How much does it cost to make a mobile game?

Mobile game has become very popular nowadays. Today everybody starting from a child to an old person keeps themselves engaged in playing mobile games. That is the reason why the mobile game developing companies are keen to develop and launch new mobile games in the market so that customers get attracted and buy more and more new games from their company. This helps them to increase their revenue. But whenever we think to develop a new thing the first thing that comes to our mind is the cost involved in the process. In a similar way, the companies try to know how much does it cost to make a mobile game. But in order to find out the cost involved in making the mobile games you have to look out on the following factors:

Choice of mobile OS:

  • The main cost of developing the mobile games depends on which operating system the mobile games will be implemented. Basically, there are three types of mobile operating system: Android, iOS, Windows, and Blackberry. The overall development cost of mobile games will solely depend on the operating system used. For example, developing a mobile game for Apple device becomes 10-20% costlier than Android mobile device. Again if it is required to develop the mobile game on the older version of the Android Operating System the cost becomes higher.

Pre-development expense:

  • Before you develop a new mobile game it is very important to strategize the story for the game, level of the game, complexity of the game, design of the game, etc. The success or failure of the mobile game will depend on these crucial factors. As such it is required to hire more experienced and skillful game designer which involved expense. The more experienced designer you hire the more expense you have to spend. If you hire an average game designer he will charge around $30 to $80 per hour for a single project. However, it will become a little cheaper in case you hire an in-house developer.

The complexity of the game:

  • The cost involved in developing the mobile game also depends on the complexity of the game. The more the complexity the more will be the cost. For example, a mini-game like a Ping-Pong game, Pac-Man clone etc. cost around $10 k. A simple 2D casual game such as Stack or Hap and Red ball involves the cost in between $20 K to $60 K. A middle level mobile game which have a depth content, story and impactful visuals, such as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope will cost in between $60K to $120 K. High-level games requires more experienced professionals and as such it will cost around $120 K to $250 K. These types of the game are generally high-risked and high-rewarded in the market. Thus, it is the complexity of the mobile games on which the cost hugely depends.

Post-development expense:

  • Developing the mobile game will not end the story. You need to go through a lot of other steps such as testing and user acquisition to make sure that the mobile games that are developed are really working in the similar fashion that it is expected to. You also have to make sure that the mobile games are useful to the users and are liked by them. Unless you go through these steps you will never become sure whether the newly developed game will be a success or a failure. These steps involve a huge cost. Once you go through these steps, you have to concentrate on marketing. You need to come out with various kinds of marketing strategies to make your mobile game viral. This means you need to invest heavily in advertisements in order to attain as well as retain the customers. For that you cannot depend only on direct ads, you also have to implement various kinds of social media marketing strategy that will help you create buzz and brand name of your company which in turn will help you to attract more and more customers towards your newly developed games.

These are some essential costs that are involved in developing a mobile game.  As such, you have to keep in mind these costs before going to develop new mobile games.

Tags: technology, video games, mobile video games, video games news, designing android games, designing mobile game, mobile games

Mohsen Daemi
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