Where could 500K + take me?
by Joshua Scott · in Jobs · 12/14/2007 (2:19 am) · 25 replies
So lets say I had funding of about 500k - a million. Where could that get me as far as a mmorpg game? Something along WOW, EQ, etc but totally different, something with a lot of AI, owning castles/houses, playing 1-3 characters at once... but again, it don't have to be a mmo game right off the back, maybe a single player game that will lead to mmo.
So lets say the game gets designed and published, and we get about 100k people playing (just random number), what the possible profits off of it? What kind of staffing would one need to make it a serious game?
I don't want to go into details as far as the money, but had a guy come to me that wanting to invest into something. He owns 4 hotels in the area (yeah he across seas but he is here now). Just going to leave it at that.
Just wandering what the profits could be off a game. So if we had a million players... what could it be then?
Just trying to get some ideas to him to see if he would bait.
So lets say the game gets designed and published, and we get about 100k people playing (just random number), what the possible profits off of it? What kind of staffing would one need to make it a serious game?
I don't want to go into details as far as the money, but had a guy come to me that wanting to invest into something. He owns 4 hotels in the area (yeah he across seas but he is here now). Just going to leave it at that.
Just wandering what the profits could be off a game. So if we had a million players... what could it be then?
Just trying to get some ideas to him to see if he would bait.
#23
People in the industry reported to me that Visual Studio Express is actually usable for any purpose,
so the programmer's core tools can be free, not merely cheap. Knock a few bucks off the once-off cost.
Source code and asset management (version control, protecting you from your own stupid self :) can
also be free if you are willing to learn to set up SVN. I've been basically told it's either Perforce or Subversion.
Perforce is free if the team is just a couple of guys, by the way. It's also easier than Subversion.
Does it have to be 3D Studio or Maya? Not really. There are good/great tools at lower costs. The boss
really likes Modo, and I'm having a distance love-affair with XSI products (I'm a programmer, not an
artist!). You can get fancy-schmancy Mental Ray stuff in XSI, whatever that means :)
Server costs: Let's assume one on the team is an expert at mail/file servers (luckily, I am). Now find
a cheap VPS - virtual private server. I rent from a Swedish company, paying around 150 SEK per month.
This gives me a system good enough to run small volumes of mail (think a handful of two-person companies).
The same server also acts as a webserver. It can handle a little traffic, and the bandwidth allotment per
month is generous (250GB).
Now to find cheap tools for musicians :)
04/07/2008 (2:53 am)
Saving money, huh? That's my current specialty! Or, at least that's what I'm trying to make it :)People in the industry reported to me that Visual Studio Express is actually usable for any purpose,
so the programmer's core tools can be free, not merely cheap. Knock a few bucks off the once-off cost.
Source code and asset management (version control, protecting you from your own stupid self :) can
also be free if you are willing to learn to set up SVN. I've been basically told it's either Perforce or Subversion.
Perforce is free if the team is just a couple of guys, by the way. It's also easier than Subversion.
Does it have to be 3D Studio or Maya? Not really. There are good/great tools at lower costs. The boss
really likes Modo, and I'm having a distance love-affair with XSI products (I'm a programmer, not an
artist!). You can get fancy-schmancy Mental Ray stuff in XSI, whatever that means :)
Server costs: Let's assume one on the team is an expert at mail/file servers (luckily, I am). Now find
a cheap VPS - virtual private server. I rent from a Swedish company, paying around 150 SEK per month.
This gives me a system good enough to run small volumes of mail (think a handful of two-person companies).
The same server also acts as a webserver. It can handle a little traffic, and the bandwidth allotment per
month is generous (250GB).
Now to find cheap tools for musicians :)
#24
www.kaoswar.com/media.php
In short, here is the gameplan:
Quit your job, find volunteer-entrepreneurs for staff, live on rice and beans in a basement, and work a lot.
04/07/2008 (9:25 am)
If you haven't seen this before, check out the "Creating Kaos" video series. Its about a guys dream of making "the best" MMORP from scratch with no funding at all ( to start out with ). In fact, watch the series, and maybe even send him some emails.www.kaoswar.com/media.php
In short, here is the gameplan:
Quit your job, find volunteer-entrepreneurs for staff, live on rice and beans in a basement, and work a lot.
Torque Owner Teromous
That really is not all that different. It's just a re-hash of the same concepts that are being pushed back into mmo's. Shoot, for half a million you could probably weasel UO out of EA's arms, have your AI along with player owned castles and save yourself some development time :D (sarcasm)
I'd say that if you really want to make an mmo (like everyone else in the world) make a working prototype first.