What would it cost to create your own video game?
Game developer Jamie Fristrom has broken down how much money it cost him to get his game Sixty Second Shooter ported over and published to Xbox One. Microsoft has been courting indie developers through its ID@Xbox program, that gives away developer kits to small developers and allows them to self-publish.
"You might think, since Microsoft is giving away their dev kits to early adopters of the ID@Xbox program, as long as you have no offices and pay everyone with rev share you could ship a game for just about nothing. But that's not quite the case," stated Fristrom in his blog post.
The total cost was $5143:
1. Maintaining the Sixty Second Shooter URL - $19
2. Sending the second dev kit to [developer] Brett Douville - $63
3. Hardware (USB and video cables and the like) - $72
4. Video capture device (for making trailer) - $181
5. Localization (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese) - $729
6. Errors & Omissions Insurance - $2037
7. Foreign ratings boards (PEGI, USK) - $2042
The most expensive costs were required by Microsoft, the insurance to cover copyright litigation and getting a rating from Europe's rating board.
Fristrom stated, "if you want to release in a given territory, you have to get your game rated by the official ratings boards of that territory. It's sad but true, getting your game rated in some territories can be a lot more expensive than simply translating your game to that territory's language!"
He also added that he skipped publishing Sixty Second Shooter Prime in New Zealand and Australia because it would've cost another $2,000 to get the game rated for those countries.
