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[Servbot24]

What do you do for a living?

Off topic but I work part time and spend the rest of my day drawing (and reading GAF). Hopefully can be hired before too long.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Wow do they really sit there and draw every image? This is the 21st century lol. Surely there are tools which can take a image and animate it using simple parameters? Like for example you could highlight a mouth, create some vectors and manipulate it in a given way then track the changes to create an animation.

If there isn't I'm going to look into writing one, could be a earner

Yes, those tools exist. ToonBoom has them. They're not really a good replacement for frame-by-frame animation, though.

Also this just in: it's the 21st century and some people still enjoy painting with oils!

 

[Feep]

Someday I want to tell him get the hell off the bridge, Wesley in person.

You can alias in "Wesley, get the hell off the bridge," to mean "Corrin, retreat", and it'll work just fine. = D

 

[wenis]

Wow, I'm a little disappointed in the responses. Instead of disconnected, complete cynicism and arrogance. Damn, if people can do everything from making characters and sound effects for SG, maybe try hitting up Lab Zero with your portfolio.

don't worry, they can tell em that they need to tweak the graphics on level 5 a bit... they know what they're talking about.

 

[Lijik]

Wow do they really sit there and draw every image? This is the 21st century lol. Surely there are tools which can take a image and animate it using simple parameters? Like for example you could highlight a mouth, create some vectors and manipulate it in a given way then track the changes to create an animation.

If there isn't I'm going to look into writing one, could be a earner

If you want to have fluid detailed animation there is no halfassing it. Even if we're working with bone-based stuff ala rayman a) every part still needs to be drawn in the first place and b) you need a professional who knows what hes doing to create readable poses (which id argue is even more critical in a fighting game like skullgirls), and make the bones output pleasing animation (which can take just as much initial work as hand drawing it, though cleaning it up and making changes is easier)
Professionals expect professional pay.

 

[Nyoro SF]

I have a feeling a lot of people have never bug tested something on this scale before... the amount of things that can break or need to be fixed on a large programming scale like this is mind boggling. I am shocked that Skullgirls had so few glitches as-is. Even Capcom, who spent three years developing MvC3, had a big bunch of glitches in that game for instance.

 

[Guevara]

I do kind of wonder if they aren't double counting. Are all these employees really working on this and nothing else for the duration? Or is this one of several projects?

Are their outsourcing costs only for this one project? Or part of a bundle/contract work.

How much did the original game cost then?

 

[BadWolf]

I remember SNK saying that it cost them about $100K per character in the new style for KOFXII/KOFXIII.

And considering how broke SNK is (probably cutting corners as much as possible)... that number in the OP doesn't sound too unreasonable.

 

[neonille]

$48,000: Staff Salaries - 8 people for 10 weeks

Minimum wage here, so not much you can do about that, just surprised that you need 8 people to do a 2d character.

$30,000: Animation and Clean-up Contracting, $2,000: Hit-box Contracting, $5,000: Audio Implementation Contracting

Why are you hiring people if your going to pay for other people to do all the work? Exactly what is the 8 staff mebers going to do for 8 weeks? Apparently not Animation, not hitbox or audio...so what?

$4,000: Voice recording

Here you go: http://voice123.com/

$20,000: QA Testing

once your done, can't you just let your staff do this?

$10,000: 1st Party Certification, $10,500: IndieGoGo and Payment Processing Fees

Not much you can do here..

$20,500: Manufacturing and Shipping Physical Rewards

Seriously? Skip the rewards...

 

[RiccochetJ]

I do kind of wonder if they aren't double counting. Are all these employees really working on this and nothing else for the duration? Or is this one of several projects?

Are their outsourcing costs only for this one project? Or part of a bundle/contract work.

How much did the original game cost then?

Around 1.7mil

Edit: Source - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/333003/

 

[Mutanthands]

Agreed, and everyone swallowed it down hook line and sinker. someone should ask them how much their entire game took to make.

In your estimation, how much should it cost to make a professional quality XBLA/PSN game? With hand drawn graphics?

 

[lolmark]

I remember SNK saying that it cost them about $100K per character in the new style for KOFXII/KOFXIII.

And considering how broke SNK is (probably cutting corners as much as possible)... that number in the OP doesn't sound too unreasonable.

In addition, the time spent to do a single character was 6 months, which explained why there were so few characters in KOF 12.

 

[Darkkn]

This is something I would expect a single artistically inclined modder could do his spare time for $0--not 8 "professionals" 10 weeks with most of the work contracted out.

Anything could be done for 0$ as long as people worked for free. People want to make living tho.

 

[wonzo]

No one is saying that. The problem isn't what these people are paid, the problem is how many professionals are required to do the work (and then they still outsource so much).

Outsourcing and contract work for things like in-betweens in 2D animation of any kind is pretty much a necessity these days. The link Master Milk posted above does a pretty good job of explaining just how much time goes into drawing a single frame of animation.

 

[10101]

How much will you license it for? Just for future reference when people want to bitch at you for how expensive it is

Lmao freeware to all Gaffers!

 

[aggro crag]

I remember SNK saying that it cost them about $100K per character in the new style for KOFXII/KOFXIII.

And considering how broke SNK is (probably cutting corners as much as possible)... that number in the OP doesn't sound too unreasonable.

Yeah, I was trying to think about that as well. Didn't they also have to drop the character resolution for XIII, because keeping the same amount of detail from XII was just too expensive?

 

[Phoenixazure]

In addition, the time spent to do a single character was 6 months, which explained why there were so few characters in KOF 12.

Indeed, and i think their ETA is 6 weeks. As I was taught that you have 3 resources. Time, Money, People. If you want something Good and fast, then you need money, if u want good and cheap, you need time, if you need something fast and cheap, then u can be a neogaf poster claiming to do voiceover off their usb mic and yell random grunts.

 

[VariantX]

Yeah, I was trying to think about that as well. Didn't they also have to drop the character resolution for XIII, because keeping the same amount of detail from XII was just too expensive?

They also traced 3d models to save time and money as well too

 

[BadWolf]

In addition, the time spent to do a single character was 6 months, which explained why there were so few characters in KOF 12.

Wasn't it 8 months?

Another problem iirc was that SNK couldn't find enough talent skilled enough to do the work.

Yeah, I was trying to think about that as well. Didn't they also have to drop the character resolution for XIII, because keeping the same amount of detail from XII was just too expensive?

No, they are the same. In XII the view was just zoomed in more.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Minimum wage here, so not much you can do about that, just surprised that you need 8 people to do a 2d character.



Why are you hiring people if your going to pay for other people to do all the work? Exactly what is the 8 staff mebers going to do for 8 weeks? Apparently not Animation, not hitbox or audio...so what?



Here you go: http://voice123.com/



once your done, can't you just let your staff do this?


Not much you can do here..



Seriously? Skip the rewards...

1. You know that someone has to integrate all the animation and voicework into the actual game, right? Animators don't do that.

2. Ah, yes, I'm sure that going through a site like Voice123 is way better than working with established voice actors they know already. Who needs a voice director when this website exists?

3. QA is typically outsourced to professional agencies because they have much more rigorous testing than a team that's also fixing the bugs that are being found. Especially important here, I'd imagine, given that the team is eight people.

 

[JakkuFurosu]

if you need something fast and cheap, then u can be a neogaf poster claiming to do voiceover off their usb mic and yell random grunts.

the only way to fly

 

[Guess Who]

People here seriously think they could do all this themselves in weeks or months?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[Phoenixazure]

Yeah, I was trying to think about that as well. Didn't they also have to drop the character resolution for XIII, because keeping the same amount of detail from XII was just too expensive?

They zoomed the camera out and got rid of the zoom that was in XII. Yea despite using 3d models as a reference, it still has 500-800 frames of animation and it's done in a dot by dot art style. 2d animation is expensive.

 

[gryz]

They're, you know, designing the character.

How does it work?
What moves does it have?
How does it interact with other characters? Specifically unique character-on-character interactions that change depending on the moves other characters have?
What combo and unique abilities does it have? How does it differentiate itself from other characters? What is its purpose for existing?
What dialog does it speak? What do the voice recorders actually need to record?
What in general should it look like? What is actually being animated?

it takes 8 people to do this, and its so involved that none of these 8 people can do the actual...work of making the character?

 

[XANDER CAGE]

People here seriously think they could do all this themselves in weeks or months?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Making games is easy and should be free, duh! Why would you want to get paid for your skills?

 

[Moonlight]

I don't get those prices at all. Pretty sure I could design, model, rig, animate, do a theme song, record some grunts and do testing for single character in a year, even if I had to do a lot of learning along the way, and 150k is more than I could ever dream of making in even a year.

They don't have a place on their site about jobs, and given the recent layoffs I doubt they're looking to hire. But I've sent my portfolio to lots of places, just waiting for that lucky break.

But that's not the point. The point is that these Skullgirls characters are very simple. Design and model should easily be done in a week. I understand that the animations will need to be very fine tuned and precise, and I don't have in depth experience doing that, but still... boggles my mind that it could cost such an incredible amount. :/

Then start.

If you can design, model and animate a character equal to the quality of your average Skullgirls character in a week, you could post it here, blow all us out of the water and maybe get a job while you're at it.

Seriously, this is the face I've been making for half the posts in this thread.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I remember SNK saying that it cost them about $100K per character in the new style for KOFXII/KOFXIII.

And considering how broke SNK is (probably cutting corners as much as possible)... that number in the OP doesn't sound too unreasonable.

That quote from SNK makes sense in this context. Don't forget, while the sprites were drawn by hand in KOFXII/XIII, they used the shortcut of rotoscoping over 3D models to cut down on the work involved with shading cast shadows and animated geometrically complex movements.

 

[Littlegator]

In this thread people do not understand paying people for the work they do and having to pay outsourcing, rent, equipment, and misc. costs vs modders who use usually prewritten tools to change in world assets, not make new stuff (although there are exceptions). If these prices are true then they do not surprise me at all.

Or, you know, people who are skeptical that it takes 8 people 10 weeks to design a single character in a niche fighting game.

 

[daycru]

Tired of every joe sixpack modder thinking they're real devs.

 

[gryz]

Making games is easy and should be free, duh! Why would you want to get paid for your skills?

seems to me more like 8 people are being paid to do nothing.

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

Lmao freeware to all Gaffers!

Okay, so how long do you think it'll take to make this mythical high-quality, professional grade software? How are you going to afford food and living expenses during this period?

 

[Oldschoolgamer]

Seriously? Skip the rewards...

Is this serious? How are they going to skip the incentives they used to get people to fund the project? lol

 

[Feep]

Here you go: http://voice123.com/

Don't even get me fucking started on this right here. You have no idea what you're talking about. The vast majority of the 4k isn't going to the actor anyway.

 

[kirby_fox]

I honestly was not sure how expensive it would be to make a game. With ideas in my head I thought I'd at the very least see if I could find the right people, get some work on it done and Kickstart it.

After musicians poured in for what they wanted for music...it was way beyond what I expected in costs for an indie game. One day maybe I can come back and try, but hot damn does it cost an arm a leg and a second house mortgage for some of these games.

Met some cool people though in the process.

 

[Zoramon089]

What game are you talking about? Certainly not Skullgirls, a game where characters have 1300+ hand-drawn frames.

Around here, 2D = cheap. It's a sad mentality that probably won't ever go away

 

[XANDER CAGE]

seems to me more like 8 people are being paid to do nothing.

Like I said in an earlier post, who do you think actually implements all these disparate elements into the actual game? Do you think it happens through magic? Do you think the voice actors say words that travel through the air and nestle themselves snugly in Skullgirls.exe?

 

[Yabdbadbdadbda]

What's stopping this company from asking their hardcore fans to pay their salary every month going forward for continued Skullgirls support?

They seem like the type of suckers that would do it

 

[Cosmonaut X]

Seriously, this is the face I've been making for half the posts in this thread.

...and by curious coincidence, that's probably about the quality of the extra Skullgirls character half of the posters laughing at the costs involved would come up with in a week of feverish work.

 

[Reallink]

Or, you know, people who are skeptical that it takes 8 people 10 weeks to design a single character in a niche fighting game.

8 people 10 weeks with all of the work contracted out--$61,000 worth to be exact.

 

[FStop7]

I'm actually a voice actor in Skull Girls (one of the soldiers who steps in for Parasoul, at times). Trust me, they're quite thrifty about it...it was a smaller scale operation at a local place here in Burbank, WAY less costly than a lot of major recording studios, but still high quality. They're spending even less than I'll be spending on my technically smaller-scale project, as I've got Wil Wheaton and needed to drop a fair bit on a place that also acts as a SAG/AFTRA signatory.

I always find threads like this to be fascinating because when a subject matter expert shows up their posts are often ignored. It's like people don't care about the facts and just want to keep arguing inaccuracies.

 

[SummitAve]

It just doesn't seem like a wise investment for only 1 character.

 

[dLMN8R]

it takes 8 people to do this, and its so involved that none of these 8 people can do the actual...work of making the character?

If you want high-quality DLC that is expected to be sold for a good amount of money and up to the same quality as the base game? You bet your fucking ass it'll take 8 talented game designers to get it done well.

It just doesn't seem like a wise investment for only 1 character.

Why? They already made more than they asked for thanks to generous donors.

 

[Sandfox]

Minimum wage here, so not much you can do about that, just surprised that you need 8 people to do a 2d character.



Why are you hiring people if your going to pay for other people to do all the work? Exactly what is the 8 staff mebers going to do for 8 weeks? Apparently not Animation, not hitbox or audio...so what?



Here you go: http://voice123.com/



once your done, can't you just let your staff do this?


Not much you can do here..



Seriously? Skip the rewards...

I'm pretty sure the 48k is what they are paying their actual staff meaning the programmers, artists and character designers.

Why would they use that website when they are hiring professionals? And even then they have to pay for the studio for the actual recording.

You hire professional testers because they actually know what they are doing and how to properly test games.

If you're having a kickstarter that requires this much money you have to give something back as an incentive.

 

[Phoenixazure]

Also bear in mind that they're trying to deliver the content in a timely manner. That includes testing and cert. to actually get the patch live.

 

[Kikujiro]

seems to me more like 8 people are being paid to do nothing.

Seems to me you don't know shit.

 

[10101]

Okay, so how long do you think it'll take to make this mythical high-quality, professional grade software? How are you going to afford food and living expenses during this period?

I do have a job you know...as a developer. And I do the odd personal project too. I wasn't planning on giving up work and making my family starve lol.

 

[BHK3]

Like I said in an earlier post, who do you think actually implements all these disparate elements into the actual game? Do you think it happens through magic? Do you think the voice actors say words that travel through the air and nestle themselves snugly in Skullgirls.exe?

LOL

I won't say it doesn't cost $150k to make a character, but I think they need to break it down just a bit further, I don't quite understand some of the costs there.

 

[BronsonLee]

I'd back a Kickstarter of the people in this thread making a fighting game.

I love Fighter Maker!

If you're asking for MORE breakdowns or disparaging the cost, what's your comparison to, cost wise? If it's not another fighting game, don't bother.

If you're saying you can do better, please attempt to do so. I'm expecting stuff on Sonic 'gotta go fast' level here

 

[gryz]

Seems to me you don't know shit.

well I've been a software engineer at a major company for 7 years. what's your expertise in this area?

 

[wonzo]

The only part of those costs that seems kinda bogus to me is the $20,000 for QA testing a single character. QA testers make pretty much no money, right? Maybe like $10-15/hour. Does a single character really need 1000+ hours of QA?

In a fighting game? Absolutely.