How to create your own game: Manual for customers

Most likely, everyone can name at least a couple of games for PC or Mobile. Maybe, some names are just on the tip of your tongue, even if you are not a true fan of gaming. However, it’s just an amusement for some people, but it is an excellent way to make a fortune for others. The game can be an effective marketing tool for earning money. You just need to configure the tool correctly to make it filling creators’ accounts. Thus, the game becomes a product that is sold, and its success will depend on the quality of this product. Many popular games bring good income to their publishers.

Price of the question

Usually, publishers and developers never divulge information about budget spent on the game. That is why the prices we can see are those that analysts sound. The American tariff for game development counts millions of dollars. This can be a number from 1 to 200 and even more millions. For instance, according to the list of most expensive games to develop on Wikipedia, the price for making a game varies from 20 to 200 million dollars. So, we can conclude that rather inexpensive game will cost several millions of dollars, probably up to $1-4 million. For example, such shooter as Tower of Guns required $230-570 thousand and over 3800 man-hours just for a 3D engine, high-quality images, and popular mobile game Angry Birds had a revenue $200 million in 2012. The price is an important reason, why many American and Europe customers strive to outsource game dev in such a country as Georgia. To ask the question ‘How much does it cost to develop a mobile game?’, please, drop a line here.

What does the price consist of?

This is the question that customers, interested in game creating, primarily worry about. What is the whole game dev process? What is the first, what is the next? What does a customer need to bring, ordering game development? How to represent your idea clear? And, in general, can we underbid the price for game development? Persons living this idea are definitely interested in such answers.

The game development process depends mostly on the stage of the game concept. Sometimes, a customer comes to a game development company with a raw idea, and then, brainstorming together, they give it the form. However, customers have a visual presentation of their ideas. Moreover, sometimes, they have already got designed characters and a written script, and game developers just need to implement it programming.

1. Script

Thereby, we see that the first stage of development is a plot with a detailed description of all action algorithms. This is the main game concept (theme, genre, what we struggle for and how we win, etc.) and every step of each character (what will be next, if the character does ‘A’ and does ‘B’). There are plenty of such variants, and they all must be accurately worked out. It is especially important for creating multiplayer games and battles with a huge amount of characters, where only planning the strategy will take many brainstorms and drunk cups of coffee.

2. Design

The next stage is a design of characters and game environment. It is game drawing, from a logo on the main hero’s helmet to a burning torch in the dungeon of the castle.

Besides, the beauty in details. If the game implies the presence of elements that are not a plot of the strategy (like a bird flying past), it is perceived by users quite realistically.

3. Programming

Having a set of design elements and the script of the future strategy, you can initiate immediate development. Programmers turn drawn pictures and 3d models into moving objects, create the architecture of the game and apply all the design elements to it. Moreover, in some cases, even if the customer has already got a design project, drawing some elements of the game during the programming process will be still needed. So, usually, a game designer works closely with a team of programmers, whether the designer was offered by the customer, or this is a staff designer working on the development company.

By the way, testing of the created product follows after the programming phase. However, we won’t talk about it separately because it is also a part of coding.

4. Marketing

The final stage that is often missed because of the necessity to save money. The fact is that, sometimes, the amount of money spent on marketing can exceed the budget of creating the game. Therefore, customers often try to give a bit of attention to marketing or even promote the product by themselves. Nevertheless, those, who build marketing strategy correctly, won much more eventually.

These all will help the customer to understand first steps, realize the scale of the project and estimate the approximate sum of money.