First time developer freaking out about budgets
by TS Studios · in General Discussion · 09/20/2007 (7:35 pm) · 6 replies
Hi all,
Our company has just finished it's first title and it has been garnering some good interest from Publishers. Now we have our first publisher on board who's willing to "pull the trigger" but they are asking us to put together a budget... which basically includes finishing the game, some code outsourcing, some language translation, QA, etc, etc.
I am wondering if anyone out there has a copy of a sample budget from a game (large or small). It would really help me to have sort of a starting point to build from. This would be for a mid-tier kind of DS game, not that it matters really... seeing one from any game would help me a lot. I was hoping something like this might be posted online, but I haven't been able to find one.
If anyone can help, it's much appreciated. My email address is toystorestudios@hotmail.com.
Thank you!!
Our company has just finished it's first title and it has been garnering some good interest from Publishers. Now we have our first publisher on board who's willing to "pull the trigger" but they are asking us to put together a budget... which basically includes finishing the game, some code outsourcing, some language translation, QA, etc, etc.
I am wondering if anyone out there has a copy of a sample budget from a game (large or small). It would really help me to have sort of a starting point to build from. This would be for a mid-tier kind of DS game, not that it matters really... seeing one from any game would help me a lot. I was hoping something like this might be posted online, but I haven't been able to find one.
If anyone can help, it's much appreciated. My email address is toystorestudios@hotmail.com.
Thank you!!
#2
For example, if you think you'll need $20,000 to complete it, then tell your publisher you'll need $41,000. You're not sandbagging, really. Most people grossly underestimate budgets for R&D, prototypes and so on.
09/21/2007 (8:31 am)
... and whatever number you come up with, double it and add 1 to the second most significant digit.For example, if you think you'll need $20,000 to complete it, then tell your publisher you'll need $41,000. You're not sandbagging, really. Most people grossly underestimate budgets for R&D, prototypes and so on.
#3
09/21/2007 (9:18 am)
Thank you for the information! I guess bottom line is that I'm trying to not seem like a noob, even though I am one. But things are becoming more clear, thanks again for the info! 
#4
- Web hosting costs to promote your company and your game
- Server costs for hosting your game. This might be hosting a dedicated server for people to play on or getting a real fast host for providing downloads and updates to.
- Hardware and software development costs such as a server to run SVN, copies of any art programs you might need (if you are hiring artists instead of outsourcing the work), new PCs to demo on (even a good laptop to take with you to shows or to meetings), programming software, video editing software, new video cards so that you can leverage the latest graphics tech, maybe you need a mac or linux machine if you plan to port to those systems, etc.
- Travel costs to market and promote your game (ie. GDC, IGC, etc.)
- Post release support. How many weeks do you want to support the game after its release? This might hold a few options, the easiest being bug fixes if the game sells ok while providing updated content and releases if it takes off like a monster.
- Other marketing and promotion costs. Posters, schwag for your team, CDs or DVDs for publishers along with some other printed materials, getting a video made, etc.
Most importantly budget your time properly. Like Derek elluded to, man hours are very important and as such even if the work is volunteer based its still a resource that you need to effeciently use. Yes it is a guesstimate, but unless you have done the work before, always assume it will take longer than your first guess.
You can of course choose to omit or try to do stuff like this yourself with the resources that you or your team mates have already at their disposal (which is what many of us did when we started out here in the GG community). But regardless of whether you pay for this or do it yourself its always good to budget for it even as a worst case scenario. Its better to overplan and be under budget than it is to go over budget.
Logan
09/21/2007 (12:13 pm)
Don't forget to budget for things like:- Web hosting costs to promote your company and your game
- Server costs for hosting your game. This might be hosting a dedicated server for people to play on or getting a real fast host for providing downloads and updates to.
- Hardware and software development costs such as a server to run SVN, copies of any art programs you might need (if you are hiring artists instead of outsourcing the work), new PCs to demo on (even a good laptop to take with you to shows or to meetings), programming software, video editing software, new video cards so that you can leverage the latest graphics tech, maybe you need a mac or linux machine if you plan to port to those systems, etc.
- Travel costs to market and promote your game (ie. GDC, IGC, etc.)
- Post release support. How many weeks do you want to support the game after its release? This might hold a few options, the easiest being bug fixes if the game sells ok while providing updated content and releases if it takes off like a monster.
- Other marketing and promotion costs. Posters, schwag for your team, CDs or DVDs for publishers along with some other printed materials, getting a video made, etc.
Most importantly budget your time properly. Like Derek elluded to, man hours are very important and as such even if the work is volunteer based its still a resource that you need to effeciently use. Yes it is a guesstimate, but unless you have done the work before, always assume it will take longer than your first guess.
You can of course choose to omit or try to do stuff like this yourself with the resources that you or your team mates have already at their disposal (which is what many of us did when we started out here in the GG community). But regardless of whether you pay for this or do it yourself its always good to budget for it even as a worst case scenario. Its better to overplan and be under budget than it is to go over budget.
Logan
#5
great work on the rest of the mention tho.
09/21/2007 (1:33 pm)
Logan's products are immaculate or he would have emphasized on the Q/A part more.great work on the rest of the mention tho.
#6
In my experience (quite a few large products shipped), the amount of calendar time spend on coding equals the calendar time spend on QA afterwards. This goes from fixing compile bugs to integration testing and having everything neatly working.
That estimate almost never fails!! No matter how hard your project managers fail to realize this and/or budgets fail to reflect it too.
My advice would be similar to above - even more so.
Take the number your coders come up with, and multiply by 3.14 (yes - thats a rounded PI). And you have a good ballpark figure that will end up close to the end result. Having very experienced guys on the team makes the 3.14 shift slowly down to 2/2.5.
09/22/2007 (12:02 am)
QA is SO important, and coders typically are WAY to optimistic about the code quality they produce. My best bet is that most budgets fail due to not properly estimating and budgetting for QA period. Resulting in stress induced crunch time in the end.In my experience (quite a few large products shipped), the amount of calendar time spend on coding equals the calendar time spend on QA afterwards. This goes from fixing compile bugs to integration testing and having everything neatly working.
That estimate almost never fails!! No matter how hard your project managers fail to realize this and/or budgets fail to reflect it too.
My advice would be similar to above - even more so.
Take the number your coders come up with, and multiply by 3.14 (yes - thats a rounded PI). And you have a good ballpark figure that will end up close to the end result. Having very experienced guys on the team makes the 3.14 shift slowly down to 2/2.5.
Derek Smart
Seriously though, if you need an example of a budget in order to come up with your own budget, then you're already in trouble.
Putting together a game budget is trivial. You need to know a few basic things. Below is a short form list that is not exhaustive. I've seen budget sheets in more than a dozen pages.
1. Cost of an engine license (if any)
2. # of programmers, man hours to completion
3. # of artists, man hours to completion
4. # art assets. Outsourced or in house
5. # sound assets. Outsourced or in house
You might want to go over to igda.org or gamasutra.com and snoop around the articles there. You might find something similar to what you are looking for.