After reading posts after posts and buying game after game, i am thinking to myself, why not come up with a game? But is it that easy? Sure i can outsource and spend money. But i want to take a different approach. I want to assemble a team from different parts from the world working on a common goal - to make simple yet fun iDevice games. Sounds far-fetched. Well, i figure i might as well try otherwise i will always wonder what if... The Team - 1. A project manager (to keep everyone on schedule and outline of game) 2. 1-2 programmers (for coding purposes) 3. A sound designer (for musical reasons) 4. A graphics designer (to bring the game visually alive) 5. A marketing guy (to bring the game to the masses) As long as you WANT to do this and have the passion, anyone is welcome. I know there are people who want to work alone and like to say, you know what? I did this project on my own. But there is no shame in asking for help and getting the right people to do the job and that's what i am doing... So are the guys going to do this for free? Hell, no! I wouldn't... But i propose a share of the profits - an equal amount (after Apple's profit). In that way, we know we are working hard towards a paycheck. Coz we all need to rely on each other to make it work. So what do you say guys? Would you like to make something happen today? Message me here or PM me. Either way... Let's make it work.
it's a nice and noble thought, but you'll quickly learn it's difficult to blow the doors open and say "we got a war to win gents.. who's with me?" This is the part where you have to present something to tempt those who would read your post, and it needs to have some value. Who are you, what's your background, what differentiates you from the countless other folks who could possibly build "the next big thing?" Hopes and dreams don't get too far on their own, but showing off a pertinent resume, even some visual samples of what you want to do (or to demonstrate what you are already capable of) will go a long way to getting some attention and sparking some beginnings of conversation. So, what have you got? __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com - help us on reddit Puzzling has Evolved - Get 180 for FREE until 2011! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com Win ANY app you want, daily!
i have a dream.. ha ha But seriously.. i get where you are coming from. And for those who reply, i will make the necessary introductions. A lil about myself if that i WAS in the forefront of technology for the past 3 years and now i prefer to be in the dungeons working and making things happen. Being in the thick of new ideas has always brought me joy and i feel there is no such thing as too many cooks spoiling the broth. I have gotten a few replies so i will be setting up a conference call with people once the positions are filled and we can start talking. It all starts with a friendly HELLO and we will take it from there.
the only time there's too many cooks in the kitchen is when profits are being split evenly...and the programmers are doing like 90% of the work. Not saying that's your situation but I've had that happen to me before. Maybe someone else had a better experience where that situation worked out.
I am sure it's been a similar situation before, where people join up remotely from all over the place. to varying degrees of success, for all manner of projects - but it's absolutely been magnified in the case of iPhone developments (as there's been such a surge of hobbyist and indie development the past couple of years). So many times I have heard the same tragic story, where Group X will get some degree of the way through development before the wheels came off the wagon (pretty much, the programmer decided it was no longer interesting to them) And this isn't to sound like "ohhh the programmers are the bad guys," it's more like the people actually leading the projects have no idea exactly how much they are biting off and what amount of work to expect across the board (and to echo what 99c_gamer said, a lot of the time the bulk of the work will land on the coders' shoulders) My advice, particularly if you are putting together a group of folks who've not collaborated before (and especially if there's no money to start with) would be to work on something small together, unambitious, to learn the process/pipeline and gauge your chemistry together. You'll absolutely expose the flaws in the system and learn what is possible, who is good at what, and from there you'll be able to plan for bigger and better projects. You may not wind up with a wonderful end result out of that 1st project, but you'll absolutely be primed and prepared to start fresh on something bigger with a much better idea of what to expect. Certainly there's all sorts of different philosophies of how to go about this, I am only presenting one, but based on what I know and have experienced (1st hand on a small level, and likewise at much larger companies) and moreover what I have heard echoed many times by countless others in this particular scene, it's a very logical way to go forward. Good luck! __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com - help us on reddit Puzzling has Evolved - Get 180 for FREE until 2011! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com Win ANY app you want, daily!
1 Actually, if you get the artwork done and audio youreally need only 1 programmer that is what I was told by a very top company head.
Really? I think for iphone games it's the other way around. What matters the most is the art (there are lot of mediocre to bad games with great art that are a success). Great games with bad art are much less likely to succeed. In my case I can tell you that the split between art and code was easily 70/30 if not more skew towards art (and I should know since I did both and was equally unexperienced at both as well). In any case it's hard to determine the exact split between artists and coders so usually 50/50 is chosen. The sound guy getting an equal share though I find questionable, unless it's a music game. I don't know about you guys, but I don't think I'd spend over 10% of my whole game budget on sound. I'd love to know what percentage you guys allocate to that.
artist/programmer contribution are both important it can lean one way or the other depending on game type. I've mainly worked on action games which tend to be heavy on the programming side. I have another game on the backburner that's sort of a cut the rope style game involving physics. A 1 screen game that the artist finished up in about a week and it looks good but I probably need another 2 months to finish the coding, level design, difficulty progression, game center achievements, etc.
This has happened in other threads. The Programmers asked for 90% of the profits, the graphic designers wanted 70, then the musicians asked for 30% and the management wanted half. Nobody will work for profit sharing. Everyone has their own ideas they would make but they don't have the money. More importantly, what will you bring to the table? Besides impossible deadlines and a lack of the app development process (and don't think playing lots of games gives you any experience).
helping each other out is nice but at the time there is money sharing involved you get into alot of trouble. how do you share if you can't track the work at all.. the only real solution is to pay your team and be done with it.. that way you don't have trouble at the end when you try to split up 50$ by 8 people who then start to argue who did what and spend more time than the others etc. one should understand ig you get people who work for shares you are most likely get amateurs anyway.. so theese young unexperienced entities will start an ugly kindergarten fight when there is payout.. instead i would suggest go get a summerjob.. or if you have a job split a small amount of it off to your appdev fund.. when you got around 2-3k saved up you can hire a programmer and an artist to create a small game for you. very uncomplicated and straight forward.. any yes its your risk... but if you beleive so much into your idea what can go wrong..
You think 2 to 3 k will do the quality job like Angry Birds? Secondly, how do you find a good all knowing programmer without hiring crap pretending to be one? If any studios and programmers would like to actually help with this subject dilemma for once?
no, i said a small game.. something everyone should start with .. makes no sense to start with something as complex as a physics games, balancing alone can takes months to get stuff right.. so if you hire somehow you either know him or not.. if you don't know him start small.. make a small project so you see how you guys work together and get something done.. with that experience you can judge alot better how bigger more complex projects will cost and work out.. for something like angry birds i would estimate at least a medium sized 5 digit sum. but that makes no sense if you outsource.. because you don't know how things will work out.. rather keep it small and make a generic puzzle game like a mtch3 game and add your own twist to it.. but keep it small and most importantly get it finished.. at the end you can always check the track record of the guys you want to hire and that should give you a rough estimate what to expect.. i myself am as honest as possible about all things and even turned down offers because they are too risky.. at the end the most important thing for an freelancer is to have a happy customer at the end of production.. makes no sense to rush into the uber project that was not possible to finish from the get go.
that's what will always happen most of the time (at least, by projects started on popular forums like this one). People see all the excitement and potential and get inspired "ohh I want a piece too" and they think they will somehow bypass all the problems that so many others have succumbed too. In reality it really is a horrible way to get into development, ill-fated, unless you have more than a couple of people who've been down the road already (otherwise, as mentioned, enough money to just hire services up-front). Otherwise, the best attitude is to treat it like a hobby/experiment and have no expectations that the game will actually get finished, much less make any actual money. At this point the enthusiasm starts to drain away however (but, this is the most realistic!) This scene is too big and too crowded and full of people with half-realized ideas (or understanding of what it means to try and implement them), and without sounding too jaded, it honestly is what has led to the huge mess we have now (too many devs/projects clamoring for attention, slipping and falling all over one another). I don't mean to paint a nasty picture, again this kind of process can work but it does need a lot of trial and error and really a mature point of view/leveraging of expectations (again, if the several thousands of dollars necessary aren't handy). The gold rush was over a couple of years ago, and the glory days of the little no-name indie developers on iOS are drying up quickly. To be extremely sobering, I'll be blunt - if you want a very small (but clean) game that can be competitive, expect to pay a competent programmer for at least 2 months of work (before testing/refinements) full-time. If he is not an amateur, he will probably expect around $100/hr. This is BEFORE hiring an artist/sound designer/etc. Do the math - this is the reality. __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com - help us on reddit Puzzling has Evolved - Get 180 for FREE until 2011! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com Win ANY app you want, daily!
Well 100$ an hour? Who do you hire john carmack personaly? Fulltime that would mean 100$x8hours x 20days = 16,000$ ??? What programmer earns that much in a month? He wont be in game developement with such prices. Meight be a top cia database programmer but definatly not games. Thats ridiculous. A normal programmer in germany who is in a good position ears around 3-4k before tax and thoose are the good ones. They can easily earn 50% more outside of game dev. But 16k for a programmer a month.. I would like to know where to apply.
So true. Plus you should never pay hourly rates, how the hell do you actually verify he's REALLY working full steam in that hour? There are many perverse incentives to stretch development (very bad for you!). You should make the programmer do a bid on the whole finished project (bug fixing included) like was suggested in the outsourcing thread. That way you'll know he'll try to finish as soon as possible and that he will deliver a good product (or he doesn't get paid).
I'm not sure if you guys realize just how much money is out there chasing this "goldmine". $100/hr is pretty standard rate for good, experienced iOS programmers. Compared to programmers with dual disciplines (finance/software for example), that is still a somewhat low rate. A consultant at $2k/day working on accounting software for a bank or hedge fund is not unusual. Even vanilla programmers (no knowledge of what a "bond" means) can command more than $100/hr. I didn't realize just how much money is out there chasing iOS apps until I went to a few meetups in NYC. Of the 100 people or so I've seen at these meetups, there were entrepreneurs, investors, marketers, company reps, lawyers, doctors, even consumers. Not too many programmers, but everyone was trying to hire one. Start selling shovels instead of mining the gold, IMO.
Yeah, Mr. Blue is right. I made half of what I make with my annual salary (Senior .NET dev) doing freelance iOS development (after hours) this year for clients. I charge $85 an hour, but I'm in a market with a lower cost of living. The downside is that doing games for yourself is a lot more fun! Life is about tradeoffs, I guess.
it's true. $100/hour is still not considered "high end" and of course you could find people willing to do it for much much less but.. well, you will always get what you pay for. this is why I stress (and others have said) it is good to start small and try to build something within a reasonable timeframe and a low overall overhead, particularly when working with less-experienced (and costly) developers. It's really not worthwhile to approach this as a moneymaking venture if you don't have realistic expectations (or don't really mind burning tons of time and money) And yes, building something small will produce something that is not likely very attention-grabbing, and therefore won't make much money (hell, you will have a hard time giving it out for free nowadays!) __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com - help us on reddit Puzzling has Evolved - Get 180 for FREE until 2011! - Contest FreeAppTracker.com Win ANY app you want, daily!
