I have an idea for a game and after lots of reading, I came to the conclusion that it should be done with the help of Unity. I should also mention that I’m not a developer myself and I have no intention of becoming one, at least at the moment… The problem is that I have little understanding of where to begin and how I should actually make a choice in favour of this or that software company/developer…
Could you please advise me what should I pay attention to? Should I hire a software development company or a freelancer or maybe I should outsource?
“Could you please advise me what should I pay attention to? Should I hire a software development company or a freelancer or maybe I should outsource?”
Not exactly sure what you mean by that: Outsourcing is hiring people that are not internal to your company to do the job, so both of the above would be outsourcing…
Anyway if you have no clue about where to begin, you need to hire an entire company. There is little to no chance of your project succeeding if you both have no experience in development and are trying to run a team yourself. The management quality that would be expected from a freelancer I do not think you could provide, whereas for a company this will not be an issue as they will be used to being handed concepts from people with little technical expertise on the subject.
GameDevCouple_I totally has a point, any way you’ll be outsourcing… And if I were you, I’d also choose to hire a s/w development company as you’ll have to guide a freelancer through the project and as you mentioned, you have no experience in the area. Besides, all you’ll need to do in this case is just to explain what you want to the specialists and pay and they’ll do all the rest.
As for the companies, I know a couple which I’m sure about and they provide fine Unity development services: https://innowise-group.com/technologies/unity https://www.esferasoft.com/unity-3d-game-developers/
You’d hire someone you worked with before. Or someone who has a good portfolio. Or someone you heard a lot of good things about. If situation/skill is unclear you could offer a test task (PAID test task, people hate unpaid test) and see how it goes. Additionally you could break work into milestones and use escrow to secure payment.
Basically, a good idea is to have a contract, a good idea is NOT to pay the whole amount upfront, a good idea is to protct the money with escrow (when possible), a good idea is to split work into milestones.
Choose a development studio based on their portfolio and independently-verifiable testimonials. And, like any business decision, also based on price, their availability, and how well you and they can get on the same page communication-wise.
Use a company that has end-to-end experience. You’ll need their advice to help define the technical requirements and milestones. Since you’re new to game development, this is not the time to break in a lone developer who’s new to freelancing. In your case, I don’t recommend test tasks because, being new to game development, it will be hard for you to evaluate what’s happening under the hood to distinguish solid work from smoke and mirrors. Instead, work with them to define approximate milestones toward a final product. This is why you need to use a studio that has experience from concept to end product.
As mentioned above, don’t pay more than a downpayment in advance, and keep the rest in escrow to avoid issues.
I can confidently recommend the Knights of Unity. I have no affiliation with them except I’ve recommended them to others, and they’ve always reliably delivered good results at a good price, most recently for a game that did quite well in this year’s awards.
It is worth noting that using a development company will reduce risk but generally at a significant expense (I’ve had a piece of work recently quotes at $4,800 from a solo developer with many released titles vs $20,000 from a company that specialises in this kind of work). However with no experience risk is the main factor, so I’d still go that way.
To further manage risk I would suggest you look for a fixed price contract with milestone based payments: don’t pay anything until you get something. The first milestone might be a simple playable prototype or slice of the game, and the last payment milestone should be the application released and available on steam/app store/etc. The value of the milestones should be heavily back-loaded to ensure that people actually finish the project.
This will rule out some parties, but the risk is very high that people wont finish the project to your satisfaction. Three quarters of a game is pretty much worthless, as the effort to take up someone elses work is high, and the appetite to do so is low.
With this approach the onus will shift to you to prove you will pay, escrow can help here, and maybe a small (< 10%) signing bonus will be necessary. To build comfort for both parties the simplest thing to do is hire someone local, so you can meet and work with them in person. This not only builds trust it makes it a lot more difficult for someone to back out without fulfilling their end of the deal.