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Forums - Sales - Is Epic Mickey a lesson to third parties?

Degausser on 14 January 2011
RolStoppable said:
Degausser said:

All the publishers have ported lots of games to the Wii already, so why not these ones? There has to be a reason other then an attempt to 'lock out' the Wii as well, they've all ported games to the thing before, not every publisher would do it and they all make exclusives for the console. 

 I don't think either of us know enough about game developement to really say what can and cant be done easily - however all articles I've found regarding this of thing point towards my idea that doing a PSP game alone is simply cheaper and faster. The two linked below both have PSP developement cited as much cheaper then Wii developement, which could easily explain why these games (Which would off of sales date both be poised to sell roughly the same on Wii and PSP) are only financially viable on the cheaper costing PSP.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/36428/3DS-dev-costs-mirror-Wii-equivalent

http://www.watchmojo.com/blog/video_games/2010/11/22/3ds-game-development-cost-comparable-with-wii/

 It also destroys this idea that a PSP game simply be ported to the Wii for no cost, as well otherwise the Wii dev costs would be equal to that of the PSP as people would just make a Wii game for the PSP and then port it :P.

 The only example i can remember of a PSP game being ported to the Wii was that MEdal of Honour: Heroes 2 game. It had an extra game mode or something, but the port still took EA 4 months from announcement to come out, hardly an insignificient investment of time and money.

I didn't mean to imply that a PSP to Wii port costs nothing at all, but the costs are minimal compared to an entirely new game. It has been established that porting a game from one HD console to another only adds about 10 % to the original costs of development and nothing suggests that a PSP to Wii port would be more costly than that, especially because the base cost you are working with is much lower (say 2m for a PSP game and 10m for an HD game).

Essentially, with a PSP to Wii port you are looking at a game that can already profit, if it sells just 200-300k units. A low risk considering the size of the Wii userbase and the sales numbers mentioned in this thread all exceed this value.


 Well you're going to have to find me a link, or something to back this up, as all estimates of costs suggest that a PSP game costs ~ $500k to develope, whereas a Wii game is a minimum of ~$1.5m and often goes beyond ~$4m. 

 

A 2008 system comparison analysis by Ubisoft

Leading on from this, an Ubisoft executive gave a breakdown of the company's average development costs per game - with a DS title costing between 500,000 to 1,000,000 euros ($785,000-$1.57m), PS3/Xbox 360/PC titles averaging 12 million to 18 million euros ($18.8m-$28.2m) to create for all 3 SKUs, and a Wii game expected to cost 5 million to 6 million euros ($7.8-$9m) to develop.[4]

I think you're underestimating the rise in budget by going from PSP developement to PSP/Wii developement and that the budget will infact at the very least, triple. Whether they didn't feel extending it to Wii developement was financially viable or it simply required more resources then Blackrock had I think it's clear why some of these PSP versions of games are popping up, and why they're not on the Wii.



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Nintendology on 14 January 2011

Epic Mickey really can't serve as an example to the industry. The problem is, they used a genre that already has strong performance on the platform (platformer/adventure) along with a well established IP (Mickey Mouse). Many high quality third party titles only find moderate success on the Wii, when they use original ideas. No More Heroes did well enough to warrant a sequel, but it was by no means a blockbuster (~500k). It was also experimental and an all new IP. The same goes for the Conduit (sold well enough to warrant a sequel, but didn't come close to 1 million units). Of course, if you want to break away from shovelware and party game collections/dance games, you have to use a well known IP, make it family-friendly and advertise it like all-get-out. That is the only lesson to be learned, if any. Otherwise, new IP almost face certain death on the Wii, if they don't involve dancing or mini-games.

 

That said, most of my small Wii collection consists of 3rd party titles (Force Unleashed, Lightsaber Duels, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Epic Mickey), but even I have Nintendo and Party games (I own Disney Sing It. What can I say, I love Disney games). There really is no magical formula to figuring out the Wii. It has a non-standardized controller method and a fickle audience that is comprised of older people, non-traditional gamers (non-gamers, "casual" gamers etc) and "core" gamers. Everything is pretty much hit-or-miss.



Degausser on 14 January 2011
RolStoppable said:
Degausser said:

 Well from what I've read and found, the simple fact is that whipping up a PSP game up will take a 6 digit figure, whereas a Wii game 7 figures. Doing both at once will reduce overall costs of doing them seperate, but you're still looking at a bigger investment then just doing one PSP game and the articles I linked to suggest you'd ultimately be spending over double the amount (~$500k for a PSP game, ~1.4m for a Wii game).

 I don't think any of us have any experience or actual knowledge in video game developement so we're simply left to go off what we can extract from articles. All my googling has shown that a) Making these PSP games also on Wii games can cost over double the budget without sure evidence of doubling the sales b) Game which are developed as a Wii / PS2 / PSP multiplat often have an entirely different studio work on them to their PS3/360 counterpart, so clearly it can't be as simple and cheap a process as you want to believe and c) All examples of PSP to Wii ports in the past have taken 4 months minimum to do since the game is announced so again not a quick, cheap, effortless process.

 The original debate all stemmed from why some PS3/360 see PSP ports, but no Wii ports. All evidence I've read clearly just points towards the fact that making a PSP game can be done on a shoestring budget, whereas if they want to do a Wii port as well the budget becomes financially unviable. I can't find anything to suggest that PSP to Wii porting is as cheap and effortless as Rolstoppable wants to beleive - and can only find evidence to the contrary, so I'm going to need to see a link or something.

Those figures for development costs apply to games that are built from the ground up for a given platform. If you make a PSP/Wii multiplatform game, you don't build one version and then completely start from scratch for the other one. Also, your two links contain both the very same story, so I am not sure why you added the second one. Anyway, we are looking at:

a) Incorrect, see above.

b) That doesn't really make sense as a counterpoint. By your own admission, the team that operates separately from the team that handles the PS3/360 versions takes care of PS2/PSP/Wii. You have no examples of split up multiplatform development between PS2, PSP and Wii versions of the same game. If two or three of these platforms are served, then they are always handled by the same studio.

c) Those games in question are PSP to Wii ports after the fact, in other words games that weren't originally planned to see a Wii release and all examples you can come up with are probably titles that were released in 2007 or earlier, before the Wii was even considered a system worth to make games for. The situation has changed in the last three years, because it became clear that the Wii was here to stay.

 The point is that making one PSP game costs ~$500k, making a Wii game a minimum $1.5m and on average $4m. Thus, Blackrock could either make Split second on PSP for say, $500k, or for PSP and Wii for say, $2m (Probably higher). Obviously they feel one could see a return on their money, the other couldn't.

 Yes making a PSP / Wii port would be cheaper then making a PSP game and a Wii game seperate, but the simple fact is all figures I've posted suggest that as soon as these PSP games become Wii games as well, the budget will at the very minimum triple. The only reason that wouldn't make sense if it were cheaper to make a Wii game by first developing a PSP game and then porting it to the Wii - which makes no sense.



Zlejedi on 14 January 2011
Soriku said:
Zlejedi said:
Squilliam said:

Lesson 1: Use licensed I.P. Check! Notice how the game sold in the U.S.  compared to the E.U where Mickey is far more popular than in Europe?

Lesson 2: Good game design is paramount no matter what innovation you want to bring to the table.

Lesson 3: Legendary game designers can do well on any game system. Hire more of them. (If you can)

Lesson 4: A game worth buying is a game worth marketing.

Lesson 5: Wii titles do well if they have important keywords like 'Party, Dance, Epic, Wii, Mario' in them. Try to make up your title with as many as reasonably possible. In this case we have 'Epic' and 'Mickey', Mickey being almost as well known as Mario these days in the U.S. sure helps.

This

Another aproach that works is bringing back old games from previous Nintendo consoles


Why hello there, Mr. "Epic Micky will have sales in Okami/NMH range so maybe 500k."


Yeah i clearly underestimated strength of Micky in USA. Fortunatly latest sales of Wii jRPGs show i'm not going to run out of examples of core games flopping on wii any time soon ;)



PROUD MEMBER OF THE PSP RPG FAN CLUB

dislike on 14 January 2011

I would argue that Just Dance 2/Michael Jackson was a lesson to third parties that you can earn more by making a shovelware/cheap game that is done in 6 months or less, rather than epic mickey which took 3 years to develop and had huge budget for a Wii game, and yet it sold less than Just Dance 2. Epic Mickey sold because of Mickey, not because it was a good game.



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Degausser on 14 January 2011
RolStoppable said:
Degausser said:

 The point is that making one PSP game costs ~$500k, making a Wii game a minimum $1.5m and on average $4m. Thus, Blackrock could either make Split second on PSP for say, $500k, or for PSP and Wii for say, $2m (Probably higher). Obviously they feel one could see a return on their money, the other couldn't.

 Yes making a PSP / Wii port would be cheaper then making a PSP game and a Wii game seperate, but the simple fact is all figures I've posted suggest that as soon as these PSP games become Wii games as well, the budget will at the very minimum triple. The only reason that wouldn't make sense if it were cheaper to make a Wii game by first developing a PSP game and then porting it to the Wii - which makes no sense.

But that's exactly the case. If you build a game with PSP limits in mind for the Wii, then it will be cheaper to make then a game that uses the horsepower of the Wii, because graphics account for the biggest chunk in development costs (hence why games for the HD consoles are much more expensive to make than Wii games).

A more drastic example would be Square-Enix porting Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time from the DS to the Wii. By your logic, the Wii version must have costed multiple times more money to make than the DS version. Do you really believe that to be the case? On the other hand, my logic pretty much says that the Wii version was in fact cheaper than the DS version as it's basically just an already finished DS build ported to the Wii.

Btw, your Ubisoft numbers are useless. Their Wii figures differ from Marvellous', but without a mention of the PSP we have nothing to go by for a valid comparison.

 Well then I don't think we're going to find an agreement here. Everything I've found suggests that PSP developement starts at $70k, and averages around $500k, compared to Wii developement, which starts at $1.5m and averages around $5m. Until you can provide some sort of link / proof that making a PSP game for $500k and porting it to the Wii can suddenly make the Wii game cost less then $1.5m I can't change my viewpoint.

 With regards to FFCC, I believe that while the DS version alone would cost say, $500k, by extending it to Wii developement as well the overall budget of the project is then $1.5m , as thats what Wii developement costs.

 Making a HD game costs more then an SD one right? Because theres more pixels, right? Well I'm just using that logic to suggest that making it solely for the PSP, as oppose to Wii and PSP is significiently cheaper as it's developed at a much lower resolution, and that porting from the PSP to Wii would require alot more work then you are willing to let on with regards to redoing texturing / art etc, what with all those extra pixels. 



palancas7 on 14 January 2011
Soriku said:
Zlejedi said:
Squilliam said:

Lesson 1: Use licensed I.P. Check! Notice how the game sold in the U.S.  compared to the E.U where Mickey is far more popular than in Europe?

Lesson 2: Good game design is paramount no matter what innovation you want to bring to the table.

Lesson 3: Legendary game designers can do well on any game system. Hire more of them. (If you can)

Lesson 4: A game worth buying is a game worth marketing.

Lesson 5: Wii titles do well if they have important keywords like 'Party, Dance, Epic, Wii, Mario' in them. Try to make up your title with as many as reasonably possible. In this case we have 'Epic' and 'Mickey', Mickey being almost as well known as Mario these days in the U.S. sure helps.

This

Another aproach that works is bringing back old games from previous Nintendo consoles


Why hello there, Mr. "Epic Micky will have sales in Okami/NMH range so maybe 500k."





 

Antabus on 14 January 2011
Soriku said:


Why hello there, Mr. "Epic Micky will have sales in Okami/NMH range so maybe 500k."

Good day to you too, Sir.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=168243



oniyide on 14 January 2011

@degausser  dude your preaching to the choir. "3rd parties hate Wii" and thats that. No amount of data you can show them will make them think otherwise. I'll just enjoy their evil HD games and their good Wii games whenever they make it.

@nintendology  you've had the most sensible post ive seen all day. Epic Mickey sold because thats the kind of genre that does well on Wii and it is starring a major mascot. had the game released on either HD console it would not have done as well. Just like CODs do way better on say PS3 than Wii despite having twice the user base. different systems, different demographs thats the lesson



Degausser on 14 January 2011
RolStoppable said:
Degausser said:

 Well then I don't think we're going to find an agreement here. Everything I've found suggests that PSP developement starts at $70k, and averages around $500k, compared to Wii developement, which starts at $1.5m and averages around $5m. Until you can provide some sort of link / proof that making a PSP game for $500k and porting it to the Wii can suddenly make the Wii game cost less then $1.5m I can't change my viewpoint.

 With regards to FFCC, I believe that while the DS version alone would cost say, $500k, by extending it to Wii developement as well the overall budget of the project is then $1.5m , as thats what Wii developement costs.

 Making a HD game costs more then an SD one right? Because theres more pixels, right? Well I'm just using that logic to suggest that making it solely for the PSP, as oppose to Wii and PSP is significiently cheaper as it's developed at a much lower resolution, and that porting from the PSP to Wii would require alot more work then you are willing to let on with regards to redoing texturing / art etc, what with all those extra pixels. 

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/ubisoft-well-have-quotnintendo-likequot-quality

“...It doesn’t cost more than 10 percent extra to develop for the other machine. So you start [development] on either 360 or you start on PS3.”

This has been said by other publishers as well, so it's pretty much fact. The reason why it only costs about 10 % to put the same game on another platform is because all the assets (models, textures, art etc.) already exist and all that's left to do is make the game run on the other platform. This only requires a fraction of the original manpower and less time, hence the much lower costs. It's not farfetched that this applies to other platforms as well, especially if no changes to the graphics have to be made to make the game run on another system.

Therefore your assumption that the costs of a port exceed the costs of the original game is ill-informed.

Games for the HD consoles don't cost more, because they run in higher resolution. They cost more, because the processing power of these systems allow developers to create much more detailed models and game worlds than before, even in 480p. Upping the resolution of a game doesn't make it more expensive, unless you use the increased resolution to display more detailed graphics. Which you don't, if you do a straight port of an already existing game.

 Porting from one game displayed in 720p to another in 720p is not a fair analogy to that of porting from a game displayed on a 480 x 272 pixel screen to a console displaying in 480i - the very reason handhelds are cheaper to develop for is because they're on smaller screens and once the port goes from the PSP - on a small screen - to the Wii - in 480i that cost goes up. At least thats my take on things.

 Neither of us can find anything that conclusively agrees with either of our trains of thought but instead we're both using other referenced material to try and make our own conclusions, and taking them in different in directions. Unless we can find something that really explains these costs, or someone on here with actual developement experience can explain all, I don't think we're going to reach a conclusion here so it may just be best to leave it.

 I have to ask - out of my own curiosity - if the resolution has no effect on costs, why do you think DS / PSP games on average ~10x cheaper to produce then Wii games, by all the estimates online? Afterall, the only real difference is one is being made on a small handheld screen and the other in 480i.