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JRPGfan 4 days ago
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DekutheEvilClown said:
JRPGfan said:

the fact that it was made by like 30-40 devs in a short time period..... I bet even at like 2m copies sold, its more than made back its development costs.

At some point, we need to stop expecting infinite growth and money made.
Honestly any game that makes its cost back and then some, is a success.
Like if they have enough to give another game a go, after the one that just released, that a success.

65 staff(2024 employee count for Asobi, average employee count likely much lower) at the industry shorthand rate, $100k per emoyee per year(Japan tends to be much much lower than this rate however), would be a core development cost of $26m for 4 years of full development. Attributing costs from support studios and outsourcing probably puts the cost at no more than $40m(high end estimate).

So full productiom cost max of $40m and that's using the high end estimate at every opportunity: staff count, average employee cost and support studio cost. I'd put the likely development cost at $20-30m. Unsure how much advertising is for this game but maybe like 50% of production cost(somewhat standard number). So let's say $30-45m as my guess at total cost. $60m would be the absolute high end estimate.

Sales of 1.5m at $60 would be a gross of $90m. Digital sales were over 50% in the UK week one so very likely the digital sales are significantly above 50%. Netting $60 on each digital copy and about $35-40 on physical sales. Probably on average netting about $50 per copy(that's a high net rate but it hadn't been on sale yet and digital sales were higher than normal for first party, and obviously they don't need to pay 30% to platform holder) . So $75m net to Sony.

So I'd estimate it's already cleared the high end total production cost estimate. Based on the estimate range I believe is correct it would already be at or close to 100% ROI(return on investment).

In regards to it's total lifetime sales, I'd say R&C: Rift Apart gives a good indication. That game sold 1.1m at launch. Was around 2.5m year one and 3.97m after 2 years. So far Astro launched better and has shown much stronger legs so far based on PSN sales charts. Also, Rift Apart got bundled at launch, whereas Astro didn't.

Edit: in case there is any confusion, 100% return on investment in the first 2 months is incredibly strong. That would be like top 5-10% of performing games. 

Astrobot was in development for roughly 3 years.
Your right about team being about 60, atleast google says so (I swear I heard others claim it was like 40ppl).

Thanks for mathing it out though, I was just assuming it was already profitable.
its a AA sized game (imo), with short development cycle.