Gears of War 2 had a $12 million development budget

[Slimebeast]

Munkeh111 said:

Slimebeast said:

Munkeh111 said:

mrstickball said:
Munkeh - Every number I've seen for KZ2 has put it at, or above $40 million USD.

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/2503.html
http://www.digitalbattle.com/2006/11/28/killzone-ps3-info/

Essentially, KZ2 had, for some time, 120+ developers on the project. Also, the development time was considerably higher. Given the factors (time + developers), the minimum budget had to of been near the rumors of $40 million, if not more.

I'm not saying it is not far fetched, I just want sources. GG have 140 people, and it was 2 1/2 years between Killzone Liberation and KZ 2, and they would have had devs working on it before then, but this is just speculation. And may I point out that this GeoW 2 cost does not include the engine work that was done seperately, so if you add the 2 GeoWs together, they would probably come to KZ 2. Then again, so would the 2 Uncharteds. The fact is, GG are an inexperienced studio that created loads of new tech for this game, so they will definitely be able to develop games cheaper in the future.

140 people x 2 = 280 man years (extended over 3 years of development, 3 times 90 guys on average if you like)

Each man years costs $150,000.

Total dev cost KZ2: 280 x $150k= $42 million. That's a minimum/conservative estimation in my opinion. And marketing costs excluded of course.

Including marketing, total game creation costs: ~$60 million, so KZ2 will need to sell roughly $60 million/$30 = 2 million copies to break even.
(excluding bundled copies since they don't contribute even one dime in revenue, although bundles help selll consoles and other games of course)

I think $150k is too high, Squilliam has once suggested $100k per dev, which I think it varies between those 2, and I would say KZ 2 is more likely to be about $120k

Just look at ND. Uncharted 1 cost $20m which was 2 years of about 90 people, but that included creating the engine and learning how to code on the PS3. Uncharted 2 is another 2 years with 100+ people, and that is also costing $20m

What we can agree, was that KZ 2 is very expensive, and at 1.8m is probably about even, maybe a little under with some copies going cheap.

Also remember that that Gears figure does not include engine costs, and the large marketing, so I don't think you could get 3 GeoWs for the price of 1, but certainly 1.5-1.75.

There is too much guesswork to put a more solid figure

Squilliam lives in a poor country used to low wages. I showed him the proof of $125-150,000 and he accepted it already.

http://vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=2465197

Even the people in the industry itself sometimes suggest the $100k average man year cost, but there's several reasons why it is like that. It's an easy number to play around with, it comes probably from an old calculation game dev cost example from a speech at GDC and it's in developers interest to underestimate all costs. Also, all of them don't have super business sense and dont have the whole picture of running a software house.

$100k cost per man year is simply impossible in the West. I know from a first hand source that the gross salary alone is $75-80k here in Sweden, and we're a big and very representative game making nation.

 But okay, let's try $125. That would give total cost at $35 million for KZ2 (sounds quite low tbh). If marketing included it would become rufly $50 million, which needs at least 1.7 million non-bundled copies of KZ2 to be shipped to retail, to break even.