Cost to make electronic games?

Cost are relative to your ability to do some, most, or all of the work yourself.

You could in fact design, code, and publish a IPhone style app in the Apple app store for next to nothing dollar wise. The low cost is one reason many neophytes are doing just that.

Creating a windows based game is doable for a 2-10K cost if you have a distribution house. It is more the time factor then the money you will have issues with.

A console based game is a production level cost because you will spend A LOT to arrange the development environment and to license even getting your product in that sales channel. Some console developers will only allow you to make the game if they approve it.

If you want to do the next QUAKE, well that is a different animal. You will find yourself relying on the skill sets of others more and more, and that will cost you money.

Can you ?

1) Program the software
2) Do graphics ( I mean with some quality here as look and feel creates atmosphere and that sells a game more then anything else
3) storyboard the game flow to understand all the graphics needed
4) write the AI for the single player mode
5) create the P2P or server software that allows multiplayer versions of the game
6) manage testing of the software yourself or have others who can test it for you
7) micro manage people who will do work for you
8) Design packaging or marketing material
9) Promote a produce through both sales and by going to trade shows
10) do you understand market research so you can best gauge the market you are selling to
11) define and structure all of the above in a way that you can put it in a business plan to obtain funding for the project. If it is a large project you will be required to present a planning document to investors, along with any market projections and sales estimates.

Speaking as someone who has spent 40 years in the industry off and on.....there is a lot of factors. I have worked in every aspect of the game industry from electronic to boardgame, and understanding all the factors will help you a lot more in figuring how to save costs on things you can do yourself. Almost all of it can be done for cheap development wise. Getting it to market however has many outside costs that you may not have considered.

You can get you hands on the software programming tools and teach yourself. It may take you six months to two years to get your first game polished off. When you get to that point, you will have found the way to answer most of your questions on the next project that comes after that.

Realistic price for a small professional software game is (being conservative here) 20 grand. That includes the materials to do the job, some promtion expenses, and related tools needed to complete the task. A larger on-shelf product you are looking at 50 to 100K. A studio level product you should figure min 500,000.