So, Final Fantasy 13 will have cost $100+ million to make?

[Slimebeast]

jammy2211 said:

Slimebeast said:

JEDE3 said:
"Can you state any sort of source of give us any credibility as to why you're right and our figures our wrong. I've no interest in ebing right or wrong here - my numbers come from an online video game blog - I just want to get the numbers and figures right for my own interests and am happy to listen to you, but so far you've not given me a reason why your figures are legit."

Check his post history. I think you'll get a good idea where he gets his figures from. I mean... he said rule of thumb for advertising a game is to take half of the development cost.

Not advertising, but marketing as a whole, dummy (including the developers flying around all over the world on game shows, giving interviews etc, sending promo material to magazines, websites, making trailers, TV, magazine, web site ads etc). Half was overexaggerating, but it's still a better 'rule of thumb' for simplicity in comparison to the false misconceptions that flow around on these forums. In Halo 3's case the marketing actually cost a lot more than the development of the game.

I dont know, maybe 30-35% is a better rule of thumb. How should I know, these numbers arent official. But we have to assume something, everyone does that. And you are not very constructive, you just mock and laugh while contributing nothing. But I dont see you protesting when the others suggested $5 millon and other laughable figures for big games like Motorstorm, Uncharted and Resistance.

 I don't believe you can pin a rule of thumb on marketing costs - Sven of Capcomunity said it was 10-20% I think (Someone correct me if I have forgotten) but in all honestly a games marketing budget will reflect the game. Further a publisher will not use developement costs as an indication of marketing budget- they'll use expected revenue generated. If your 50% figure was correct then DS games like the Imagine series wouldn't have sold at all - they're a fine example of the marketing being far above developement costs.

 It's a good rule of thumb for high-budget HD games, but there are many other gaming models which it doesn't apply to. Even the Wii market is seeing marketing costs excell ahead of developement costs now.

I agree. Generally I object to rules of thumb, but they're popular among the people. Two I hate are "a HD game needs to sell 260,000 copies to break even" and "A HD game costs $10 million to develop", although the more correct individuals add the word 'average' in there.

So in the same way it's misleading to cite a specific % number of marketing budget which varies almost as much as the dev budget of HD games.

(and yes of course I agree with "a publisher will not use developement costs as an indication of marketing budget", because naturally the sales potential of the final product not always reflects the total costs of creating it, hence why Halo 3 had insane marketing budget)

But who is Sven of Capcomunity and which kind of games did he mean? All Capcom games?