What is the difference between a prototype, a vertical slice and an MVP?
A prototype answers one question and throws the rest away: does this movement feel good, does this economy hold, is this loop worth building? It is deliberately ugly, usually grey-boxed, and judged only on whether the answer it produces is trustworthy. A vertical slice is the opposite trade — a small piece of the game built to final quality, art, audio, UI and all, so a publisher or an investor can see what shipping looks like. An MVP is a third thing again: the smallest version real players can play end to end, built to be extended rather than discarded. Confusing the three is the most expensive mistake in pre-production, because a slice scoped and priced as a prototype gets built to prototype quality and then shown to a publisher.
How much does an outsourced game prototype cost?
An outsourced prototype is normally sold as a fixed-scope engagement of roughly two to eight weeks against a written question, because the deliverable is an answer and open-ended exploration is what makes pre-production overrun. This directory records no rate for a prototype engagement as such. The nearest published figure is the $20,000-60,000 hyper-casual band in the mobile game development outsourcing guide, which prices a shippable minimal game, not a throwaway prototype. Build from the discipline ranges instead: the editorial market ranges published here run $35-60 per hour for junior programming, $60-120 mid-level and $120-250 senior, and $50-90 for a mid-level designer, $90-200 for a senior or lead. Multiply roles by the weeks each is staffed; the game outsourcing cost guide works that arithmetic end to end. A vertical slice costs a multiple of a prototype, because final-quality art and audio are most of the bill.
Who owns an outsourced prototype?
Whoever the contract says owns it — and by default in most jurisdictions that is the studio that made it, not the client who paid, because work produced under a service contract does not transfer automatically the way employee work does. Get a written IP assignment covering source code, art source files, audio and design documentation, effective on payment, and make sure it names the prototype specifically: a master agreement drafted for a production phase sometimes only bites from the production milestone onward. Two clauses matter more here than on a finished build. The studio's pre-existing engine tools and libraries usually come as a licence rather than an assignment, which is normal but should be written down. And portfolio rights on an unannounced title should be deferred until you announce.
What do pre-production game development services deliver?
Pre-production services deliver the documents and the playable evidence that make a production budget defensible: a design document covering the core loop, progression and economy; a technical design naming the engine, the target platforms and the risky systems; a grey-box prototype of the loop; an art direction pack with references and one test asset taken to final quality; and a production plan with a team shape, a milestone schedule and a cost estimate. The deliverable that matters most is the risk list — the things nobody yet knows how to build — because shrinking that list is what pre-production is for. Ask for the scope in writing as artefacts with dates, and treat any pre-production engagement that cannot name its deliverables as an hourly contract wearing a fixed-price label.
Which studios take a mobile game from prototype to launch?
Full-cycle studios take a mobile game the whole way, and the capability worth checking is not the development but everything after it: submission to both the App Store and Google Play, ad-network and analytics SDK integration, in-app purchase and store billing, a soft launch in a test geography, and the live-ops work that starts the week after release. Plenty of teams that build well have never shipped a mobile title themselves, and submission is where that shows. Ask which mobile titles the studio has published rather than contributed to, whether they have run a soft launch and what they changed because of it, and who holds the store accounts — which should be you, always. Filter this directory for full production alongside the mobile platform to see which teams list both.
