How long and costly would it be to make Unreal (the game) now, as opposed to in 1997?

[Delicieuxz]

When making Unreal in 1997, there would have been a lot of stuff involved in the expense of making the game that would apply today:

 

- develop new tech and build and bug-test the engine

- pioneer the workflows

- be mindful of polygon budgets and make changes to scenes and models to accommodate them

- be continuously dealing with newly discovered issues while assembling things during game production

- be working on PCs that likely were slow to respond to developer input

- be working with tools that are slower to use than tools available today and less feature-full

- pay higher salaries for developers as opposed to lower salaries in the gaming industry today

- needing a lot more personnel

 

 

But if making Unreal today, you'd be starting with these advantages:

 

- the tech would be already available, and far more feature-rich and bug-free (when it comes to the things it would be used for) than Unreal's engine

- the workflows and best approaches are refined

- polygon budgets wouldn't matter at all in a game that simply aims for the visual ballpark of Unreal

- there would be minimal issues run into when putting things together in the engine because the needed tech is refined at this point

- development PC performance and responsiveness isn't an issue at all

- the tools available today on modern machines offer far more features and would be more responsive

- game industry salaries aren't as high today

- much fewer personnel would be needed

 

Is there anything else different about the process then versus now?

 

None of those things are the same now and it would be vastly cheaper and easier to make that same game, Unreal, from scratch today using a robust existing game engine and tools. But by how much?

 

Factoring-in the differences of time, development expenses, and number of persons needed, what do you estimate it would take to make a game like Unreal from scratch today?

 

Also, how long would it take 1 - 3 people working from home to make a game like Unreal today?

[AbsoluteFool]

32 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

When making Unreal in 1997, there would have been a lot of stuff involved in the expense of making the game that would apply today:

 

- develop new tech and build and bug-test the engine

- pioneer the workflows

- be mindful of polygon budgets and make changes to scenes and models to accommodate them

- be continuously dealing with newly discovered issues while assembling things during game production

- be working on PCs that likely were slow to respond to developer input

- be working with tools that are slower to use than tools available today and less feature-full

- pay higher salaries for developers as opposed to lower salaries in the gaming industry today

- needing a lot more personnel

 

 

But if making Unreal today, you'd be starting with these advantages:

 

- the tech would be already available, and far more feature-rich and bug-free (when it comes to the things it would be used for) than Unreal's engine

- the workflows and best approaches are refined

- polygon budgets wouldn't matter at all in a game that simply aims for the visual ballpark of Unreal

- there would be minimal issues run into when putting things together in the engine because the needed tech is refined at this point

- development PC performance and responsiveness isn't an issue at all

- the tools available today on modern machines offer far more features and would be more responsive

- game industry salaries aren't as high today

- much fewer personnel would be needed

 

Is there anything else different about the process then versus now?

 

None of those things are the same now and it would be vastly cheaper and easier to make that same game, Unreal, from scratch today using a robust existing game engine and tools. But by how much?

 

Factoring-in the differences of time, development expenses, and number of persons needed, what do you estimate it would take to make a game like Unreal from scratch today?

Well factroring in hours slarary, vaication money, office, office supplies, probably coffee machine maybe a dining room to have breaks. Then not to forget the office itself, power, computers, i guess you can get away with using free software so not gonna say anything here. But as you can imagine one person would cost you quite a bit an hour.

 

The thing most people forget is all factors and variables of actually running a company, they think "holy sdhdksj" what a redicilous price!!! it's in reallity just lack of education or understanding that companies that hire people have alot to pay for. And the feee they take for a service needs to cover these expences.

 

So yeah.. Hourly? I'd say a person would probably cost you... I don't really know the rates where you are.. So i'm just not gonna guess, then you would pay their taxes on that. So you would need an accountant, pay their salary, and have them fill their own salary and taxes vaication money etc etc so on and so forth.

 

If you really want to know check up how to start a business.. You'll find it out alot easier... Sorry lol

[Delicieuxz]

19 minutes ago, AbsoluteFool said:

Well factroring in hours slarary, vaication money, office, office supplies, probably coffee machine maybe a dining room to have breaks. Then not to forget the office itself, power, computers, i guess you can get away with using free software so not gonna say anything here. But as you can imagine one person would cost you quite a bit an hour.

 

The thing most people forget is all factors and variables of actually running a company, they think "holy sdhdksj" what a redicilous price!!! it's in reallity just lack of education or understanding that companies that hire people have alot to pay for. And the feee they take for a service needs to cover these expences.

 

So yeah.. Hourly? I'd say a person would probably cost you... I don't really know the rates where you are.. So i'm just not gonna guess, then you would pay their taxes on that. So you would need an accountant, pay their salary, and have them fill their own salary and taxes vaication money etc etc so on and so forth.

 

If you really want to know check up how to start a business.. You'll find it out alot easier... Sorry lol

And how about if there is no company? What if it's 1 person, or a few people working from home with a prepared story and conceptual location (displayed with fidelity similar to Unreal) who simply need to realize it in free engine tools?

 

So, perhaps they'd have robust conceptual and gameplay designs for things and need to make models, levels, sound and music, menus, and put them all together and bug-test the product.

 

Could one person, up to a few, make a game as long and as quality as Unreal? If so, in what time-frame?

[AbsoluteFool]

3 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

And how about if there is no company? What if it's 1 person, or a few people working from home with a prepared story and conceptual location (displayed with fidelity similar to Unreal) who simply need to realize it in free engine tools?

 

So, perhaps they'd have robust conceptual and gameplay designs for things and need to make models, levels, sound and music, menus, and put them all together and bug-test the product.

 

Could one person, up to a few, make a game like Unreal?

Of course they could.. But you  would go with a loss. Unless you want to spend your life savings on it..

The question i think you are asking is if it is possible to make a game as one person. Yes, even huge MMO, MMORPG get made by single people. The question is how much time are you expecting to spend on this. When you've figured that out and figured out what money you will lose by not having a full time job for example you will know the price.

 

Not to disencourage. I do self come from the same perspective. After hitting wall after wall after wall, i've only been taught that everything is possible. Even doing the most insane things completely alone.

[AbsoluteFool]

To be totally honest. If you work very effective and long days. I believe you can get very far in as little as 6 months. But then again, that means completely self isolating and literally work, eat, sleep, repeat.

[DevBlox]

9 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Could one person, up to a few, make a game like Unreal?

In any sort of practical terms and to scale - no. The amount of different knowledge areas and time for development and testing needed to achieve any sort of stability is not at all possible by a small team. You can make a game engine that suits the game you're working on, and that's not a bad thing at all, but you will not achieve what UE achieved AND have a game.

 

The motivation to try to match UE from the get-go is an ill one. You would not be able to keep it going. And if the goal is to make a game, you'd waste a lot of time and effort and not have the game completed before you'd fail. If your goal is to make an engine - for what game are you making it? Making an engine alone is disconnecting from reality of sorts, it may not even be functional as a game engine at all, because no one ever made a game with it, you just don't know.

 

So, if you'd throw away time and budget limits, you'd probably take years, because anything other than creating both in parallel is unrealistic. You'd find that pretty much all game engines have had their start that way anyhow, UE included. You'd want to improve what you have over a period of multiple games, and that's probably over 5 years already. Working on a single game, it would get stuck in development hell. That's my take on it at least.

[Delicieuxz]

18 minutes ago, AbsoluteFool said:

To be totally honest. If you work very effective and long days. I believe you can get very far in as little as 6 months. But then again, that means completely self isolating and literally work, eat, sleep, repeat.

OK. So, narrowing the parameters, in what time-frame do you think 1 person could make a game as long and as quality as Unreal, if spending 40 hours a week on it?

 

And the same question, if 3 people were each spending 40 hours per week on it?

[Delicieuxz]

3 minutes ago, DevBlox said:

In any sort of practical terms and to scale - no. The amount of different knowledge areas and time for development and testing needed to achieve any sort of stability is not at all possible by a small team. You can make a game engine that suits the game you're working on, and that's not a bad thing at all, but you will not achieve what UE achieved AND have a game.

 

The motivation to try to match UE from the get-go is an ill one. You would not be able to keep it going. And if the goal is to make a game, you'd waste a lot of time and effort and not have the game completed before you'd fail. If your goal is to make an engine - for what game are you making it? Making an engine alone is disconnecting from reality of sorts, it may not even be functional as a game engine at all, because no one ever made a game with it, you just don't know.

 

So, if you'd throw away time and budget limits, you'd probably take years, because anything other than creating both in parallel is unrealistic. You'd find that pretty much all game engines have had their start that way anyhow, UE included. You'd want to improve what you have over a period of multiple games, and that's probably over 5 years already. Working on a single game, it would get stuck in development hell. That's my take on it at least.

So, that's your answer regarding making an engine and a game simultaneously. And that's good information.

 

However, the premise for my question is that an existing game engine is used - maybe even Unreal Engine 1. Though, I expect that later versions would be easier even when making an Unreal clone-esque type of game. So, the need to develop a new engine or make many adjustments to an existing one isn't there. For the most part, the task would be to just make the game with the existing engine and tools.

 

What would you say about just the game-making part, for 1 - 3 people?

[WereCatf]

7 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

What would you say about just the game-making part, for 1 - 3 people?

There are plenty of small indie-groups who crank out games rivaling Unreal 1 in just 6 months, if they use an already-existing engine. If one goes with a ready-made engine, like e.g. UE4, the two biggest things to work on become sound-effects and other sounds and graphical assets. For graphics, there exist a sheer fuckton of really good choices out there, so that isn't anywhere near as big a hurdle as it used to be, but audio is and probably always will be a little tough for small studios.

[Franck]

Modeling wise you are talking a couple months for the character models at least.

 

Speaking from knowing the guy who made the first prince of persia character model, Pilot character/cockpit from Hawk and Some level/gadgets for Splinter cell 1 and 3 (funny story, did you know splinter cell 3 was made before splinter cell 2). Each took couple weeks modeling and tweaking until it match the drawing board and he was not the colorist which then take it and create the many textures and weathering.

 

Making music and sounds is the next big thing. If you look at open project like Stargate Networks (which use unreal now) there is quite often twitch stream with the guy making the music and he has been working on OST for months making it perfect for the game. Personally i don't hear much the difference from before but for music engineers apparently there is.

 

So it all depend how high you want the quality of the work. Unreal games used to be very well made specially Unreal 2. Music was one of the best at the time plus obviously the graphics were ahead. But but using premade model and making it quick and dirty with a small team of 3-4 people i am guessing 2-3 months and you have something "working".

[Guest]

Skill & direction guide most of it. 

It doesn’t take a Long Time to write code or lay geometry. 

 

Fine tuning & bug fixing & testing are some things that drag it out.