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[Willseph]

Hi all, I'm a Flash programmer and I've recently caught the attention of a video game company that wants me to program their games for them. I don't really know how big their company is, but they asked me for a quote to do a game and I really don't know how much I should ask for.

Does anyone know where the ballpark for something like this would be? I was thinking somewhere around $500-$1,000 but I honestly have no idea.

[Evan Balster]

How big is the game?  Estimate the hours of work you'll put in, triple that estimate (because programmers suck at estimating work time) and figure out a good hourly rate like $15, based on your experience.  Freelancers usually make more per hour than employees due to the irregular nature of their work, so figure that in too.

And you should really look into getting a contract written up so you don't get screwed over.  Regardless of your impressions of your employer.

[Willseph]

Yeah I am pretty shitty at estimating these kinds of things. The game seems relatively simple but it's a fairly big project. I mean it's Flash so it isn't too big, I dunno I figure if I can work around 35 hours a week, the game might take around three weeks to make, so that's 105 hours.

If I work at $15/hr, that's either $1,575 for the 105 hours or $4,725 if I multiply it by 3. Is this something they would find realistic?

[raleigh]

$5000 for three weeks work is probably a reasonable bid. Set a few milestones up and get paid incrementally.

[Chromanoid]

in germany i took 20€ per hour (gross net).

[Fredrik_]

Charge per hour if you have an uncertain scope for the project and be paid per week.

Otherwise they may expand the project with feature creeping.

And how big can a flash game/project be? Unlimtited in worst case!

[Rob Lach]

Charge by hour, $15-30 depending on experience and technical prowess.

Keep track of billable hours extremely closely including phone calls and provide them with an invoice at the end.

[grapefrukt]

I'd charge WAY more, my going rate for freelance flash is about $100, granted that's sweden and I do mostly marketing stuff so I can charge more (and most of it goes to taxes anyway). But don't screw yourself over with a too low rate, they need to respect and value your time and a good way to communicate that you don't have time to be kicked around is charging for it. Granted, you also want to go low enough to get the job, that's the whole problem 

Also, keep in mind that when you're doing a game for a client they are going to want to change things. Probably things you don't agree with. Make room for this in the schedule. There'll also be some turnaround time in getting feedback on what you've done, so add a few days of padding for that, if the game takes three weeks to make, don't set the deadline in three weeks, say four or five to give yourself some breathing room. You don't need to work all those hours.

[bateleur]

The thing to remember about charging an flat rate is that it has to be high enough to cover additional work that the customer expects for free.

So you develop the game in forty hours, then the customer emails you pointing out the text on the help screen is poorly aligned on some ten year old Mac one of their staff members owns. So then you spend ten hours fixing that because they won't take "unsupported" for an answer and they expect not to pay you extra for that because it was "a bug".

On the other hand if you charge an hourly rate then it will annoy customers if anything is ever slower than they expect. Also, I frequently get asked to quote estimated hours for a project and then get raised eyebrows if I overshoot even a "rough" estimate.

If this is your first Flash job I recommend quoting $6000 for a fairly simple game, since they'll expect free support and access to your source code too.

[nicolasgb]

I agree with what most people say:
- 15$/hour is pretty low. Here in France you'd charge at least 200€ per 8-hours work day, i.e. 25€/hour, and possibly more (300-400 per day_
- NEVER EVER bid a flat fee if you can't estimate the workload yourself.
- Do pad your estimates to account for retake
- make room to spend additional time on the project and meet the milestones in case you see you will be late at some point

[ink.inc]

So, how did it turn out?

[namre]

Yeah, give us an update