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Icyedge on 14 February 2010
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HappySqurriel said:
Icyedge said:

I would like to know where your getting your numbers, because were talking about what I studied in. In a type of product like video games, salary easily represant more than 1/2th of total exploitation cost. A building for 200 employees, electricity, insurance and 300 computers does not even represent 20 Million (take some time to think about the price of each thing), dont forget that you keep the building and computers to work on many many projects. Were not talking about construction here, where cost of materials easily surpasses cost of your employees. Though, I may be wrong with my evaluation of 50 K average earning since were talking of salaries in Japan, and sincerely I have no clues about the average salaries in Japan. Also do not forget that my evaluation is in line with what PD told the press about the development cost of GT5

 

While it will vary based on company, industry and location, the benefits (health-care, pensions/stock-options, etc.) can be equal to or greater than the employee’s salary; which is one of the reason’s why Auto-Workers have an average salary equivalent of $76 per hour even though few of them would take home (as salary) $40 per hour. There are also training costs, and travel costs, which can add up very quickly being that a single course or business trip can cost thousands of dollars per employee.

Beyond that you have support staff (people like HR, IT, reception, janitorial and security) who are necessary costs involved in doing business, but are rarely counted as a resource.

On top of this you have the fixed costs associated with desks, chairs, file-cabinets, phones, and software licensing which is all dramatically more expensive than people would expect because it is business rather than personal use; a good office char can cost $1000, and a good desk can be $2000, and you can spend $5000 on a 3D software package’s license.

And even office space itself is not that inexpensive being that it is typically leased rather than purchased/built (unless you’re a massive company with a significant cash position), the amount of space required is typically greater than you would initially expect due to shared spaces and walkways (100 to 150 square feet per employee), and most of the places companies want to do business are associated with healthy or hot commercial real estate markets.

 

I would highly question the quality of education you're receiving if they told you that the costs of doing business in any market were remotely close to the sum of your employees’ salary.

 

Im not going to argue very far because of times, I know everything you already said, but physical objects stays as either a re-sell value or can be divided upon multiple projects (like GT5P and GT5). Also its employees that pays for their healthcare and incentive either with a lower salary or as a choice to enlist and substract on payroll. Its also very wrong to compare an Auto-worker with a  company, because the auto-worker doest have the power a company have when it comes to purchase equipment and share equipment with multiple persons. Also an auto-worker will pay a higher percentage of taxes to the government. While its true that your enumeration of things needs to be counted as ressource my point with the other person was that he was counting it for way too much. Also, my point can be easily proven since its in line with PD announcement. Have a good day!