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darkknightkryta on 09 February 2011
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Viper1 said:
darkknightkryta said:
Viper1 said:

Simple math formula can show you.   Game X has 100 people working on it.  The average salary of those 100 people is $75,000 (this was as of 2010) and they work on the game for 4 years.   100 x $75,000 = $7.5 million.  $7.5 million x 4 years = $30 million.

Now that is incredibly broad and doesn't even touch in minor factors that can increase or decrease this cost but it should give you a better idea how one game can cost so much more to develop than another game.  

I had actually forgotten God of War's dev time was longer and accounts for the extra mony, but as your math showed, there's no reason for God of War 3 to have cost more than 40 million with its 4 year dev time (I'm guessing that that 4 years).  Yet it's bloated to 55 million, and they were under budget.

My example was just that...an example.  Unless you know the total years of development and average number of people that worked on it annually, you can't make any assumptions.  And as I said, it doesn't take into account things like fees for major script doctors, engine license fees, music licenses, studio overhead costs, etc....  And finally, many production 'budgets' also include the marketing budget.  

I have an idea of what the wages for people are and that range of 70k per person is about right and I've rarely seen a game with over 100 people making it (Some titles I've seen 200, as Ocarina of Time's case, others like Final Fantasy XIII had rumoured 300 people working on it at one point.  But rarely over 100).  And I hope marketing is included in those numbers cuase then it all makes sense.