/biz/ - Business & Finance

And I don't mean phone game faggotry, but real game development for pc's and/or consoles.

>>27408176
Just use the anime girl Unity base and then churn out low quality meme games for £1 with the word hentai in it that people like me but for the lulz

Hentai sniper, hematite ww2, ww3, in space, redemption etx

about three fiddy

>>27408387
I'm talking about real games that will win awards and people will actually want to buy.

>>27408176
Depends on how many workers you need and how much you need to survive... and if your game will get traction.

Godspeed to the Indies. Do check out videos on youtube on this topic; there are a lot. Be careful though.

>>27408176
6 figures at the minimum. A bit less if you plan to use that starting money to put together a good trailer and then market and crowdfund the shit out of it.

>>27408462
You don't need any money, you need talent and a whole bunch of time.

>>27408462
Who doesnt want to buy "hentai ww3: panties warfare the game" for the engaging story and deep characters?

>>27408462
probably a few millions

>>27408176
good job in not trying to build the game yourself but by hiring people. coz that shit is fucking lame. so much work and time investment when you try to do anything alone or in a small team. shit ton of money required tho

>>27408248
Nowadays real money is made on phone games.

>>27408985
You need money to pay that talent and the more time it takes the more money it costs, newfriend.

3

>>27408462
>real games
>that will win awards
Pick one

>>27409122

You need around 2 or 5 years and some place to rent for free like parent basement, nothing more.

>>27408176
I do want to make indie games but am still learning how to code. My plan is to start with super small but addicting multiplayer games with maybe a patreon. If one of my ideas strikes gold then I'll commit to it.

Instead of forming a company with a boss to hire workers, many great indie games are instead passion projects of a couple of experienced devs that are on the same wavelength with an idea. It's easier to build a game when it's collaborative rather than ordered.

By the way there is too much competition so if you don't build a solid community or your ideas aren't original those 5 years spend on building a game will be wasted.

From what I heard there are many game dev forums where people look for others to work together on their ideas; no hiring necessary, just making friends and putting heads together on bigger projects. Cuts are then taken after the game comes out.

necessity is the mother of invention

>>27409594

> learn to code
> don't wanna be a indie game developer
Most successful games company started in 80's and 90's in a bedroom.

>>27409474
There's roughly one (1) game that was made that way which saw real success in the past decade, and only because he was already a successful professional music producer.

>>27408176
You need to make something that fits a specific niche, best if you can create a new one. Don't try to copy something popular, by that time it's too late. You only need enough money to live on and a decent computer.

As long as you have about 3 or 4 shares in GameStop you should be set. They may even help you distribute when they hit a 6 gorillion market cap

>>27408176
I'm coding a game myself with no money. But I guess doing the art would cost me. Depends the game and your skill set.

>>27410066

See too much competition, so make gamex for fun and sell them and build a community around it.

>>27408462
awards are tranny circlejerks anon

>>27410274
And what is your plan for sound design, music, UI?

Also, do you know anything about game design itself? If not, you could be the best coder in the world but you can't make a game, you can only make an engine.

>>27410066
If you're not Lucas Pope, why are you even trying to get into game development solo?

>>27408176
$0
Just start making shit in your spare time until you have something you can early access then build from there. Assuming you have a PC and internet connection already for other things of course

>>27408176
Maybe like a few hundred dollars if you DIY, but only a god at game dev like myself is able to do all the needed tasks.

>>27408462
>real games that will win awards
you mean AAA tranny shit? lmao kys

>>27410512
game design is a recent meme to sell books and worthless degrees. early games that defined genres and concepts didn't have a core "designer" and most game design apart from level and sound is an excel spreadsheet. over producing or over designing removes what most people consider "soul".

>>27411272
Your post is PEAK dunning-kruger. I'm sorry you'll never make it anon.

>>27410512
>And what is your plan for sound design, music
I'll probably hire someone to do it after I raise the money or I'll learn it myself
>UI
I've already done alot of the UI work and right now I'm using placeholders from open game art to make it pretty.
>Also, do you know anything about game design itself?
I've thought of my own game design and it seems like a good idea so far to me. If it doesn't turn out good I'm gonna test and modify until it's good. Game design as something you have to learn and practice is a meme.

>>27408462
>>27408176
Actual answer here:
Look at similar games on steam to what you are imagining. Look at the number of reviews. Multiply by 30 to get the approximate number of sales on steam.

There are also additional metrics you should use, like wishlists to total sales. I don't remember exactly what it is, but using wishlists I think the conversion is for every wishlist you can actually expect that many sales (this has nothing to do with actual wishlist conversions which are like 20%)

Based on your conservative estimates, see if your game could even potentially succeed based on competitor analysis with their steam reviews (forget about consoles for now). Calculate a burn rate. Make a design doc, and even a demo if you can. Not sure about the hiring part myself, but you have to do at least that much.

>>27411894
Also you NEED at least 10k to 50k wishlists on launch get featured by steam if you really want to "make it".

>>27411272
>dunning-kruger
i think you may be projecting, no where did I say that I game should be made by one person only that it doesn't need a designer. for example you would think that early rpgs would have a game designer but major design decisions where made democratically by a team. why do you think that literature on design is broad in scope or degrees focus on teaching the designer a bit of everything?

>>27411719
>Game design as something you have to learn and practice is a meme.
Everyone who has never done it believes this until they make a game that no one cares about playing for more than 15 minutes. The science of game design fundamentals is very real and very in-depth. You can skip it by simply copying the formula of another successful game and never need to learn how to build something like that yourself, but then your work is derivative and the only way it will take off is by having better production value than whatever its copping from, which for an indie is extremely unlikely.

If you really want to learn game design theory there are plenty of free resources online, it's not a "meme to sell shit" like this anon >>27411272 is claiming. Gamasutra, GDC, you don't need to spend a dime to learn it, but it absolutely does take time and research and practice.

Good luck. Unironically.

>>27412296
when you talk about game design what do you refer to?

>>27412296
My game is very similar to another popular indie game but also very different. It's a synthesis of other successful formulas.

>>27408176
>>27408248
>>27408462
>>27408688
>>27408879
Small business master race here.
>salaries
>overhead
>legal
You need to plan for them all. Clearly, location and skill level will greatly vary costs, as will the amount of dev time based on your IP and dev skill level. Those will determine your salaries and overhead. Your amount and type of IP will determine your legal bills. So, are you 1990 id or 2020 Blizzard? Are you 1990 id in Cleveland or 2020 Blizzard in San Fran? Do you have breakthrough IP or are you licensing Unreal Engine? Address those issues and come back and ask your infantile question.

>>27408176
None. You can make a good game by yourself in your spare time.

>>27411272
>>27412296
>>27410512
Not the person you're talking to, but I have multiple degrees (specifically have a useless game design degree) and I can tell you 100% that game design is the least important thing. The most important thing is visuals and marketing/elevator pitch that resonates with people's eyeballs on the open market.

Everything else is supplemental to that. It needs to LOOK like something someone wants, it doesn't have to actually be a good game. If the game matches up with what people expected (even if the average play time is only 4 hours) they will still give it good reviews, they will just think that wasn't the game for them (they won't feel lied to or ripped off believe it or not). If the game looked super engaging but wasn't super engaging, then that will lead to bad reviews.

That is all more important than actually being a good game. Get them with the look, sell the feel, deliver the feel (as long as it's professional it doesn't matter that their gameplay loop becomes monotonous 3 hours in, it really doesn't convert more sales). The ONLY time that this matters is if you actually have a brand to maintain, game after game, however the median number of games a developer will ever release is 1, so it doesn't matter.

>>27412475
Game design theory, which is, the actual construction of a game in terms of its mechanics. The rules that make it tick. It applies equally to all types of games regardless of medium or genre, although those influence some of the finer details. Card games, board games, video games, action games, RPGs, the underlying fundamentals apply to all of them. In a broad sense you could call it the "science of fun" and it has a lot to do with player psychology and logical models. And it is absolutely not a meme. You don't need a dedicated exclusive lead designer for every game, but every successful game had someone who knew game design, even if they were self-taught through trial and error, and even if they did that on top of some other facet of the development (coding, story writing, whatever).

>>27412717
Inevitably in doing this, unless you're very lucky, you're going to run into problems where game mechanics do not smoothly integrate between the different formulas you're trying to merge. When this happens it'll pay off to understand some aspects of game design theory while you tweak it to make it work.

The reason I want to nail this into your guys' heads is because the number one most common failing for indie games is that they put all this time and effort into coding, creating assets, learning the applications they use for animation and programming, etc. etc. and after years of busting their asses they have something playable as a test, but it just isn't that much fun to play and they get completely crushed and give up. Learning those skills is necessary to make a game, but learning game design theory is necessary to make a GOOD game.

>>27413559
Yeah you can successfully market a mediocre game and have some monetary success if you know how to sell people, sure. That's being a con artist, not a game dev. I'm sorry the soul was already crushed out of you.

I made it off of Link and I am now working as an indie game dev

AMA if you want. My game is in an underserved genre so I am hoping it'll have a chance at success

>>27408176
0$ if you know what you are doing. Picrelated was one of my fav games last year and it was made by 1 guy

>>27413665
what you're actually referring to is ludology, which is a recent field that what is currently considered game design will transform into. Does a writer need to be a psychologist to write a good book? No but to some extent they need to understand human interaction. Does a film need a psychologist in order to be made? This question doesn't need to be answered because we already agree that games don't need a game designer in order to be made and fun doesn't need to be dictated by one person on a team.

>>27413665
>And it is absolutely not a meme.
I have a game design degree and I can butt in and say that is definitely a meme.

> but every successful game had someone who knew game design
Okay this is quintessentially false. I don't see how you can blatantly lie like that when you know, and everyone knows that isn't true.

>>27414167
>that's being a con artist
No it's not, like I said, if you deliver what the people felt like you showed them, that is absolutely okay. If you don't deliver on the feel then you will get bad reviews. What none of that depends on however, is actually being a good game. Look at every tower/viewpoint climbing, open world exploration game where every quest is a variant of the same 3 quests. Now copy and paste for 20 games. Change the setting to change the feel (assassins' creed in France or Britain or Egypt, or Mad Max, or batman or whatever). These games are not innovative, they are outdated game design, everyone knows this, but what is most important is that people EXPECT this. It's not a con if people keep coming back, it's just the business of gamedev.

>>27409594
Software dev here, started out writing games using Mark Overmars Game Maker tool which has a fully-fledged programming language and scripting extensions, so the limit was mostly imagination, willpower and artistic capability. The problem is that anything that has a dramatic story or something like that, is that it requires LOTS of art, animation, etc. which is generally beyond the capability of one person so a team needs to be hired. Even if you make something with minimal assets, like Minecraft, you then have to come up with some creative gameplay aspects to keep things engaging (Notch started off building an ingenius voxel-based 3D world generator, then added the ability to explore, etc). So really you have to have a strong idea of what you are going to build and how to execute that, not just the vague notion of "make an indie game"

>>27408176
$20 to buy a license for GM6 Pro and $400 for Macromedia Fireworks to make your sprites, you can use Audacity to make your music and then $9 a month for a site on Geocities to look more professional than scrubs who just put their stuff on the forums.

>>27414981
also $40 for the Game Maker's Apprentice with all the jazz you need to get started!

>>27408462
10+ million and backup investors if you're forced to start over

>>27411894
>>27413559
>>27414698
keep posting weary coding waifus, anon

>>27414698
>>27413559
Anon forgive me for not buying your credentials when you post cringe anime reaction images and are using triple-A video game titles that any normie would know for examples when we're talking about indie games.

>>27410066
Stardew.

>>27409013
tell me more.

>>27414167
>>27414698
>>27415273
There is an exception to what I said though when it comes to design mattering and making money and that's dark patterns (the thing everyone hates, notice the downvotes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4

>>27415305
You were saying that delivering bad game design was a con. I was simply saying that it clearly isn't because AAA studios do that ALL THE TIME and yet people come back. By highlighting that I was showing that delivering on the expectation is paramount, so much so that it's all AAA does because they know it's the most important thing.

>>27408985
>You don't need any money
you need money to buy good talent you fucking brainlet

kojima is not free

>>27415470
You're right, I was exaggerating by saying only one, Stardew is a great example of a successful derivative genre clone made by one person. There aren't that many of them, though. It's a hail mary that requires you to have a LOT of different skills if you have absolutely zero money to bring other talent in.

>>27415835
If you don't have it, go flip burgers. Kojima doesn't need money.

>>27415828
When we say "bad design" there are relative levels. Are games like Assassin's Creed somewhat outdated and unexciting in terms of design in certain places? Absolutely. But they're not outright bad if you look at what amateurs put out by comparison, they're simply mediocre, and they have the production value to counteract that. Not every game needs amazing mechanical design, but it needs to have SOMETHING going for it, and indie games don't have the funds for professional voice actors, impressive graphics and animation, large-scale marketing and advertising campaigns etc. So not only can they not compensate for a mediocre design, but if they can't even reach that level they have no hope, and a complete amateur making their first game can struggle to even reach that level if they aren't doing their research.

That's my real point.

>>27408462
~ $135.000.000 and you will get trashed by s o y s because of bugs