Numbers posts are always something interesting to read. So here's my latest one - even more interesting because game haven't shipped yet (it will tomorrow, if everything goes well [fingers crossed ]) http://eyecog.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:qnumbers-postq-production&catid=38:devblog&Itemid=56 Also, if anyone has interesting "numbers post" links please do share!
hi well you could have posted in the one that was just hiding on the second page.. i know second page hard to find http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=102323 as for your numbers.. since you say you develope AAA games i find it more than odd that you do not count your own time into the calculations, especialy since you do know what you earn per hour as a programmer. if you developed on the game for more than a half year in your free time counting that time and adding a number to it will probably blow up your 500$ game to somewhat alot more expensive. counting hours is important if you want to really be able to communicate the cost of creating your product without devalue your work time. if you put 10 pros into a room and they create a game without being paid the developement cost are not zero.. (imho)
My search skills have failed me - I beg your forgiveness, Master See, the thing is even if I wasn't implementing Frosties I would be implementing something else, because I code for fun in my spare time anyway. This is my hobby. That's the advantage of having a regular job that pays your bills. If I was to pay for every hour I've spent on this project I sure wouldn't be taking my sweet time doing it!
No, your time is not free, not when you want to talk about how much it costed to create your game. If you don't want to put $ number... at least the number of hours or days. JC
Point taken. My time _is_ a cost of a kind - it's a resource necessary to make a project like an iOS game happen. And even though this resource is free for me there are very limited quantities of it available at one time. Looking from this perspective I should edit mentioned blog post to say "$500-and-shitloads-of-my-spare-time game" I'll edit it as soon as I manage to approximate number of hours I've spend on making Frosties.
Eye Cog, I get you don't worry. I think your post is aimed at developers like myself. I too learn IOS development as a hobby. I do it when the kids are in bed and stay up quite late because of this. I truly enjoy learning development and find it hard to put a cost beside it. If I wasn't developing, in all honesty I'd probably be playing Call of Duty or something. I think this is why a 1 man show like Eye Cog doesn't see this time as a cost. He has no deadlines to meet and does this when he can fit it in. Am I on the right track Eye Cog? I do see the point of the veterans here. If you are going to price something out you need to include your time too. The issue with me is since I'm still learning, where does my time begin? Since I'm doing this as a hobby and enjoying it so much, how much of it do I count as work and which do I count as personal time?
It's just like you had a camera in my apartment That's exactly what I do - kids in bed, staying late and gaming as alternative. And like usually with hobby I spend too much time on it That's exactly my point - I do it above all for fun! And I can imagine this pissing off people that do this for living since pests like me take their money (in a sense since I'm earning next to nothing ) but look on the bright side - game like Frosties could easily be done by full-time dev, from prototype to release, in about 6 weeks - I was "playing" with it in my spare time for like 9 months (having longer and shorter breaks) and got really tired with it at the end.
While I completely understand the "I'm free!" development time, once you throw the numbers around publicly, you CAN'T consider yourself free - because you are attempting to show what it cost to make the game. I would say, consider yourself paid lowball at $30-40/hour and use that figure. It would probably amount to 20 average hours a week-give or take for 36 weeks. That only comes out to around $1000 for your time. It would make the whole thing more 'reasonable' for costs.
It's exactly how much it costed me. $500 plus my time - I've already agreed that indeed I need to count time I've spend as cost of development. But at no point I intend to price my time. That's the message I sent - if you have a regular job, you are a programmer, and can spare $500 on assets, then you CAN make a game for iOS. This sums up to $21600 (with $30/h). This is shitloads of money where I live - I could get experienced programmer work full time for 6 months for it, 4 months if I was to pay all taxes for him. So you can see why I don't put $ next to my hours - now that would be misleading!
I'm going to have to side with Mr.Ugly on this one. Without the hours or time cost of your own work, it's more like a blog post of 'How much I spent on contractors to help make my game'. Congrats on finishing your game, it's certainly a time consuming task.
yeah, I agree - I need to add hours spend to that post. On it as soon as I have time No one's reading it anyways Thanks a lot!
Hahah. I was having multiple thoughts at the same time and should have proof read it. lol. Thanks mr ugly for pointing that out. Anyway, my point is Even if you lowball it, you'll need to assign some kind of value to your time or it is all meaningless (like my previous numbers - hahaha).
Like I've already said before, I can't put numbers next to my hours. Even lowball of $30 is way more than a programmer earns where I live. Trying to translate my time to money is pointless since it could be misleading for people living anywhere else. But I did update my post to include time spend estimate . It's here http://bit.ly/npi4BT. If you don't have time to spare here's the number: 270. A lot? Not a lot? Please share your hours
10 months (10x22 days), 6 people full time, 9 hours of actual work/day : 11880 hours total. 1980 h/man. That would make it an expensive game I guess, if we were all paid properly. But I think it's hugely above the average iOS game. The scope was a bit out of control...
