Some points:
1. Games which sell over a longer period of time have much GREATER publishing costs than games which are sold over a shorter period of time, relative to their sales.
A game which sells in small amounts over a longer period of time costs more because of:
- Small shipments increase transportation costs.
- They incur a cost for storage or continually small production runs of games.
- Increased costs from retailers, threat of being jostled off high margin retail shelves.
2. The Development/marketing/distribution costs you used for HD games was far too high. Even following the model of 1,000,000 sales = break even, that would still indicate that the total costs were under $30,000,000 which has been verified from several sources and even an Ubisoft executive said as much.
3. The Development/marketing/distribution costs for the "casual" games you listed were far too low. If you were talking about a DS game I would say it wasn't enough, especially considering my point 1.
I'll leave it at that for now.
Tease.
