Are there any techies out there who know what it costs to produce a software game/application? I've had some good ideas that I'm looking into producing, but first I need to get an idea of cost and then try to determine if there is a market for what I have in mind. Sorry to be vague, but think something along the lines of Fantasy Grounds II, not a lot of moving parts, but something that looks sleek and is functional.

If I had a good concept and hired a company, what would this cost, $50,000? $500,000? More?

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"A robber, a thief. Give me back my mutton joint!"

Software production is labor intensive, i.e., cost = salaries. Depending on the scale and complexity of the software, the project boils down to some number of man-months. Multiply that by monthly costs. Naturally, one can only estimate the time/costs before the project. Unskilled and unprofessional labor is cheaper. You might get really lucky, and find some cheap and skillful people, but odds are against you.

You could start up a company with some tech-geek(s) and that way you'd have in-house knowledge for future modifications. If you some capital, finding those geeks should not be hard. So raising capital is the hard part. I would assume the venture capital opportunities are rather scarce these days -- unless, of course, you have a brilliant (business) idea.

You could contact some sub-contractors in Europe, States, or India, for offers. That would require a requirement specification, i.e., systematic description of what the system is all about and how it works. But it would be a great benefit to have some understanding of what software really is and how software is developed, or otherwise you are just going to get screwed. And most companies would not bother with one-shot two-month sub-contract - but some might. On the other hand, if you really have a brilliant idea and you are outsourcing your "bleeding-edge" technology, you run the risk of getting screwed.

You could start a company, and hire some students to do first a prototype, if you want a low cost/low risk alternative. Again, you'd need to specify the requirements and possibly parcel the development into shorter modules or versions as students tend to come and go.

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Running: AD&D / When a star falls
Running: MERP / Woses of the black wood

More. Based on conversations with industry professionals, I think $1 million (US) is pretty much a dead minimum for a professional organization working on a new game. More complex games cost more, sometimes a lot more, though I think more than $10 million or so is a rarity.

Of course, the industry doesn't really work that way. It's far more likely that if you have a really good idea they will want to buy the idea or license it from you. If your idea is less awesome, they probably won't waste resources on you. Software publishing (like most publishing) is a high risk/high reward activity. Most products lose money. A few break even. And a small percentage makes buckets of money and pay for all the failures. This is why sequels are popular in the industry.

To get the game development company to consider your idea, you have to convince them that your idea has a chance to be one of the money makers.

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Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE! -- Agatha Heterodyne

Thanks for the replies, guys.

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"A robber, a thief. Give me back my mutton joint!"

Normally the distribution company give the developer money for the game. The distributer will also pay the marketing costs and have the distribution network—and take the main risk.

Of course the development costs are highly depending of the product. But for example a actual fantasy advanture (offline) produced by a developer with a stuff of 10-20 persons with a adapted licensed graphic engine cost about ca. 3-4 Million Euros (+ Marketing). European Examples are Drakensang or Gothic4/Arcania.
Actual big productions like new ego shooter (new graphic engine) and MMOGs starts at 10 million up to a multiple of this sum.

On the other side there are actual possible to produce much cheaper by using a more easy graphic engine and concept. But it depends as well on the design and storyteller team available. And it helps a lot when there is a project manager with some experience.
Its depend on a large numbers of factors, but I believe it should be possible to produce something in the complexly of Fantasy Grounds well bellow 500K with a careful planning.

Other examples http://www.rainslick.com and http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com. Ufo Alien Invasion get even developed as a opensource fan project (http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/).