How much earns a freelance developer?

[BalrogSoft]

Hi, i received a call from a company that will make a project for a museum, if they win the project, i will develop a webcam game for the museum, it's a semi-multiplayer game, that have two little games, one is an action game, and the other is a question-answer game, the users compite individually and the result is showed on the server monitor where appears also the four players screen. I will use Pure Basic for the project, but it's my first freelance project, i work at full time as game developer, so i don't know if i must to increse how much i will earn at hour for this reason, because i will use my freetime to develop the game, and i don't know if i must increase the budget if i must to give the source code. I don't know also how much earns a freelance developer at hour. This is a resumed budget i made for this project, i only will make the code, the company will make graphics and sound:

20 € / Hour
24 Hours / week

Game planning - 2 weeks
Client - server design - 2 weeks
Motion detection research to find optimal method - 2 weeks
Client - server develop - 6 weeks
Game - Network engine develop - 3 weeks
Action game develop - 5 weeks
Question-answer game develop - 6 weeks
Testing and bugs fix - 3 weeks

28 weeks
7 months
13440 € for all the project.

What do you think about the budget? remember that i only will make the code, and the source is not required (i think).

[dracflamloc]

What does your currency translate to in USD?

[Joakim Christiansen]

What does your currency translate to in USD?

http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html

[Edwin Knoppert]

It all seems outragious..
First my guess is at least 40E (~35$ afaik)

The planning totally sucks.

All my opinion though..

EDIT:
I work as an ordinary programmer for years (~10) now and i never managed to come up with a solid planning (isn't my job anyway).
But from experiance everything takes about 2 times the planned time.
+ your schedule is imo much more thight as you expect.

As the following poster mentiones, you are depending on others... that truly sucks with planning.
MAKE SURE you can not be held responsible if things don't work out.
...PAPER!!

[benny]

@Balrog:

Just some general notes. Actually if you develop as a freelancer you add to your
actual costs extra money for the time you don't have a job. In your case
you can leave this out as you are already employed and you do this project
in your spare-time.

Furthermore it depends of course how complex the action game is. The
question-answer game sounds rather simple to develop. Nevertheless, as
you are already experienced in game developing I guess you know how
much time it takes to develop the game itself.

I would put a time-buffer of about 4 weeks into consideration if possible.
This maybe saves you sleepless nights

Furthermore, it can be very frustrating when you work with external
graphicians / musicians you don't know. Sometimes, your whole project
is on hold just because you are waiting for some graphics or you have to
change some parts of the gfx because of technical reasons. It of course
depends if these graphicians are used to work in game-development or
not.

Beside of that, did you take any taxes you probably have to pay in your
country for that work into consideration

Concerning the budget I would say it sounds rather low. But of course it
depends on the experience you have. I know that you already did a lot
of coding concerning motion detection and so on. So if you are able to
reuse a lot of your code than it "might" be ok :roll:

Anyway, GOOD LUCK - sounds like an interesting project

[blueznl]

i've been doing project management for way too long, but indeed the rule of thumb is: estimate as good as you can the time it will take, then double that

[thefool]

It all seems outragious..
First my guess is at least 40E (~35$ afaik)

ehm.. 40= is not = 35$. euro is quite more worth.. 40€ = 51$.

13 440€ = 17 247$


@balrogsoft; i don't know anything about planning at all. Listen to the others; but i think the project seems interesting, and if it interests you as well its a good little side-income.

[ricardo]

Game planning - 2 weeks
Client - server design - 2 weeks
Motion detection research to find optimal method - 2 weeks
Client - server develop - 6 weeks
Game - Network engine develop - 3 weeks
Action game develop - 5 weeks
Question-answer game develop - 6 weeks
Testing and bugs fix - 3 weeks

28 weeks
7 months
13440 € for all the project.

How did you get this numbers? Just by "sounds okay"?
And what if it takes longer? They accept to pay more?

However sounds great th project, wish you a lot of luck!

[BalrogSoft]

Thanks to all, first the life level is not he same on all countries, here in Spain we earn less than EU salaries, on spanish forums where people ask about how much earns a developer, says that normally a company that give the work to a developer outside the company, earns between 20 - 24 €, i made the project adding extra weeks, the games are very simple, i know that i will depend of graphics and sound, but i will say to the company that i will not responsabilize on project dates if they don't provide the graphics and sound when i need. About taxes i'm asking to some people about it, it's my first freelance job, and i don't know a lot about taxes. About how i made the numbers, is easy (well not really, is a little complicated, i hate make a budget), as i said i'm working on a videogame company, and i must to specify the time i will use on every project, i split all the develop process, i estimated the time used for each process, then multiply your Money/Hour salary with the hours to make the project, and you will get the budget.

[Berikco]

24 hours a week for 28 weeks.
672 hours

In the company where i worked 4 years ago, there was an external software company developing an application in VB
It was 580 euro a day for 1 coder, and he was about 6 hours a day there....RAD developing with VB and MS SQL server.
That would be 112 days x 580 euro
64960 euro....
Well, actualy they spend much more time...it was double that price
And at the end....the application sucked...and was so slow that is was abandoned after one year of use

Here in Belgium, the price for a skilled coder is 60 to 120 euro/hour.
And thats only 1500Km north of spain...
Thats the reason more and more company's here do there software development in India.


So 20 euro/hour is realy cheap.

[IceSoft]

...So 20 euro/hour is realy cheap.

Cheaper as in India

[BalrogSoft]

I made a budget with an high price for a hour of work, and they didn't like a lot, they finally suggested to remove one of the games, and it decrease the budget price and time, and they finally accepted it. Thanks to all.

[dracflamloc]

Cool!