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

letsdance on 29 March 2010
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
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'

Can you cite that ?  Because in his tell-all-book, Sean Astin complained about getting paid only $250,000 for the entire trilogy.


Sean Astin was a no name before the films. His role wasn't very important either(Not like frodo or gandalf). They could have casted anyone for it. He was the dummy that accepted a 83k a movie contract. I'm sure he probablly could have negotiated better pay. Especially since the movies had over 100 million budget per title.

Heres the source The London Daily Mail (5 December 2003)

Sam's character was the 2nd most important Hobbit in the films after Frodo.  If not for Sam, they'd have lost to Sauron (lol!). He's one of the central characters, up there with Smeagol, Gandalf, Strider, etc.

Sean Astin was in The Goonies.  That makes him a bigger pre-LOTR name than Andy Serkis, and I'd argue he's probably bigger post-LOTR name too given the general public can actually recognize him... $250k for 2 years work, for a lead role in a $100m+ trilogy is pretty shameful, but we really don't know how anyone was paid given Sean's the only one who went on record with it.  

Also, the Daily Mail is a tabloid.  Have a more reputable source?


Yes the character is. Sam was very important in the story. But that has nothing to do with Astin or casting. The Goonies was 25 years ago dude. That would be like saying macaulay culkin is a bigger name than Miley Cyrus.

Oh and I'd argue the post LoTR too considering Andy is going to be back for the hobit and Sean is doing nothiing except being a roid monkey in 50 first dates



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jarrod on 29 March 2010
Mr Puggsly said:
jarrod said:
Mr Puggsly said:
Gojimaster said:
i bet these kind of stories are very common on hd systems, and we don't hear about half of them-- that is crazy a game can sell 1.5 mill and make a profit

I think these stories are common on the Wii as well. That would explain why developers often ignore the Wii for quality releases.

The significant proportional difference between HD focused versus Wii focused devs closing up shop would imply otherwise...

Many of those developers were struggling for years. Not being able to make quality games this gen was the final nail.

So "struggling for years" on PS2/Xbox equates to bankruptcy on PS3/360.  Good to know. ;)

I don't mind the HD shakeout personally though.  Haven't lost a dev I've really cared about yet...



jarrod on 29 March 2010
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
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'

Can you cite that ?  Because in his tell-all-book, Sean Astin complained about getting paid only $250,000 for the entire trilogy.


Sean Astin was a no name before the films. His role wasn't very important either(Not like frodo or gandalf). They could have casted anyone for it. He was the dummy that accepted a 83k a movie contract. I'm sure he probablly could have negotiated better pay. Especially since the movies had over 100 million budget per title.

Heres the source The London Daily Mail (5 December 2003)

Sam's character was the 2nd most important Hobbit in the films after Frodo.  If not for Sam, they'd have lost to Sauron (lol!). He's one of the central characters, up there with Smeagol, Gandalf, Strider, etc.

Sean Astin was in The Goonies.  That makes him a bigger pre-LOTR name than Andy Serkis, and I'd argue he's probably bigger post-LOTR name too given the general public can actually recognize him... $250k for 2 years work, for a lead role in a $100m+ trilogy is pretty shameful, but we really don't know how anyone was paid given Sean's the only one who went on record with it.  

Also, the Daily Mail is a tabloid.  Have a more reputable source?


Yes the character is. Sam was very important in the story. But that has nothing to do with Astin or casting. The Goonies was 25 years ago dude. That would be like saying macaulay culkin is a bigger name than Miley Cyrus.

Oh and I'd argue the post LoTR too considering Andy is going to be back for the hobit and Sean is doing nothiing except being a roid monkey in 50 first dates

Jackson's given Serkis pretty much every significant role he's gotten (LOTR, King Kong, Tintin, The Hobbit) Serkis seems to be mainly just riding Jackson's coattails. Besides, he's just reprising a role he already had.  If Sam was a charcater in The Hobbit, Sean would be there too. ;)



letsdance on 29 March 2010
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
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'

Can you cite that ?  Because in his tell-all-book, Sean Astin complained about getting paid only $250,000 for the entire trilogy.


Sean Astin was a no name before the films. His role wasn't very important either(Not like frodo or gandalf). They could have casted anyone for it. He was the dummy that accepted a 83k a movie contract. I'm sure he probablly could have negotiated better pay. Especially since the movies had over 100 million budget per title.

Heres the source The London Daily Mail (5 December 2003)

Sam's character was the 2nd most important Hobbit in the films after Frodo.  If not for Sam, they'd have lost to Sauron (lol!). He's one of the central characters, up there with Smeagol, Gandalf, Strider, etc.

Sean Astin was in The Goonies.  That makes him a bigger pre-LOTR name than Andy Serkis, and I'd argue he's probably bigger post-LOTR name too given the general public can actually recognize him... $250k for 2 years work, for a lead role in a $100m+ trilogy is pretty shameful, but we really don't know how anyone was paid given Sean's the only one who went on record with it.  

Also, the Daily Mail is a tabloid.  Have a more reputable source?


Yes the character is. Sam was very important in the story. But that has nothing to do with Astin or casting. The Goonies was 25 years ago dude. That would be like saying macaulay culkin is a bigger name than Miley Cyrus.

Oh and I'd argue the post LoTR too considering Andy is going to be back for the hobit and Sean is doing nothiing except being a roid monkey in 50 first dates

Jackson's given Serkis pretty much every significant role he's gotten (LOTR, King Kong, Tintin, The Hobbit) Serkis seems to be mainly just riding Jackson's coattails. Besides, he's just reprising a role he already had.  If Sam was a charcater in The Hobbit, Sean would be there too. ;)


So if Jackson likes his work so much what makes you think he got paid less than sean? It cant hurt Andys pockets being in good with the director



jarrod on 29 March 2010
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
jarrod said:
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'

Can you cite that ?  Because in his tell-all-book, Sean Astin complained about getting paid only $250,000 for the entire trilogy.


Sean Astin was a no name before the films. His role wasn't very important either(Not like frodo or gandalf). They could have casted anyone for it. He was the dummy that accepted a 83k a movie contract. I'm sure he probablly could have negotiated better pay. Especially since the movies had over 100 million budget per title.

Heres the source The London Daily Mail (5 December 2003)

Sam's character was the 2nd most important Hobbit in the films after Frodo.  If not for Sam, they'd have lost to Sauron (lol!). He's one of the central characters, up there with Smeagol, Gandalf, Strider, etc.

Sean Astin was in The Goonies.  That makes him a bigger pre-LOTR name than Andy Serkis, and I'd argue he's probably bigger post-LOTR name too given the general public can actually recognize him... $250k for 2 years work, for a lead role in a $100m+ trilogy is pretty shameful, but we really don't know how anyone was paid given Sean's the only one who went on record with it.  

Also, the Daily Mail is a tabloid.  Have a more reputable source?


Yes the character is. Sam was very important in the story. But that has nothing to do with Astin or casting. The Goonies was 25 years ago dude. That would be like saying macaulay culkin is a bigger name than Miley Cyrus.

Oh and I'd argue the post LoTR too considering Andy is going to be back for the hobit and Sean is doing nothiing except being a roid monkey in 50 first dates

Jackson's given Serkis pretty much every significant role he's gotten (LOTR, King Kong, Tintin, The Hobbit) Serkis seems to be mainly just riding Jackson's coattails. Besides, he's just reprising a role he already had.  If Sam was a charcater in The Hobbit, Sean would be there too. ;)


So if Jackson likes his work so much what makes you think he got paid less than sean? It cant hurt Andys pockets being in good with the director

I never said he was.  I said I doubt he was paid more than $500k for the trilogy.

What makes you sure he was paid "several million" for Heavenly Sword exactly?  I actually can't find any comparable salaries for any game voice work, even... the only thing I've found is a comment from a production company rep in a Reuters article that says big name screen actors make up to $500-750k per session, or more generally high five figures.  If under a million's what the top talent makes, why would you think a C-grade Hollywood name like Serkis would make more?



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makingmusic476 on 29 March 2010

I can understand why Ninja Theory lost money while Sony didn't. They were working on the game long before signing a deal with Sony.  The game was originally being made for the Xbox, and had around a four year dev time:



All that time and money that resulted in a five hour game. I enjoyed the game, but c'mon. =/



letsdance on 29 March 2010

Your putting several million in quotes like I said that or something. Man you and kaz have the same syndrome or something



jarrod on 29 March 2010
letsdance said:
Your putting several million in quotes like I said that or something. Man you and kaz have the same syndrome or something

Sorry I should've said "a few million".  How's that crow taste?



letsdance on 29 March 2010
jarrod said:
letsdance said:
Your putting several million in quotes like I said that or something. Man you and kaz have the same syndrome or something

Sorry I should've said "a few million".  How's that crow taste?


Your still out of context. I taste no crow since none have been served. Just some terrible selective blindness on your side



Mr Puggsly on 29 March 2010
jarrod said:
Mr Puggsly said:
jarrod said:
Mr Puggsly said:
Gojimaster said:
i bet these kind of stories are very common on hd systems, and we don't hear about half of them-- that is crazy a game can sell 1.5 mill and make a profit

I think these stories are common on the Wii as well. That would explain why developers often ignore the Wii for quality releases.

The significant proportional difference between HD focused versus Wii focused devs closing up shop would imply otherwise...

Many of those developers were struggling for years. Not being able to make quality games this gen was the final nail.

So "struggling for years" on PS2/Xbox equates to bankruptcy on PS3/360.  Good to know. ;)

I don't mind the HD shakeout personally though.  Haven't lost a dev I've really cared about yet...

Well we both know that many of these bankrupt developers were guilty of making low quality games. With all the great games we see this gen I'm glad many of the shit developers have disappeared and aren't stealing sales from good games.



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