I’ve been approached by a fairly large company to make a game for inclusion for one of their products.
How do I calculate the costs of such a game? Anyone had any experience in this? Thanks
(Wages * Est. Production Time) * 1.15
In all seriousness, I think we need a bit more to go on. What’s the size of your team? What kind of game? How long will the game take to make? Are you getting a cut of the profits, an up-front payment, or both? Do you retain rights to things like IAP if applicable? There’s a whole lot of variables here that weren’t really disclosed to give a proper answer.
I can’t say too much about the project because partly I don’t know all the details yet and partly because I don’t want to disclose some details.
There’s just me on the team, the game is a simulation of a product the company is developing.
As far as I’m aware it’s just an app for Android that simulates their product, no IAP. No idea about payments, I was just asked how much I’d charge for it.
Not sure how long it’d take as I don’t know exactly what they require yet.
I know it’s all a bit unknown but I wondered if there are ‘going rates’ etc when calculating costs.
Seems like a sad day for you 
Hahaha yeah, although I meant it in that I’m not the owner of the company. 
What is the genre?
I’ll tell how much exactly they are ready to pay you, and how much you can negotiate out the deal.
Do not exclude that you are not the one on their list.
Or it’s some other game developing company trying to find out the budget for their contract with someone else.
Btw are you sure it is not nipoco making fun of you, pretending to be a potential investor? 
No, it’s legit.
The genre is simulation.
what sort of simulation?
Flight sim.
Just to make sure.I guess it is casual?
Scroller, shmup or it is really a Flight sim?
You know it is kind of hard to help you if we have to squeeze every bit of information.
You can PM me if you feel it would be more comfortable for you.
As they are asking for to do this as a freelancer the you need to ask at least twice, or even triple, the average IT salary of an IT profession with 10 years of experience in London, England for the period of time needed to make the game plus any expenses you incur for that specific project. e.g. buying models, buying a iOS Retina iPad because that’s what they will be running the app on, buying a iOS Pro license because you only have iOS Basic and not iOS Pro, but not, for example, buying a Flash or Flash Pro license just because you want a Flash license. The reason you ask twice or triple is to cover medical, retirement, and unemployment insurance and taxes. You don’t try and be clever and bill for an extra 50% on top of that as a profit because that’s what companies like Ajilon and Computer People do to make a profit. I believe the UK covers all those expenses for indigents but your earnings as a freelancer would disqualify you.
And that’s reasonable. If they say no, you’ll know they were trying to take advantage of you, that’s what business does, and for as high a profit margin as possible. If there is one thing we don’t need is more charity for big business.