Realistic costs for outsourcing development (FPS, 3 levels, high fidelity)

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Per title, just wondering if anyone could advise?

The premise (whether you believe it or not!)
I’ve got a great idea for a game, I’m certain it would be a big hit.

Problem:

I work full time, pretty full on. Little time to myself and my expertise is not in game development. Also I might have a vivid imagination but art is not my strong point.

Spec:

Concept of game is pretty simple (in terms of mechanics). I’ve puttered around a small bit and have a very basic working model up (terribly made I’m sure!). I need to get the mechanic smooth, and then have around 3 levels produced to a high standard. They are small levels so would like to be able to run well whilst looking good due to this. If I can get VR…even better…

My contribution:

I’ll do everything except making the game. I need to find people to get the art together, build the level (with multiplayer) and to make it run okay.

What is this realistically going to cost me?

2

For a vertical slice of a game (one finished small level with quality art assets, maybe 10 minutes of content), probably 4 people and 3 months worth of time at $35 an hour. So around $67,000. And for that price, VR and multiplayer probably wouldn’t make the cut.

3

3 months may be an underestimate, to be fair, but much of that depends on content.

4

Definitely, the more out of the box the game is, the more work it will be. And depending on the scale and how many unique parts are involved. A standard platformer, action rpg, or FPS should be possible.

5

One single “high fidelity” FPS level can take months to optimize, multiple artists/programmers working on it.
Meanwhile you get something that runs as slow as Ark.

6

Get a prototype done first. You will get a good indicator of whether to proceed with full game, once a prototype done (or even half-done).

7

I’d assume this is the prototype.

I have to admit, I’m also very wary of someone who admits they have no development experience describing a concept as ‘simple’.

8

Thanks all for your time in replying. Probably should have clarified my request further to make it clearer. My bad!

When I say a small map I mean pretty ■■■■ small! Roughly 50mx50m. There is a requirement for a high fidelity background (could even be static if it looked cool). The actual in game props (?) are small and number around 20 (Again would like them to look good). Then I would need the weapons (3 models needed).

I’ve managed to get as far so far as making it using default grey textures and get the basic gameplay working. But I’m sure I’ve done a hash job. So I would need someone to go over it, make it multiplayer and give it textures/looks. I’ve got an old pc (i5 4th gen with 8gb ram, gtx 1050) and it runs okay at the moment, but would be afraid of it running like a dog once I add high textures. Is this inevitable even on a small environment?

I’ve got a budget of around 40k euros to contribute with 2.5k a month savings to help along the way. The mechanics are the same over each maps, so hopefully once one map is thrashed out the model can be used in different “environments”?

Is there a way to stagger the costs? If I get the maps roughly built with geometry etc, could I then hand over to an artist to get them to look lovely (happy to give fairly free artistic reign). Then maybe get someone to do sounds and do model the weapons? Does anyone have any links/resources on how I could best align it up (eg like a premade gantt chart or something?)

10

Not really, at a scale as small as he is talking replication is easy to implement.