I assume that this is the suitable place for this thread. My apologies to the staff if my judgment was wrong.
The [currently nonexistent] product they would be working on would be commercial and I suspect it would take about six months to a year to complete. It is a game creation engine. It's going to be a while until I'll be able to hire anybody, but I was just curious to get an estimate of how much it would cost. Thanks. 
About $60 to $80k on the extreme low end. Also, probably triple your time to 18 months.
It's hard to give you a fair answer. There are a few game creation engines out there; so, creating the engine is only part of the battle.
If you're serious you may want to think about partnering with some part-time programmer's with the same interest.
The development cost may actually be the lowest cost of the entire process. The distribution, marketing and just trying to convince game creator's to make the switch may be substantial unless of course the end product blows everything else out of the water.
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