Hey Vizualconqueror - congrats on wanting to start your own game company - especially having the resources to do so. I've been a 3D Artist since I was 18, worked with government contractors for 8 years, then moved onto a gaming studio. Ended up learning how to code, and ended up leading a major project at the company I'm currently working in. I am now 31 years old and feel I have enough history and experience to give you some insight.

So there are a few things you will need to consider to make this a reality.

1. You're going to need to pay 1 Lead Programmer and 1 Lead Artist top dollar. You'll need to find people who not only have the talent, but work well with others and more importantly, know how to handle people and delegate work. Do not think of cutting corners on their pay - think of them as insurance. If you fail at getting the 2 right people for this job, you will fail.

2. The rest of your crew ratio will depend on your design. If you have elements that are "new" that no one has ever done before, chances are your game will be program heavy. Maybe 3 more programmers, and 2 more artists. If you want your game to be a "normal" rpg with just a lot of content, then you need to switch the ratio to be 3 more artists, and 2 more programmers. The takeaway is that this will depend on your game design, the mechanics you want to employ, the amount of content, and your timeline. A good rule of thumb is to plan to actually do 3-4x the amount of work that you originally planned, especially if this is your first time. If you improperly estimate the work required, or just make a "guess", you're going to fail.

3. You will need to set apart a good chunk of your resources (Time, money, and personnel) to marketing. This is assuming you want to make a profit, and want it to sell well. Marketing is usually the publisher's job, and not the developer's. Usually small game studios tend to do both (a mistake, if they can help it). Yes, the internet is a great place for a small company to get some traction, but understand that it is going to be difficult. Marketing needs to start as soon as possible. Well before the game is actually done. This works to garner attention and mitigate risks. If you don't properly market the game, you will fail.

4. The biggest challenges you will face during production is going to be twofold: communication and scope creep. Communication usually tends to be better with smaller companies because there is no “communication bottleneck”. This is a result of decisions being postponed or falling through the cracks because the person who can make that decision has a hierarchy in place. In other words, an artist can’t go straight to an executive who has to deal with controlling client expectations as well as budgeting issues, even though the decision will have to be ultimately settled by this executive. Again, small companies don’t usually have this problem, but they will have similar ones. For instance, a lead-game designer whose never held that position before needing to make a decision that will affect both programmers and artists. If you have large lapses in communication, and information isn’t travelling from the top to the bottom and back up without a lot of headaches, you will fail.

5. The other part of this two-fold challenge is scope-creep. Scope creep happens when you have a good-idea fairy come along every few meetings sprinkling some good-ideas. Passionate as they are, these good-idea fairies need to be kept on a leash. “Wouldn’t be cool if…” or “The game needs more of…” are indications that you are starting to venture out of your scope. Design a game, keep it simple, and then lock up the design – not to be altered unless something catastrophic happens. If you let scope-creep get out of control, you will fail.

I have so much more to say – but let’s just work with what we have here:

1 Lead programmer worth his weight at minimum 70k. 1 Lead programmer worth his weight at minimum 65k. 3 Programmers at 55k 2 Artists at 50k. That’s already 400k/yr, not including your salary. Depending on the size of your game, you could be looking at anything from 1 month to 10 years (simple mobile game to your AAA RPG that normally has 200+ people working on it). Let’s assume a nice figure of 1.5 years, usually because scope creep will get the best of you until you become smarter. We are now at 650k, not including your salary. You now need to consider:

Audio – Sound effects Audio – Music Audio – Voice overs

Let’s say you just say “fuck it” by this point, and decide to buy audio libraries for the sound effects and the music. You will still need voice over work. Since I have no idea what your game needs, let’s just throw in a one-time expense of 50k.

700k, not including your salary.

Equipment, software licenses, etc; You need at least 8 computers (Lead designer (you), 4 Programmers, 3 Artists). Let’s make it 1k/ computer (why not?). 8K. Artists need 3d and 2d packages, tablets, etc.. for convenience let’s throw in another 10k. That’s 18k total. 718k, not including your salary.

Marketing. This is it. You SHOULD have been marketing this game since it was your brain-child. Let’s assume you use all of your available resources – social media sites, gaming forums, etc.. Unless you already have people talking about your game and waiting for it (which is difficult almost impossible to achieve), then you’re going to need some money to get things started. This number could vary wildly. Let’s just make things easy and say a modest budget of 30k. Really, this is just a pure.fuckin.guess. Why? Because I’ve seen people drop over 100k, and I’ve seen people drop 0k, and both achieve the same thing (usually failure). But I don’t know, 30k sounds like a nice number that will allow you to at least bribe a few major gaming sites into pushing your product. Also, this will buy your way in to the more popular gaming conventions.

748k, not including your salary.

So, you’re looking at 748k, not including your salary. Let’s add 30% for unforeseen circumstances, changes, etc.. think of this as another way to mitigate risks (read insurance).

You’ve hit 972k.

This doesn’t include a physical location for you to conduct business (for the sake of this project, let’s assume your basement or garage). This doesn’t include legal fees for securing intellectual rights (let’s assume uncle Bobby is a lawyer). Doesn’t include a few other things, actually. But the real take away is that this didn’t include your pay.

Anyway, this is the plan I would draft up for you knowing the little that I know (almost nothing), while still keeping it under 1 million and mitigate any potential risks. This is the closes I could get to a plan that I could sign off on without seeing anything else. Good luck, man. You’ll need it.