Heavenly Sword sold about 1.5m but devs didn't break even

[Viper1]

letsdance said:

Viper1 said:

My point is why are trying to say the game has twice the budget of Uncharted or somewhere between $30-40 million?

I've always thought HS blew through money after playing it. Its one of the few games that feel like it has the production values as a mainstream hollywood film.  This guy just saying they havent broke even yet makes me believe that more. We have never heard of anyne complain about partnership with Sony. In fact, we hear the complete opposite all the time. Sony is supposidly an awesome publisher to work for. I don't believe Sony would have treated Ninja Theory with any less professionalism than lets say insomniac, level 5, or media molecule. HS was one of PS3's flagships in '07.

But you are forgetting that Ninja Theory developed most of the game before Sony jumped on as publisher.   Coming aboard late in development changes the funding dynamics greatly.  Typically a publsiher pays for development either all up front, quarterly or via milestone installments.  When a publisher comes on late, they work out a deal to pay a certain revenue percentage to the developer.  Sometimes not until after a certain sales milestone, sometimes with sales milestone bonuses.  All depends on the contract.

But even with all the production values, a programmer and artist are paid the same as any other programmer or artist regardless of the end result package.  I've read the team size varied from 23 to 200.  Obviously not all 200 worked on the game all 4 yeas or all at the same time or even all on Heavenly Sword.  But based on the variables given, $25 million is as high as I'll concde as probably budget.