Costs
====
1. Scales with number of developers
1. Salary
1. Taxes
1. Benefits
1. Computers
1. Software
1. Overhead (Power, HR, furniture, phone, ...)
1. Other costs
1. Rent
1. Legal
1. Servers
1. Web site
1. Conferences & Marketing
Budget Estimation
====
1. Rule of thumb: $10-15k per developer/month
1. = ~$200k per developer per year
1. Includes all per-developer costs
1. Average: some will exceed this, some will be under
1. Indie (2-12 people, a few months to a couple of years)
1. Often skimp
1. Less experience = cheaper
1. Contract significantly cheaper than employee
* Though reqires management for quality, consistency, etc.
1. Hire for only part of the project term
1. Skimp on other costs (free software, etc.)
1. [Sample Budget Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d5rCjsHlqgelB1w5JS5HTuiOnHtL-kQI5Sf-aqLO0R4)
1. Copy of one originally part of a blog post by Chris Oltyan of (now defunct) Zee Gee Games
1. 1 producer, 3 programmers, 2 artists, 2 art contractors, 3 testers
1. 1 year = about $645k cost
1. [Gamasutra Article on Budgets](https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131492/budgeting_and_scheduling_your_game.php)
1. 1 producer, 1 business manager, 2 programmers, 2 designers, 3 artists
1. 2 years = about $1.1M cost
1. Ballpark
1. 3 people / 3 months: ~$100k
1. 10 people / 12 months: ~1M
1. AAA (300-700 people, 3-5 years)
1. $200k/dev/year for 5 years = approximately $1M per dev
1. Publically available numbers for GTA-V
1. [Cost $265M](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop)
1. Team size:
1. [Dev team >1000](http://www.gamechup.com/gta-5-dev-team-size-more-than-1000-manpower-dependent-on-game-detail/)
1. MobyGames [Programmer, Developer, Artist, Animator](https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/grand-theft-auto-v/credits): 398, if 3 years, would estimate $239M
1. $60/game, assume $40 to studio
1. Must sell 6-7M. Steamspy ~ 6.5M
* PC only, [total sales $1B+](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/28/gta-5-sales-hit-1-billion.aspx)
1. Others
1. Civ V [Team size 87](https://www.mobygames.com/game/sid-meiers-civilization-v)
1. COD/BO2 [Team size 231](https://www.mobygames.com/game/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii)
1. Ballpark $200-500M
Resources
===
1. [Moby Games](https://www.mobygames.com/)
* Game credits give an estimate of team size
1. [SteamSpy](https://steamspy.com/)
* Used to have relatively good Steam usage numbers, not as good since Steam changed their data