Hey everyone, me and my fellow TA member, LostLegend, are looking for people to help us with a project we are working on, we have been coming up with all the gameplay mechanics, features and story for the game, we just require a coder, an artist and a musician to help make it for us We require the artist to be able to produce 2D and 3D work, We would give anyone who is involved a good percentage of the profits. To inquire for more info simply PM Aussie2 or LostLegend We will give anyone who helps a small up front payment IF we aquire investment, so stay tuned for that!
"I was the one contacting apalon and they said that it would take 10,000 man hours" Maybe you should try to make an simpler app first?
That is what apalon said but that is a truly ridiculous estimation, especially considering that we Didnt release much info about the game, to fully decide that they would have needed to know - Number of missions, estimated length of game, content. Things like that, we did not release too much info to them about this so they were probably just throwing a random guess out there. 10,000 man hours would be years! So I woudnt listen to apalon's prediction
417 days is 10,000 hours 833 working days is 10,000 man hours. So no, the game isn't going to be THAT large.
Exactly, if the game was that big, you would have to work on it 24/7 just to get it finished in decent time. The game is defintely not that big, maybe if it was a console game but that's still ridiculous even for a console. COD takes 2 years to make each one and nothing about this game will be as big as cod. So apalon were talking total crap. We promise the game will not take anywhere near 10,000 hours to make
I would also advise you from attempting to pay a team purely in royalties. If you want to make a great game, come up with a little bit of initial funding, and sign contracts with the people you hire. That way, you can hold them accountable if something goes wrong -- say, if your artist turns in someone else's intellectual property, or if your coder quits halfway through the project and hasn't produced great documentation for his code. Both making and funding a game, even a relatively simple one, is hours upon hours of hard work. The chances of a team of like-minded, honest, hard-working volunteers falling into your lap is very, very slim.
a working day is 8 hours right? 10000/8 = 1250 days, at 5 days a week = 250 weeks for one person. if 5 people working on it, thats 50 weeks, which is around 1 year. nice to see such high numbers from these guys, especially with very little requirements specified.
So I'm a codemonkey. A good friend is a musician (signed) and I'm dating a gfx artist who worked at Massive Entertainment. We've worked together on a few games. While we won't touch royalty gigs from no-names I'm still interested here. But I can't help but wonder, what are the two of You bringing to the table here?
Hey, thanks for the interest, it's good that you all know each other, basically me and LostLegend have come up with and developed the idea, the gameplay mechanics, we have started on the story as well amongst other things and we are basically trying to bring everyone together to make the app. We would also try our best to Promote it. Even if no-names like us aren't very good at it If you would like a small amount of info on the game just pm me
Let's break a few statements down here; We're talking about an iPhone game, are we not? When you say 'come up with', I ask, what do you define as the 'idea'? To be honest, what I see here is that the pair of you can at most have a concept and a setting. As the 20/80 rule applies as always, I'll give you some advice; as you're currently not going to get anything done. First of all - Objective-C and in particular with Cocos2D is a Really easy language to learn. If you're not employing a codemonkey on an hourly salary of rather insane amounts, you're best off doing it on your own. Artists and musicians are commonly willing to work by a per-item payment model as the abstractions of the arts create a lower need for time limits. Coders on the other hand have more invested. It'll be their code, their work and their brain that will sell your product. Royalties? Count on +75% if you're going to pay for the entire code. Personally I wouldn't even go with that, I'd either ask for a contract in the company or just buy the IP off you if the product is good enough. Given that you haven't been hired as designers by any company yet, I can only assume that your gameplay mechanics aren't exactly going to cause a revolution. Nor is the concept unique, innovative and mindblowing. Those kind of people get hired and are very well paid before they get to the point of trying to make it on their own. So with all that said, I can only wish you the best of luck with this and advice you to start learning Objective-C. You're best off that way.
Ok, I get alot of your points although since we haven't told anyone about the gameplay mechanics yet nobody can say how groundbreaking they are, we are basically offering to write the story as well which would take time as well, we would let anyone involved have Their say in the game to improve it. Since we don't want to be hired as designers and we haven't applied to be we don't really care about that and render it as pointless. I'm sure objective c is easy to learn but the things holding me back from development are not signed up to the dev program and I haven't got a mac, plus since this is an idea right now I have no intention of learning objective c, no matter how easy or simple it is to learn Also, no-one said that you will definetely be paid purely in royalties, if we aquire investment, which is a high possibilty we will pay some money up front then give you a percentage of the profits
I think you're missing what in trying to say here sadly. But i'll try to help you a bit here. Having an idea of a game mechanic and a story will, in the end, not get you much. The harsh reality is that if you had a groundbreaking idea but no funding, any company you've talked to will note down your revolutionary idea, shake your hand, say 'not for us' and go to the development team and have them build it with a different structure and story. What do you get out of it? Well, a handshake.
Well, while I'm hoping that won't happen, I'm guessing it might. We genuinely believe this is a great idea and all we need is someone to help us make it. Obviously if we don't get funding then there's a low chance of getting the game made and maybe a couple of months later an unusually similar game might pop up on the app store and the only hit to the company is 2 peoples dissaproval. But we may be very close to obtaining finance and if we do we can go forward and then there is a massive chance of getting the game made. If you are not interested in helping us then fair enough and thanks for the advice. We are just looking for people who can help us. The hard one to find is a coder, there's lots of musicians and Artist available but coders are hard to come by so we would especially love it if there were more coders interested. Also we understand that we won't take a big share in the game due to the work everyone else would put in. Although since we had the idea, we have been brainstorming, writing and frantically trying to get help for the last few weeks we do deserve something
I'm not going to argue that, I'm just giving you the plain truth - As a designer with a concept you have very little. A story? If it's the Lord of the Rings in epicness - Then there's a whole different ballgame. But as far as development of games goes you can expect about 20% of your work to be usable to a codemonkey. Even less to be present in the final product. Assumikng your idea is as innovative as you think, you might just make it, but if it's yet another "groundbreaking" concept of mixing two already existing types of games - Get a mac. I got one myself last year for the sole purpose of learning objective-c (Mind you I have a good 10 years experience in C and C++ on a corporate level) so I could go indie and make what I wanted and be paid directly by those who like it. I now do make a living out of games, albeit not my own games as my experience in the field proved to be valuable to others who are to this day willing to pay me for consulting. (Through apps *cough*) and from what I've seen among the many many many many upstarters with great ideas and big dreams - The investment of a cheap used macbook (€350) and when you're ready to release the $99 Apple asks for will serve you better than trying to make it in a field where your CV is the only thing defines you. As designers, which you by proxy is, you need something to show. And take it from someone who's been ripped off more times than you could imagine, it's worth making 100% sure that whatever you're working with, your name is in the credits. And the best way for that is to write the credits on your own. So, again, best of luck to you two and try to not get ripped off. Edit: And a reality check for you; The fact that you've spent weeks brainstorming, writing and planning doesn't entitle you to anything really. Your participation in the product at release day is what matters. All your ideas might be standards, bad, or just done and done again. And if they're not of use for a development team, then neither are you.
I agree with everything Sramota said. It's harsh but it's true. You can ask anyone who's been in the industry for a while and you'd get the same answer.
No one is going to "steal" your idea. Ideas are already a dime a dozen. If you revealed your genius idea in full on this and every other forum on the Internet no one would care.
I get what you are saying and I know that it's true but how do people with great ideas get known in this business then, you need to have writers/idea men. So has our work just gone down the drain in everyones opinions then. Also as I have said I know we would have a small part in the game which would be reflected in the percentages
@Sramota: I sent you a PM, in case there's any chance you would consider a collaboration with a professional. @Aussie2: It really seems like you guys went into this without doing your research. When your post includes statements like "if we aquire investment, which is a high possibilty," I have to wonder just what makes you think that. Are you familiar enough with the industry to be able to make that claim? Do you have a statistic to back it up? Are talks with investors currently in the works? Have you had any experience acquiring investor backing before? You are interested on working on a big project, so it is very unrealistic to think that you might be successful without learning the ins and outs of how it's done. Your concept may (or may not) be great, but if you want any kind of chance, you need to develop it according to industry standards. Before you even make this kind of pitch, you should at the very least have a well-developed game doc. If the design portion of the game is incomplete, I doubt anyone would seriously consider giving you funding. The problem with getting known for great ideas in this business is that all of us are idea men (or women.) Some of us learned to write code because we had great video game ideas. Others learned to make video-game inspired art and music. We all have a lot of thoughts on what might make a game great. But, don't despair. If you are dedicated, getting into the industry is doable. Do you work? If so, you can attempt to self-fund. Start saving money right now. Do some research and put together a high-quality game doc that not only explains your concept, but also explains the flow of the game, the interface, and every single mechanic in detail. Take what money you've managed to save up and try to acquire some art assets. Then try to hire a coder to put those art assets together into a great tech demo. Once you have a tech demo that can blow someone's socks off, you actually have some chance of being able to make a successful pitch. Good luck.
Thanks everyone for your comments, since we are not experts in the field we needed help and I have now come to realise that if we had carried on like this we may have failed. I have learnt alot more about the business now
Hey guys. Great stuff on this thread and I wanted to chime in. First, Sramota and Revolving Door has great advice, listen to them. Being a designer is not easy. I've worked in the game industry for a big company for the last 4 years doing a little bit of designing, programming and testing. Here's what i've learned as a designer. Great idea is a start but executing it is more important. Example of a great idea: Let's make a Gmail clone that's better than Gmail! Because executing is important, what you must have is experience. Aussie2, how many published games have you or your partner designed? At this point in the App Store life, seeing a serious game maker who doesn't have a Mac or membership kinda scares me away. Your iphone game has a ridiculous cost (sorry), I think you are better off pitching to a big company. With that said, I admire your not-backing-down attitude. Keep us informed about this awesome game of yours.
