A studio of this kind, doing serious original work, might have between 20 and 30 people at its productive peak. Some are mid-level artists. Some are programmers with console or Unreal Engine experience. There are senior employees, a producer, a quality assurance team, and at least one person dealing with business and legal matters. Let’s use 30 people as our team size, which is on the smaller end for this kind of project, but not unrealistic.
At INR 1.4L per person per month, 30 people cost INR 42L per month. Annualized, that is INR 5.04 Cr ($524K at $96.27) just in human cost. A three-year development timeline, which is tight for an original IP but achievable with discipline, multiplies that to INR 15.12 Cr in total staff cost before a single rupee of revenue.
Then, we have to factor in the non-staff costs. Unreal Engine is free until a game earns $1M in lifetime revenue, which helps. Unity Pro costs approximately INR 1.95L per year per developer beyond certain revenue thresholds. Platform submission fees, marketing spend, sound design, voice acting, legal costs around IP registration, and pre-release localization all add layers on top of the base staff burn. A conservative estimate for these non-staff costs on a project of this scale over three years might be INR 2 to 3 Cr more.
So a 30-person Indian studio, building an original mid-scale PC and console game over three years, is looking at a total cost in the range of INR 17 to 18 Cr ($1.77 to $1.87M). That is not a small number for an Indian startup without publisher backing. It is, by most Indian venture capital standards, a large ask for a category that most investors still do not fully understand.
