FarmVille Developer Math
Gamasutra has some great numbers in a post about the GDC Social Games Summit presentation given by Amitt Mahajan, the lead designer on FarmVille. Here are the numbers that jumped out at me:
- 5 weeks to launch
- 6 web developers
- 2 artists
- 3 designers
Let’s do some back of the napkin math. First, we’ll assume everyone working on the project is a contractor. As a rough estimate, we’ll charge $100/hr for each position. 11 people for 5 weeks makes 55 man weeks. We’ll ignore any additional costs for internal management working with the contractors. $100 per man hour x 40 hours per week x 55 man weeks = $220,000.
For comparison, assume everyone on the project is a salaried employee. Again, we’ll ignore additional management. This time, we’ll assume a fairly low cost per employee: around $75k per person per year, including overhead. With some liberal rounding, call that $1500 per week per employee. For 55 man weeks, that adds up to $82,500.
Based on those ballpark estimates, FarmVille’s launch was reasonably a 6 figure effort. The article doesn’t mention anything about the ongoing effort and team, but we know a lot of Zynga’s magic comes with analyzing user behavior and pushing frequent updates post-launch. I expect it has taken an additional 6 figures since launch. Zynga also has a notoriously huge marketing budget.
I run into a lot of companies who are looking for someone to make them a successful Facebook game for $25-30K. It may not be impossible, but if you are looking to replicate FarmVille on $30K, you have a seriously uphill battle. That said, I believe that low-cost software and games can win! It takes outside-the-box thinking and innovation. And don’t forget the ongoing budget.
