me paying them is involved.
Judging by how much time I’ve put into developing my current project (all the programming, game design, Unity Editor work, testing, etc.) I’d estimate you would have to pay me about $20,000 already if you only payed me 10 dollars an hour. If I was really being hired to do a project I probably wouldn’t even start to consider offers until at least $30 an hour, otherwise I’d rather try to work on my own projects right now. This would not include the artist and people helping me with additional music. So even at $10 an hour for a single person you’re probably looking at probably $20,000+ as a starting point.
If it’s a super simple game though with turn based combat, limited gameplay to control and interact with environment, you could possibly find someone to do it for a bit less. It really just depends how long they think it will take to finish your game, and they’ll probably try to squeeze you for every last cent so keep that in mind for your negotiating.
So I guess my summary is that this could be VERY expensive if you want top of the line people doing it and there’s no guarantee they will succeed in providing the game you want that makes any money. Judging by your very brief description of the game and it’s requirements it seems you really don’t know what you are getting in to. I think you will need a very thorough game design document which outlines everything you need before you should be taking quotes.