|
rolltide101x said: Handheld market is going to shrink by a huge amount next gen.
Very few games require "millions" to turn a profit. But that is the reason Indie games exist for devs to try risky new ideas |
It's a pretty big assumption that it will shrink further. Everyone already has a mobile. Still the handheld market reached the size it has now. Even more: handhelds are bigger in japan, and japan is even more into mobiles than the west. Why is that? Because of the japanese handheld games (the western developers for some reason doing no handheld games, and if they do they sell better on handhelds, see Lego). The handheld market dropped already more or less to levels it will stay at. And probably the next Nintendo handheld also can eat up the Vita sales, as I think it is doubtful that Sony will make another go at handhelds.
And yes, many games require at least a million in sales to break even. Look at Yacht Club Games, they made a pretty good brreakdown of development costs of Shovel Knight:
http://yachtclubgames.com/2014/08/sales-one-month/
So the devs didn't get paid for months, get the half pay from the start, the musician didn't get payment until after the release of the game and half the game was put out after release as free update to reduce costs. All of that a real publisher can't do, developers want their payment, customers want the full game. So for a game like Shovel Knight, a game with retro pixel graphics, a game developed by six people we look at realistical costs of 1.4 million $. That was what they calculated themself, and then applying the cost-reducing measures I talked above to get to the real budget. If we assume Shovel Knight would be sold retail at full price, they would get around 10$ per sale. So even this ultra-cheap game need 140K in sales. Remember, for a game which has the same graphics on handhelds, home console and PC. For this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYfoUWP_0qg
For Kirby Rainbow Curse someone counted 80 names in the credits. Thats more than 10 times this number. And Kirby is surely low end. For other games we could conclude the same. So probably some low end games from normal publisher are between 500K and 1 million in sales for break even, but everything we start to brag about in the forums and that gets multiple threads needs at least a million to sell. Bayonetta 2 was cancelled by Sega although the first did 2-3 millions for example.
There is a reason why gaming studios are closed down.
And no, Indies don't exist because devs can try something. Indies exist because some devs want to make games and are willing to take less payment to fulfill their dream. They all would take a publisher and his budget any day.
