RE: Publisher payments (was Re: [GD-General] Prices of well-known 3D engines)

[Paul R. <pa...@so...>]

It's truly dependent on the project (scope, genre, platforms, schedule,
etc.) and the resulting negotiations. So everything below this line is
conjecture based on my experience (as a programmer, not exec) in the
industry.

Typically, everything is paid on deliverables (milestones). The contract is
usually considered the first milestone. The "pure" thought is that the
milestone payments just cover your development costs while you make a game
for your publisher. Then you receive payment (royalties) once the publisher
has recouped their expenses (your milestone payments). But, in my
experience, the studio can pull in a little profit from the milestone
payments as well. The terms of the royalties can vary wildly.

So your milestone payments should at least keep your studio going since
that's probably your only incoming cash. So, back to your question, a 5 man
project could have 1 producer (~$100k), 2 artist's (~$50K ea.), 2 SE It's
(~$70K ea), and 1 SE III (~$100K ea).

($440K)/12 months = $37,000 for a milestone just to cover salaries.
Throw on another $30K for administrative staff and offices. As an incredibly
rough estimate, say you manage to negotiate an $80K milestone payment
(which, I believe is reasonable for a low budget title), you could
conceivably have a positive cash flow of a few thousand bucks. Which isn't
bad considering you've already made payroll and paid rent. I won't even get
into on time delivery bonuses/penalties and contract amendments. But, the
reality is a five man team is going to have a rough time putting out any
sort of commercial game in a reasonable time frame.

Factor by 0.75 for Spain, 0.5 for Ukraine, and 0.25 for China ;op

-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of
Frank Davis
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 12:28 PM
To: gam...@li...
Subject: Publisher payments (was Re: [GD-General] Prices of well-known
3D engines)


Hi all,

(Sorry if this comes through twice)

>Obviously publishers won't gave the same ammount of money to develop a game
>in spain as int USA... at least i don't think you can fool them that way :)
>So perhaps we will get a 1/15 fraction of the ammount of money you (USA)
>can get from a publisher...
>I don't know it for sure, as i don't work on games directly

I'm not sure if this off topic, but i would guess it isnt so here goes..

Is there anyone that can give any information about how much a game should
earn a small developer team? I understand not too many of you are willing to
share details of your financial situation, so dont use game names if you
dont want to.

Lets say you have a team of 5 people working fulltime on a game for a couple
of months. What would be a reasonable payment? I suppose you would receive a
sum on signing of the contract, a sum on delivering a master, and royalties
for each sold product? Does anyone have numbers?

Regards,
Frank

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