DanneSandin said:
NeoRatt said:
DanneSandin said:
6m sold, and barely profitable... How could this game cost so much?! I'm really enjoying it so far, but that's one expansive game, that is! |
They probably had an average selling price of $40... That's only $240,000,000...
The cost to build the game was probably around $100,000,000... Then, borrowing costs, administrative costs, sales, marketing, support, running servers, patches, platform ports, etc...
$240,000,000 doesn't go that far...
Investors looking for ROI's as multipliers... 2x, 3x, 10x, 20x....
Best case scenario they are probably only making .25x... Why would I put my investment money there? When I can go and invest in other industries and get 2x, 5x, and 10x the return and not have to front so much. Gamers don't realize this is about money... If a solid game like this can only make investors .25x more than their investment they have no incentive to stick in this industry.
There is no incentive in this industry for a AAA game to be innovative. Innovation costs more money and there is very little guaranttee that investors will see the money back. I have a lot of investments. I don't touch the games industry (even though I love playing games) because as an investor there is no money in it for me.
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Well, that was kind of my point; this game shouldn't have cost that much. Very very few games should cost that much. We get innovation when developers has to work around problems
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They don't have to cost that much, but when you are simulating a person that can use a bow and fire arms, combined with platforming, puzzle solving, in a wide variety of environments you don't see a low budget game.
If you use 8 bit graphics like minecraft you don't end up there. That is true...
Uncharted 1 was about $100,000,000 but Uncharted 2 was about $20,000,000 because the core engine was the same... It costs big money to build these types of game engines because they are extremely complex inside. People complain about sequels but this is how investors make their money in thegames industry. The first one "hopefully" breaks even, and subsequent sequels give the the return they are looking for.
In the end, I think gamers want both types of games... Games that cost $100,000,000 because they are innovating through immersiveness and realism, and low budget games that innovate by adding new gameplay elements to well understood game techniques. Games like Minecraft, Braid, Journey, etc.
