XBOX |OT|

[G2ThaUNiT]

shikamaru317 said:

G2ThaUNiT said:

Jez Cordon is confirming Kotaku's reporting that The Coalition had an INSANE $500 million budget with E-Day. However, he also points out that everything The Coalition has created over the last 7 years was built from scratch, so it all will be used in their next game. Something that the head of the studio seemingly confirmed when he said their next game will not take nearly as long since they have all the tools they need now.

So it gets more unclear on the financing side since we don't know how much of that insane budget goes towards all the tools and assets, and how much of the budget was on the production of the game itself. Since all the tools and assets are already completed, E-Day 2, or whatever they make next, could have a substantially smaller budget and wouldn't need to take another 7 years to make.

Still, what an insane time we're in for AAA development.

Something still feels off about that number to me. Payroll for 270 people at The Coalition for 7 years should come out to around $160-180m, benefits package for those 270 should be around $50-70m. I can't imagine voice actor pay across the whole cast could have been more than like $3m, video game voice actors aren't paid that well even after the long SAG-AFTRA strike. That $500m figure supposedly didn't include marketing since Xbox pays that themselves. 

One thing is for sure.....Phil's spending went waaaaaaaaay overboard! I mean, we're talking the same Phil who let a project like South of Midnight somehow have a $100 million budget. I imagine that most of the projects he greenlit have 9 figure budgets.

At the same time, I'm sure he truly believed it would pay off. Netflix was booming, so he thought GP could get that number of subs, coupled with the gaming boom of lockdown during COVID.

Unfortunately, it just didn't pay off, and Xbox's spending got out of control. Now Brian Fargo at inXile is saying how Asha is ensuring that studios balance sheets are under control and that they release a viable product to sell.