Ubisoft wanted Splinter Cell: Blacklist to sell 5 million copies - only sold 2 million

[Lawlight]

DarkFury said:

5 Million target sounds very much the reality, I'm afraid.

The THQ bankruptcy papers give us a glimpse on the cost of AAA development and how many copies games need to be profitable. This is some of the best info I've ever seen on what it costs to make games nowadays:

http://www.consulgamer.com/platforming/thqs-recovery-sales-targets-and-development-budget-timing/787/attachment/thq-sales-targets/

So the total cost of making some AAA games (including marketing, corporate overhead etc. I am sure):

Saint's Row 4: 123 Million
Homefront 2: c. 100 Million
Darksiders 2: c. 80 million

and so on... (fascinating read, btw) So if the SC:BL had a typical AAA budget, 4-5 million sales are indeed required to put the game in black. :(

This also shows how most of these games have not been profitable, btw -check their sales against these targets.

I don't worry about Ubi Toronto though: Ontario government has supported Ubisoft with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, so I don't think Ubi can easily pull the plug on that that Studio.

That's very interesting. You mentioned 1 thing - corporate overhead. I wonder how many millions of that budget was spent on execs.