[game_edu] Resource division for games

[Tom Toynton]

Everything that has been said so far is correct. There is a LOT of variance
in the industry for allocation of resources during game production. There
are also a lot of variables to consider. I would include:

 - The unique makeup of the studio
 - - Each studio has its own individualized structure of resources, just
like any business
 - - Often those resources are based on level of experience and capability
of the individuals involved. It might only take 2 artists at studio A to do
the job of 5 artists at studio B.
 - The genre and premise of the game (i.e. the unique asset and dev needs of
the project - a great example here is the localization needs of a project -
or what if you are making a sound-based rhythm game?)
 - The production phase the game is in (e.g. more design & art in the
beginning / less design & art and more QA at the end)
 - The use of middleware that negates the need for more resources (usually
programming, but it can be other areas as well) for specific tasks

And as mentioned you also have to take into consideration outsourcing, which
can skew the numbers even more in either direction. A really great
contractor may be a one-man show, or a full production house of people might
work as a team to get the job done quickly when internally only a few people
would normally have been assigned to the task.

And finally, you have to consider all of the crossover work that is done in
today's game teams. There are many technical artists who are actually doing
programming work, and even some programmers who do traditional art pipeline
tasks, and producers and QA also crossover into other areas. And again, each
studio is different depending on all of the factors listed above. 

I truly don't believe you can generalize the industry's use of resources
into numbers. If you want to talk a specific type of game (not just a genre)
and platform and average some common resources into percentages, that might
work, but the industry as a whole is too fluid and diversified for broad
generalization.

Cheers,

Tom Toynton
  Assistant Professor of 
    Game Development - Bloomfield College
  Coordinator/Secretary
    IGDA Northern New Jersey Chapter

"The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to
that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no
deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart." ~ Einstein


-----Original Message-----
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 10:06:39 -0700
From: "Mark Baldwin" <mark at baldwinconsulting.org>
Subject: [game_edu] Resource division for games
To: "'IGDA Game Education Listserv'" <game_edu at igda.org>
Message-ID: <024101c987b4$1d2e81e0$578b85a0$@org>
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I would like to diverge here into a discussion of what the typical resource
division (in time or money) is to create a typical A commercial game.
Below are the rough numbers I use.   I'd like to hear some opinions on this.

Management

10%

Design

20%

Art and Sound

40%

Programming

25%

Q/A

5%
 
Mark