[game_edu] Allocation of effort in game creation

[Mark Baldwin]

Yes, I was vague in saying if I was talking about money or man-hours, since
they are not the same.   I would suggest looking at this from the point of
view of money since decisions between in-house and out of house and
purchasing a tool (example, developing or buying an engine) would be
equivalent.

 

I liked the information your presented.   It was fairly consistent with my
guesses except for management.   I question that figure.   I can't imagine
doing a major (or even minor) project with a 2% management cost.  

 

It would be good to get a better handle on these numbers.   A survey might
be valuable.   Someone mentioned credits as a source.   Another idea that
occurs to me is help wanted ads.   Would they reflect the average employee
mix, and therefore allow us to estimate resource needs?

 

Mark

 

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Mark Lewis Baldwin

Baldwin Consulting

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Golden, CO 80401

303-526-9169

303-408-3727 (m)

 <mailto:mark at baldwinconsulting.org> mark at baldwinconsulting.org

 <http://baldwinconsulting.org> http://baldwinconsulting.org

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From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf
Of Lewis Pulsipher
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 9:16 AM
To: game_edu at igda.org
Subject: [game_edu] Allocation of effort in game creation

 

Mark,

I agree that relative allocations of "effort" are informative.  But do you
mean percentage effort in monetary cost, or effort in man-hours (QA is much
cheaper per man-hour than programming...).

Following was in Gameinformer (sorry, I don't have the reference to the
specific issue, a couple years ago):

Rainbow Six Vegas. Budget breakdown:
30% - Programming
20% - Art
15% - Design
10% - Marketing
8% - Testing
7% - Sound
7% - Animation
2% - Management
1% - Other

11 months concepting, 8 months preproduction, 10 months production, 3 months
submission & release.

As this was a port to a console, IIRC, and was also part of an existing
series, the numbers are not typical of a brand new IP and original
production.

Lew Pulsipher

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