Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Any ideas? Lets say we all sit down to make a self-contained skirmish game at GW HQ. . . about how long about would it take to develop the minis, materials, and so on before having it ready for sale?

It's all really guess work, but working backwards

once it's all done getting it printed and distributed to the various GW hubs in sufficient quantities is probably going to be 3 to 6 months

Minis, if they can use existing stuff again probably 3-6 months to find a slot for production. If they've actually got to design it all from scratch 6 months to 18 months depending on how many sprues and how complex they are

Game design, 6 months if they are effectively using a game their designer has already worked up to some degree, to 2 years if they have an idea (genestealers vs deathwatch) but no designer in mind, and no idea how they want the game to play

so overall probably 9 months minimum (for a game using existing assets, and either being a reskin of an existing design or something the designer has already worked out most of the bugs on)

probably 2+ years for something more ambitious, new and needing substantial new mini toolings

It's really impossible to easily say since there are so many variables including

1) How much money they can dedicate to the project

2) How many resources they can devote to it and if those resources are devoted to it only or if they share with other projects - eg manpower, machines, floor space etc.... One would expect many departments and resources are shared out; so whilst a project might have a dedicated team assigned to it; some members of that team might have duties in other areas - thus time is limited.

3) How big a game they want it to be. The resources for a stand alone one-off game (like say Dreadfleet) are going to be different to those aiming to produce a skirmish game with continued releases (Heroquest) and that's all different to if they wanted to release a full larger scale game (eg Warmaster, BFG, etc...)

4) How many resources you dedicate to a project defines how long it can take; but similarly how long you "want or need" it to take can dictate how many resources are put into its production.


Consider how many Kickstarter projects can, with the right funding and management, go from nothing to a game in around one to two years; baring in mind two key points
1) Most times the design work is already mostly done before the KS so that already reflects months of work

2) Most times KS companies are investing into infrastructure and production and (if doing very well) can often have huge demands on production to supply backers (and that's often all done without regular income from the product coming in).


So yes for a fully new game I think the time estimation of one to two years minimum isn't a bad rough guess; and for a much bigger game you could even be looking at much longer.


Things like this are why companies are often a bit like oil-tankers. The market might change, but most can't react as fast as customers would like because of existing plans that the company already has money and assets tied up in development. It's why analysts who predict market changes as well as marketing that aims to control the market are such valuable things to big companies. If the company can predict what is to come in 3 or so years they can prepare for that; whilst if they have enough market hold then their own marketing can exert some control over the markets desires.