Our published figures: a prototype starts at A$8,000, a mobile game at A$25,000, and commercial titles are quoted individually. Anything over A$10,000 is milestone-based.
Those ranges are wide because game cost is driven by content volume more than by anything technical. Two games with identical mechanics can differ by an order of magnitude on how much art and level content they need.
Prototype first. A$8,000 to learn the idea does not work is the cheapest possible outcome. Then scope content to what the mechanics can carry, and prefer systems that generate variety over hand-built content.
Milestone-based over A$10,000, so payment follows delivered, playable builds rather than running ahead of them.
Content volume. The engine and the code are rarely what separates a A$25,000 game from a A$250,000 one.
Usually, because scope is naturally tighter - but the market is more crowded, so marketing cost rises as production cost falls.
A prototype. It is the only spend that reliably reduces the total.
Tell us what you are trying to do. If something off the shelf already does it, or the job is smaller than you think, we will say so.
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