So, game’s qaulity is second problem, but I can inference from this price tag, there is some standard of price dicision and I think it mostly depends on [Game itself’s quality and contents quantity].
Then, normally how many people, how much cost, how long time needs to develope $9.9 PSN game?
I investigate some $9.9 games and saw it’s credits and normally it said 15~25 developers. Right?
But I don’t know concrete cost and develpe time.
I just want brief info of concrete example at least.
How much sony or MS takes the share of total $9.9 sales? So what is cut of them and how much come to developers?
Please don’t say to me to go to sony or MS.
IF you don’t know, just pass this question.
Thx.
The price of a game (in normal circumstances) reflects the development cost and quality of the game.
So before asking how much an unknown game will cost, ask your self those questions:
Game type.
Platform.
Number of developers (and their salaries).
Dev Time (deadline, if any).
Licenses.
Hardware upgrades.
Then add those numbers together and you’ll have an approximate dev cost.
Once done, you’ll be able to set a price for your game.
There’s also other factors as marketing/advertising your game which cost you lot of money and/or time.
Currently, I must write perfect business plan to get goverment’s investment to develope game content. Maximum will be 200,000$. So I must get business infos about PSN game industry and normal dev cost of 9.9$ PSN game, and more. Dev cost of actual past game’s concrete example needs. And normal PSN game’s anticipating sales volume and profit.
I will pay to who will consult about this problem and give me concrete example and infos.
Please PM me with your past achievement and consulting cost.
The (intended?) end sale price of the game is only useful in forecasting revenue, if you have some compareable game titles (genre, quality, gameplay, etc…) where sales volume is known. So if your game is intentionally targetting $9.90 (USD) and you know the median sales volume through PSN for (at least) one very comparable game is 80K first month, 85K second month, 40K third month (figure a 50-60% drop when your game passes the diminishing returns point), then you can figure out how much you hope to make. Then work backwards to figure out what you can reasonably invest.
Actual costs of production have little to do with projected pricing estimation (other than knowning if it’s even possible to earn your investment back). You need to have a good feel for how long your game will take to make, do a work breakdown structure, then costs are driven first by labour, then Marketing (big expense in games), then all the other costs.
Labour costs will vary depending on:
targetted skills
local presents of skilled workers
Outsourcing / contractors
total weighted costs of internal labour (weighted costs = hourly pay + local government costs + benefits calced hourly + distributed costs of equipment + distributed costs of management + distributed costs of any other expenses incurred for a given employee)
Then the other costs outlined by others above (as a base line). You’ll also have startup and basic operations costs to add to any game project costs.
For your business plan, you’ll need to put together some spreadsheets (excel or openoffice Calc) to help you determine actual costs of making your game.
the price of a game is also dictated by the life cycle of a game and the platforms. if its single platform and has a 1 year lifetime it may need to be $20 but the same game on 3 platforms with a 3 year lifetime could be $9.
I am currently making a game at work that is MANY times the amount you want to have and when its finished it will be $15 - $20. at the same time i am making a game at home in my spare time which will sell for about $10 - $15.
i think you are going about it backwards, asking “what can i make for $X” wont work because a small group of talented people could make a game for $250k or you could have a bunch of inexperienced people make a game for the same amount. you would get drastically different games from the two groups. you should instead be asking one of two questions; “can i make game X with money X?” or “can i make a game for X money?”. the second questions answer is yes… you can make a game for almost any amount.
the game you make also depends on how you make it. “free” help from friends, or hire professionals who have worked on ps3 before. after proper business expenses the second will cost you from $75k to $100k per person per year.
while budgeting dont forget to include money for marketing, console licensing, console cert., testing, software, hardware, etc. I recently priced out all of these things for a 3 person team for 1 year and with start up costs and salaries etc it was already over $250k.
which brings me to the last part; you need to consider the time length of the production. I have made a game in 3 weeks and in 5 years. both of them were constant day to day work. there is a saying “9 woman cant make a baby in 1 month”. keep this in mind when planning your development. just because you have money and can hire more people doesn’t mean it will get done faster.
It sounds to me that you dont have a lot of production or production planning experience based on your posts in this thread. because of this i would recommend you dont go for the money and instead work in your spare time on a indie project until you understand the timelines and man power a little better to be able to plan it out.
I know its government money but if it was mine i would not give it to someone who doesnt have a game idea in mind… if you do have a game idea then share it and people can help you figure out how much it would cost.