Game Development Costs?

[TaroSarask]

Soriku said:

sinha said:

friedtofu said:

Woah, 40 million?? I didnt think they could get that high. I was thinking 20 million tops.

I did google Killzone and yah, 135 developers and 40 million (so far)...

Wow, $40 million so far? So if they don't spend any more money (unlikely), how many copies of Killzone 2 must be sold for it to make a profit? 2 million?

For it not to be a "flop" it has to make profit. Let's esitmate to $40 mil the cost it takes to make it (it's obviously more, but let's keep it simple) and see how many copies it will have to sell for it not to "flop". Assuming KZ2 is $60 as regular PS3 games are, it will have to sell 666,667+ copies for it to not "flop"... I think.

 Ah... NO. You don't seriously think that the developer gets 100% of the proceeds from the game's sale, do you?

 

Store Profit

Distributor Profit

Console royalties

Marketing

All have to be taken out first.

 

While the general retail rule of thumb (each link is the supply chain doubling the cost) doesn't work for Video games, even assuming that stores are only making $10.00 per $60.00 game changes things.  Then add on Sony's royalty, and subtract out marketing costs...  Seems like a developer would be LUCKY to net $35 a game.