http://pc.ign.com/articles/899/899976p1.html

CEO and President of game developer Crytek said Crysis cost 15 million Euros (22 million USD) to develop during a panel about the future of gaming graphics at the Games Convention Developers Conference in Leipzig, Germany. Yet despite the cost, Yerli maintained the game was profitable, adding, "if it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be able to stand here."

In the past, Crytek was responsible for the first-person shooters Far Cry (2004) which ran on its CryEngine 1, and Crysis (2007), which rand on its CryEngine 2. Crysis Warhead, another first-person shooter with ties to Crysis and also built with CryEngine 2, is being readied for release this September.

Yerli gave no word on what other titles the company might produce between now and 2012, when he believes the studio's next engine will be ready and a new generation of consoles will be available

 

 

I am happy it was profitable because it was a great game

I thought the game was pretty generic and mediocre, but the engine was cool. So I'm glad it's profitable for future use of the engine.

How many games need to be sold for high cost games to be profitable? Cause for MSG4 they just said they needed 1mil sold in first day for it to be good, doesn't seem like it takes that much to be profitable.

MGS4 had a bigger budget, considering the length of development and number of staff employed by Kojima Productions (about 200) dedicated to one game.

If you watch the production videos, you'll see the team took quite a few indulgences in the production of the game in the interest of realism/making the best product possible.

- on site field trips to Eastern Europe to assist in the creation of the setting for Act 3
- hiring a military consultant and having game development staff go through a tactical training "boot camp" including small arms weapons handling and small unit tactics
- on site field trips to military installations to view current equipment and hardware systems in use, etc.

Not exactly necessary to make a convincing game, but it probably made the development process more interesting for studio employees, with the side effect of expanding the overall budget.

It all depends on how a studio allocates its funds during production. In most cases, developing the way Kojima Productions did for MGS4 just doesn't make financial sense.

In most cases, games can be made profitable with a lot less effort and far fewer resources if the management in charge of production keeps schedules and expenditures on time and within budget. Typically cheaper and shorter than games like MGS4.

Just take a look at studios like Insomniac by comparison.

Endz said: How many games need to be sold for high cost games to be profitable? Cause for MSG4 they just said they needed 1mil sold in first day for it to be good, doesn't seem like it takes that much to be profitable.

 

You can come up with a pretty good estimate by just thinking through the numbers ... Between the manufacturing costs, retailer profit and licencing fee you're (probably) losing $15 to $30 revenue from the sale of every game at retail; I would expect that the DS would be closer to the bottom of that range and the PS3 and XBox 360 would be closer to the high end of that range.

Edit: thought you said Crysis Core

PC games have the benefit of not paying licencing fees, and if they're sold through digital distribution they don't have a manufacturing cost and they have very small retail costs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a game sold on Steam saw 90% of the total retail cost, which for a $50 game would work out to being $45 and you would turn a profit off of a $20 Million game after you sold 500,000 copies.

naznatips said: I thought the game was pretty generic and mediocre, but the engine was cool. So I'm glad it's profitable for future use of the engine.

 

the fact its an FPS is but the open world style at the beginning definitely made it so it wasnt as generic as it could have been.

A PC game making a profit? Shh, better silence this thread before the 'PC is dead' people find out about this.

I hope this shuts people up on games like Uncharted, MGS4 etc not making profit.

tombi123 said: I hope this shuts people up on games like Uncharted, MGS4 etc not making profit.

 

Errr is not the same, the PC is a lot cheaper to develop + no licences fees... and very basic architecture... (Probably the only pain is the amount of combinations, but is no a huge hit)...

Boring game, good engine... good for them I guess...

Endz said: How many games need to be sold for high cost games to be profitable? Cause for MSG4 they just said they needed 1mil sold in first day for it to be good, doesn't seem like it takes that much to be profitable.

 

 Crysis was mainly a computer game, so they didn't have to pay PS3 or 360 royalties. Also he could be including profits from licensing out the engine.