How much should I pay?

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Dylan_Bain
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How much should I pay?

#1 Post by Dylan_Bain »

Okay, so first I would like to just make something clear- I am not currently looking for a programmer. However, for future reference, my question is how much would I be expected to pay someone to code a medium-large sized game in Unity or another good 3d engine? And I mean for a whole project, not per month. I know it won't be cheap, but please try and be as honest as you can and feel free to post how much you would charge.
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Re: How much should I pay?

#2 Post by firecat »

well this is how it goes so far (not accelerate since you never give a price or such) :

Unity persion but not know everything would cost $500

Unity expert but no experience in C++ would cost $1000

advantage: you know that you have someone who can help with unity related problems and small C++ related problems

disadvantage: you wont be able to do unique codes or get help on game related problems.

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someone who knows C++ but not unity: $500 or $2000 or percentage of your game income (example: 10%)

someone who knows C++ and unity: $3000 or percentage of your game income (example: 20%)

advantage: you get whatever you want and he/she will never complain.

disadvantage: if you lose money to pay him/her you are left with code that someone might never understand.

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the ace developer (aka: the guy who can do art and code.)

over $10,000

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remember this is not real numbers since you never give me the what work is needed but this should explain what people pay. one last thing if you planning to use crowdfunding to support your game, dont do it since you have no fanbase to alert and you have no proof game making a game. ideas are worth nothing without showing people that you can do something to even push that idea into the next stage.
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Re: How much should I pay?

#3 Post by Alera »

Medium-large sized 3D game? It's probably going to cost a fortune. It doesn't have to, but I think it should. I follow a lot of indie developers, veteran coders, spending years making a single small game. And I'm not saying that as a criticism, I think it's absolutely reasonable. Because coding isn't easy. There's a reason why big companies have a coding team of 50 and an art team of 5. I look at our coder for my group project, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't do anything, he lives code, 4-5 months later- we have a tiny-tiny game, not even a full thing, but it's all his hard work. We're all artists and designers around him and we can't help. He's the most precious member of our team. Without him, there's no game.

So I think if you're hiring a coder and you expect them to work on a large project that is most likely going to take a long time to produce, you should be ready to pay them a decent salary. Something they could live off comfortably.

So I would say, approach a developer you may wish to hire and speak to them personally. It would be different for everyone and it would depend on what exactly you want.


I know this isn't a decent answer to the question but I just wanted to put that out there. Coders are precious. Everyone is precious \O/
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Re: How much should I pay?

#4 Post by MorchellaGames »

Sorry to contradict another user when I'm a new user myself, but as a programmer, I feel the need to attempt to correctly answer this question!

The truth is your question is very difficult to answer without more information.
The problem in your question lies in the definition of a "medium-large-sized project".
I could talk at lengths about quantifying and planning a project, so it would be simpler if you supplied an example of what you consider a project of that size.

Take your example and try to find the credits for the game.
Look up how many people worked on engineering/programming.
See if you can find out how long the project took.
Try to find out which engine was used.

For an industrialized country, the salary range of a full-time programmer starts around 35-40k$ a year for someone out of school, depending on the diploma (this can be significantly lower in other parts of the world).
You can do some math from here.

Then, there are all the other factors: do you have to write an engine, full-time workers charge less than freelancers, can you re-use a bunch of already written modules, do you only need someone part-time, etc.
The list of factors can be pretty long.

In a hypothetical situation where someone willing to do business asks me how much it would cost for a project engineering-wise, I would
A) Not give a number and ask a LOT of questions to scope the project first, then do a proper analysis and add a fudge factor.
B) If I had to give a number, I would say 3-5 programmers full-time for a small-medium project, 250 000$ to 500 000$ for a 1 to 2 year project and I'm being conservative for certain things.

I think 1000$-3000$ is very low, unless it's a REALLY simple project and you have a REALLY great deal.

But! Since I work in the games industry, my definition of medium-large may not be the same as yours!
Feel free to ask more questions!

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