Funny thing is $80 million for movie production is almost becoming the mainstream industry standard. Of course movies have more revenue streams than most games. For the movie studio to break even at the box office (equivalent to retail sales for a game) they need to gross nearly double the production costs. So an $80 million movie needs to gross about $150 million at the box office to reach break even for the studio (probably for the distributor too as they will wear most of the marketing costs)
1.8 million *$90 = ummmmmmmmm $162 million. If production budget was $80 million then if a game that has retail sales amounting to more than double the development cost (plus whatever the theoretical 200K sold to retailers is) doesn't at least break even for the developer then there is something seriously wrong with the gaming industry; namely the developers are getting shafted big time.
Somehow gaming needs to get back to the situation where titles will break even for developers considerably below 1 million in sales. That might mean finding a way to bring development costs down (develop for the Wii for example), or giving developers a bigger slice of the pie (which means less money for the others).
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell
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