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Forums - Sales Discussion - Heavenly Sword sold about 1.5m but devs didn't break even

Kasz216 on 29 March 2010

In fact... to prove my point...

http://news.filefront.com/actors-get-fat-paychecks-for-video-game-voice-work/

Note how there "fat paychecks" are half a million... and this is dealing with Patrick Stewart... a MUCH bigger name then Andy. Much more distinct voice as well.



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letsdance on 29 March 2010
Kasz216 said:
letsdance said:
Kasz216 said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
leo-j said:
that's really sad..

the game is 5 hours, and the budget was higher than MGS4s potentially.

Very sad

Eh, more than twice as many people worked on MGS4, and it was in development twice as long... pretty sure it's budget likely dwarfed Heavenly Sword's.


I doubt it. I think Kojima went the more traditional way in developing the MGS4. Ninjatheory was very ambitious in their developing with facial mocap and voicing famous people.

Uh, you know MGS4 used far, far more extensive mocap (including facial capture) than HS, right?  Just check the credits, MGS4's mocap credits alone rival the entire R&D teams for many other games.  MGS4 also had a huge voice cast, extensive CG and the entire network infrastructure R&D for MGO in there.  If you credit check, MGS4 credits almost 400 people!  

And that's just production, we're not even talking about promotional budgets...

They didn't have andy serkis. All those voice actors probablly got a couple of grand with the Snake maybe getting 100k. Niko in GTA4 only got 100k. I bet andy got a few million.

Andy who?

Sorry, just pour through the credits yourself (MGS4, Heavenly Sword).  There's pretty much no way HS was a higher cost production than MGS4...


Andy alone probably got paid as much as all of MSG4s entire cast.

I think you overestimate the cost of high level voice acting.  I mean, Mike Myers got 10 million for Shrek 2.  That's a movie, I'd be surprised if anyone in a videogame makes more then 500K VA.


A movie that was shorter than HS along with the fact that no game has had a VA who is as well known as "MY PRECIOUS" ontop of the fact that it just wasnt in the sound studio he also had to act it out. Unlike Mike. I bet Andy put more time in HS than mike in Shrek. I bet if a game studio was like "Hey mike we got a job for you. We want you to spend a year or two of your life in a sound studio and motion capture and we'll give you 500k" he'd say "fuck off I'm gonna make another shrek for 20 times that"

Jobs aren't paid based on how hard the work is.  Jobs are paid by how valuable the work is.

Mike Myers work in Shrek 2 was way more valuable then Andy's in HS.

Shrek 2 had a budget of 150 million.   It made just short of a billion... just in theatres.  Not counting DVDs, Merchandising etc..

 

Heavenly sword made what... 90 million... of which... they didn't even see 30% of that money?

You think they spend 30 million on 2 voice actors?  What kinda sales do you think they expected?


LOL way to pull a figure out of your ass and into my mouth.

BTW this is for Jarrod "The hobbit actors, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan received bonuses of between 430,000 and 560,000 per film. Bernard Hill and Ian McKellen earned 312,000 per film, with Liv Tyler making a little less."

I'd say it was very likely Smeagol got paid more than Liv.  So... Thats near 900k in just bonus'



Ssliasil on 29 March 2010

umm in order for that to even be cose to true, the budget would need to be over 94 MILLION thats hardly posisble



...uhh...ill just put my favorite quote of all time here.

"Welcome to Pain, the second of three...You have dealt the first...now deal with me!!"

letsdance on 29 March 2010
Kasz216 said:
In fact... to prove my point...

http://news.filefront.com/actors-get-fat-paychecks-for-video-game-voice-work/

Note how there "fat paychecks" are half a million... and this is dealing with Patrick Stewart... a MUCH bigger name then Andy. Much more distinct voice as well.


"lend" =/= Play lead role. Sorry it doesnt support you at all



Alceste007 on 29 March 2010
Ssliasil said:
umm in order for that to even be cose to true, the budget would need to be over 94 MILLION thats hardly posisble

Nah, most likely they had a very bad deal with Sony. Ninja Theory was very unhappy with Sony when the game was released. This remains me of the Dixie chicks having the best selling album in the Nation for 20+ weeks and making a grand total of $6 from it.



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Profcrab on 29 March 2010

Wow, not breaking even at 1.5m? That is painful. I figured the development was higher not only because of the detail but also developing for the PS3 when the developer tools were still immature. I didn't expect that it would cost them that much though, overall. Of course, on reading this I was simply surprised it sold that many because at 5 or so hours, it was the perfect rental game (which is how I played it). Still a decent game for one that short (in spite of the hated QTEs). Multiplatform is definitely the way to go, though. Have to pay the bills.

I give this thread a 9.6.



Thank god for the disable signatures option.

Kasz216 on 29 March 2010
letsdance said:
Kasz216 said:
In fact... to prove my point...

http://news.filefront.com/actors-get-fat-paychecks-for-video-game-voice-work/

Note how there "fat paychecks" are half a million... and this is dealing with Patrick Stewart... a MUCH bigger name then Andy. Much more distinct voice as well.


"lend" =/= Play lead role. Sorry it doesnt support you at all

You can not believe it all you want... but all logic is against you here.

You really think they spent 30 million on two voice actors when they probably saw at most 20% of revenue for their games?

That means they would of had to of sold nearly 3 million copies to have broken even on the voice acting alone.



De85 on 29 March 2010
markers said:
Bad management. Multiplatform can not save you from that. Loved Heavenly Sword and would like to see them work on it again and finish the trilogy.

Probably this.  Remember how Take 2 was still reporting massive losses just one quarter after GTA4 released?



Kasz216 on 29 March 2010
letsdance said:
Kasz216 said:
letsdance said:
Kasz216 said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
leo-j said:
that's really sad..

the game is 5 hours, and the budget was higher than MGS4s potentially.

Very sad

Eh, more than twice as many people worked on MGS4, and it was in development twice as long... pretty sure it's budget likely dwarfed Heavenly Sword's.


I doubt it. I think Kojima went the more traditional way in developing the MGS4. Ninjatheory was very ambitious in their developing with facial mocap and voicing famous people.

Uh, you know MGS4 used far, far more extensive mocap (including facial capture) than HS, right?  Just check the credits, MGS4's mocap credits alone rival the entire R&D teams for many other games.  MGS4 also had a huge voice cast, extensive CG and the entire network infrastructure R&D for MGO in there.  If you credit check, MGS4 credits almost 400 people!  

And that's just production, we're not even talking about promotional budgets...

They didn't have andy serkis. All those voice actors probablly got a couple of grand with the Snake maybe getting 100k. Niko in GTA4 only got 100k. I bet andy got a few million.

Andy who?

Sorry, just pour through the credits yourself (MGS4, Heavenly Sword).  There's pretty much no way HS was a higher cost production than MGS4...


Andy alone probably got paid as much as all of MSG4s entire cast.

I think you overestimate the cost of high level voice acting.  I mean, Mike Myers got 10 million for Shrek 2.  That's a movie, I'd be surprised if anyone in a videogame makes more then 500K VA.


A movie that was shorter than HS along with the fact that no game has had a VA who is as well known as "MY PRECIOUS" ontop of the fact that it just wasnt in the sound studio he also had to act it out. Unlike Mike. I bet Andy put more time in HS than mike in Shrek. I bet if a game studio was like "Hey mike we got a job for you. We want you to spend a year or two of your life in a sound studio and motion capture and we'll give you 500k" he'd say "fuck off I'm gonna make another shrek for 20 times that"

Jobs aren't paid based on how hard the work is.  Jobs are paid by how valuable the work is.

Mike Myers work in Shrek 2 was way more valuable then Andy's in HS.

Shrek 2 had a budget of 150 million.   It made just short of a billion... just in theatres.  Not counting DVDs, Merchandising etc..

 

Heavenly sword made what... 90 million... of which... they didn't even see 30% of that money?

You think they spend 30 million on 2 voice actors?  What kinda sales do you think they expected?


LOL way to pull a figure out of your ass and into my mouth.

BTW this is for Jarrod "The hobbit actors, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan received bonuses of between 430,000 and 560,000 per film. Bernard Hill and Ian McKellen earned 312,000 per film, with Liv Tyler making a little less."

I'd say it was very likely Smeagol got paid more than Liv.  So... Thats near 900k in just bonus'

Yeah uh.  Movies much more valuable then videogame voice acting.

Videogame actors don't make shit compaired to movie voice actors.



gekkokamen on 29 March 2010

They must have had a very rough deal since they were independent? who knows...they got owned.