ZombiU Was "Not Even Close" to Profitable, No Plans for a Sequel

[Barozi]

mibuokami said:

outlawauron said:

Barozi said:

That's not true at all.

$60m would be in the top ten of most expensive games.

Uncharted 1 and 2 are $20m each
Gears of War was $10m, Gears of War 2 was $12m
Crysis was $22m

Most AAA games should be around $30m.
BUT if it's a multiplat release, then it should definitely cost more. *doesn't want to know Watch Dogs' budget*

ZombiU could very well be at $15m. Even serious Wii games (serious = non-shovelware) approach $10m, so $15-20m is definitely a reasonable estimation.

Not to mention there are several PS1 and PS2 Final Fantasies that cost over 30-40 million to make.

Shenmue cost $40 million in development so the cost of tripleA games varies wildly. Gears really can't be used as good example in these circumstances as they don't account for Unreal Engine cost, all other development budget usually accounts for either licensing fees for engine or development of engine for the game.

I think $20m would be a bare minimum tbh.

Edit: There are exception, such as Frostbite being used inhouse for EA which is aimed at reducing development cost and stop it from blowing up even further...

Well Unreal Engine 3 wasn't created for Gears of War though. But sure feel free to add licensing costs for it. As I mentioned earlier we know how much Epic wants. about $1m.

You call Frostbite an exception, but in reality it's not the case that every game from one developer comes with a new engine. In fact many publishers share the engines from one of their devs with others. Therefore no engine development costs or licensing costs would apply.