Battlefield 3 is a perfect example.

[Gunman121]

ghettoglamour said:

Gunman121 said:

Your statistics are mistaken. This is a success for the PC.

Remember, with the 360 + PS3 = Costs are more to produce the game + retail space + walmart/gamestop take.


PC titles are cheaper to build, Thus 250,000-500,000 is considered a success. With Digital distribution, Take Steam 100,000- 200,000 units is necessary to make a profit. (Steam takes 30 % ) While at stores they take 60-70% --- now note, steam didn't have BF3. Take origin. 100 % profit right there.

This is not a failure. A failure for the PC is when a boxed unit only sells 20-80,000.


(This is why The Witcher 2 was considered a success)

Can you tell me why are they cheaper to build? I'm not trolling you, I just don't get it.

It's cheaper because you're working with the PC. By that I mean you have only one development kit (you do have to fiddle around with drivers, and optimizations for several PCS though.)

With that said, you don't have to do several of the same tricks as you do on the console to get similar performance. Also you need to factor in retail time. Ex: Game goes gold > go to distributor > make DVD copies of game > get all set in boxs > ship to stores > unload and place on shelfs.

Where as with PC digital distribution. ex: Game goes gold > upload to steam > it's on steam. 

Furthermore, remember when working with consoles - the PS3 and 360 are both different. Extra time i needed to update each build and try to make each one look on par.

Tl;dr

1) PCs have power + familiar dev kit
2) Most modern pc games  have less retail space, but more for digital markets
3) Console differences in terms of builds.

I hope that answered your question.