Cost of building a game

#1 I expect that there won't be a lot of useful answers to this question, as it was asked. The problem is there is too many right answers. For any reasonable number you could choose as a target budget, you could find supporting examples of projects that had a budget in that range. I would suggest you do one of two things:

1) Identify a list of pre-existing games that demonstrate the features, gameplay, visuals etc that at each level you need a price point for. Research the estimated budget used for those projects.

or

2) Generate a preliminary design document including art/media asset list, submit that here, and and get some opinions on what the various Indie teams in the community would estimate production costs at.

Ultimately the end answer to the question "How much will I spend?" is likely to be "How much do you have?". With that in mind, starting from a design document and asset list is the way to go if you need to come up with a workable budget proposal. You can't very well estimate costs if you dont know what and how much you will be buying, whether it be man hours, art assets, tools, et al.

Hope this helps.

By the way: are you related to Joseph Henry Pendleton?

#2 If you're a skilled programmer, the Quake3 engine is GPL'd, and more than enough for a basic first-perosn shooter if you don't want to spend money.

#3 I thought q3 you cant use it for commercial purposes, otherwise you pay big bucks.

#4 Nope. It is GPL'd. You just have to release your source code.

#5 Mathew's break down is accurate and useful.

His question about Joseph Henry Pendleton is quite random.

#6 Thank you all for the info. And I don't know if I am related to General Pendleton. I'd have to do some research.

#7 Http://www.virtualbattlespace.com/

A bit of money, but still gets the job done fairly well.