Someone on Indiegamer was just asking about what sort of budgets people have for making their games. I replied then thought I’d post more detail here.

My first couple of games had tiny budgets but that was years back. Check out these detailed sales stats for Xmas Bonus and Easter Bonus. Also check out the Sales Statistics category in general on my blog for some other great figures.

My 4th game (Holiday Bonus) had a budget of about $2500 (art+music) but made it back 10x over!

My 3rd game (Oz) was higher than $2500 but I can’t say how much due to an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) with the producer.

My 5th and 6th games (Fairway Solitaire and Unwell Mel) were made for Big Fish Games and had *much* bigger budgets (programmer+artists+music) and my current game has the biggest budget yet. When I think about how much money they are trusting me with, it’s quite humbling. Sorry but I can’t say how much due to contractual reasons.

I hope this was of some help to you in figuring out your budget.

One thing I’ve learnt is that you have to speculate to accumulate. So spend more money (when you know what you are doing, maybe not on your fist game) to make better quality and you’ll make more money, it’s pretty simple really!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 6:33 am and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.