I've been getting a certain magazine for more than a decade now.. because hey, its free to me, and sometimes it has good articles. Said magazine often has "post mortems" on individual titles, and often times, these post mortems contain some info relevant to dev time and costs in the industry its about. (I know this is a lame attempt at being vague about why I have these magazines -- don't ask, because I'm not interested in answering)
I've discarded a great number of these magazines, but I have a pile from the past 2-3 years or so sitting next to me... I thought I would post some of the fun info within in a post, dispel some silly rumors, and enjoy the ensuing discussion.
I have Procrastinato Estimates (tm) for some stuff, marked with a PE:... argue with me all you want. I'll change the table if you convince me (unlikely). The special "estimate revenue/investment" R/I ratio is just that -- a ratio, and its just for fun. The revenue is just raw sales times 50% of the initial retail price, which is really pretty inaccurate, overall. The point is to be just as inaccurate across the board, for fun comparison's sake, not for accuracy. A 1.0 would almost assuredly indicate a loss, but beyond that, its going to vary, game to game, condition to condition, where the profit line is. Have fun analyzing the data that's present -- you're nev er gonna see all the details, so enjoy what you have here, because that's all you're gonna see.
Keep in mind that this data was provided by the developers themselves, and that different people have different ideas of what constitutes "development time", amongst other things. Some folks will include pre-production, some will not. Some will include post-production, some will not. Often a dev team grows during a product's life cycle, and often (in bigger studios) the dev team members are shared with other projects... Its pretty complicated, and very project/studio specific in the end. I'm just writing down the reported numbers -- there's aboslutely no guarantee that the reporters followed the same guidelines when reporting.
Heregoes.
| Title | Publisher | Platforms | Development Time | Dev team size | Development Cost | Primary Development Platform | VGC reported sales #s | Est. R/I | Notes |
| Metal Gear Ac!d 2 | Konami | PSP | 8 months | ~21 (from a team picture in the article -- probably the team was a bit bigger) | Procrastinato Estimate (PE): $1.4M | PSP | 0.16M, @ max retail $40/copy | 3.2M/1.4M = 2.29 | Sequel -- has a large influence on dev costs and time. Article mentions MGA1 engine/assets used as a basis. |
| Indigo Prophecy | Atari | PC, PS2, XBox | ~24 months | ~80 (peak) | PE: $12.0M | PC | -- | -- | New IPs, from especially new studios, almost always have above average dev costs/time |
| Tomb Raider: Legend | Eidos | PS2, XBox, XBox 360, PSP, PC, GameCube, DS | ~24 months | ~80 (peak) | PE: $12.0M | PC | > 1.21M (VGC data very incomplete) | -- | I highly suspect most ports were not done the reported 80 person team, and that the actual costs were higher than my "estimate" |
| Titan Quest | THQ | PC | ~30 months | ~30 (article says peak was 39, and they had trouble hiring for most of the project) | PE: $7.5M | PC | -- | -- | Small teams make for longer dev cycles, even on PC-only titles. |
| Prey | 2K Games | PC, XBox 360 | 62 months | 30 (probably not for the whole 62 months) | PE: $11.0M | PC | > 0.28M | -- | This is a honest-to-goodness real dev time, from concept to finish, and I knocked down my budget estimate to compensate. |
| Defcon | -- | PC, Mac, Linux | 12 months | 2 | $0.095M (actual) | PC | -- | -- | Garage-style development. ~$50K/year per dev. |
| Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam | Activision | Wii (this report is for only the Wii version) | 18 months | 40 (+8 part-time) | PE: $6.0M | Wii | 0.2M @ ~$50 retail copy max | 5.0M/6.0M = 0.83 | Almost definately a loss, if VGC is right. Perhaps the PS2 and DS ports made up the difference? |
| Resistance: FoM | Sony | PS3 | ~24 months | ~100 | PE:$18.0M | PC + PS3 | 3.55M @ $60 retail max | 106.5M/20M = 5.325 | Spend money to make money. Like most release titles, developed on PC 1st, and probably longer than 24 months, really. Big studio, probably shared resources with R&CF:ToD. |
| Sam & Max | Telltale/GameTap | PC | 14 months | 14 | PE:(its episodic, and the numbers seem off.. I'm not gonna guess) | PC | -- | -- | Article notes that the team was taxed and spread too thinly. Way more than 14 people pictured in their team photo... |
| Burger King Trilogy (Sneak King, Pocket Bike Racer, Big Bumpin) | King Games | XBox, XBox 360 | 7 months | 80 (all 3 combined) | PE:$4.7M | XBox | -- | -- | HD games are cheap to make, if you don't shoot high. |
| Elebits | Konami | Wii | 13 months | 30 | PE: $3.3M | Wii | 0.29M @ $50 retail max | 7.25M/3.3M = 2.2 | Barely profitable, I would guess. |
| Catan (XBLA) | Microsoft | XBox 360/XBLA | ~12 months | 20 | PE: $2.0M | XBox 360 | -- | -- | Article mentions the schedule was too tight. |
| Puzzle Quest (does not include PS2/PS3/Wii versions) | D3 | XBox 360, DS, PSP | ~30 months | 4 (+8 contractors) | PE: $1.4M | PC | -- | -- | Article mentions DS port difficulties (lack of memory) |
| Crackdown | Microsoft | XBox 360 | ~48 months | 71 (peak) | PE: $19.0M | XBox 360 | 1.54M @ $60 retail max | 46.2M/19.0M = 2.43 | X360 Exclusive, not really cheaper than PS3 exclusives listed here |
| Bioshock | 2K Games | XBox 360, PC | ~36 months | 93 (peak) | PE: $18.6M | PC + XBox 360 | > 2.34M (PC data incomplete) | > 70.2M/18.6M = > 3.78 (I bet closer to 4.5, with PC and PS3) | PS3 port probably made money as well, done in 1/3rd the time, with probably a lot less staff |
| Drawn to Life | THQ | DS | 17 months | ~15 (peak, and my guess, from article) | PE: $2.0M | DS | > 0.7M (I'm guessing closer to 1.5M WW, based on consistant DS sales comparisons) | alot -- I bet the ratio is nearly 10.0 | I guessed alot with this one's numbers, based on similarities with other DS titles. Take with salt. |
| Stranglehold | Midway | 360, PS3, PC | 34 months | 150 (peak) | PE: $27M | XBox 360 | > 0.46M (guessing near 0.6M with complete numbers) | ~18M/~27M = ~0.67 | Ouch, and my guesses are generous, I think. |
| Ratchet & Clank Future: ToD | Sony | PS3 | 23 months | ~100 | PE: $19.2M | PC + PS3 | 1.61M @ $60 max retail | 48.3M/19.2M = 2.52 | Article mentions 30 devs shared with R:FoM. My cost estimate for each project, independantly, may be inflated, as would be common with big studios. |
| Call of Duty 4 | Activision | X360, PS3, PC | ~24 months | ~100 | PE: $20.0M | PC | > 11.13M (PC not included) | > 334M/20M = > 16.7 | Sequel. Dev costs/time benefit. The big hits cover all the failures, clearly. Including the PC, the ratio is probably well over 20.0 |
| Uncharted | Sony | PS3 | ~36 months | ~70 (peak) | PE: $18.0M | PC + PS3 | 2.62M | 78.6M/18M = 4.37 | Worth the investment, like many ~$20M games. |
| Rock Band | MTV | X360, PS3, PS2, Wii | ~24 months | ~100 | PE: $20.0M | PC | 5.19M | DLC... crazy. Not going to bother estimating. | Pretty typical for the cross-platform pattern. |
| FF: My Life as a King | Square-Enix | WiiWare | 13 months | 19 (peak) | PE: $1.4M | Wii | -- | -- | Cheap to make. Article mentions schedule way too tight. |
| N+ (XBLA only) | MS? | XBLA | 12 months | 5 | 0.3M (actual) | XBox 360 | -- | -- | ~$60K/dev/year. Similar to other small-scale patterns. |
| Age of Booty | Capcom | X360, PS3, PC | 13 months | 17 (peak) | PE: $1.25M | XBox 360 | -- | -- | I probably overestimate the costs on these small, but not tiny, dev studios by about 20%... |
| The Maw | Twisted Pixel | XBLA, PC | 9 months | 9 (peak) | PE: $0.55M | XBox 360 | -- | -- | I liked this game. |
| LittleBigPlanet | Sony | PS3 | -- | 27 (peak) | -- | PS3 | 2.07M | -- | Probably very profitable |
| Golden Axe: Beast Rider | Sega | X360, PS3 | ~48 months | 125 (peak) | $15.0M (actual) | XBox 360 | 0.13M @ $60 retail max | 3.9M/15.0M = 0.26 | 0.26 R/I? Double ouch. Looks like I may be overestimating HD budgets though? |
| Far Cry 2 | Ubisoft | X360, PS3, PC | ~43 months | 265 (peak. Article notes the peak as being much lower for the first two years) | PE: $40M | PC | > 2.17M | > 65.1/40 = > 1.63 | Uncounted PC sales probably carried this one, but wow... That's a lot of devs. Time is fairly typical, however ~3.5 years), for a new high-end IP. |
That's it, for now. Whine all you want about my guesstimate numbers -- they're just that, educated guesses, and nothing more. ;) If its an estimate, I stated so (with a "PE:" or specific remark). If I didn't state that, then it came right from the developer (well, right from the magazine, anyhow).
Enjoy!
