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Forums - Gaming - Square Enix detail where their losses are coming from

benao87 on 09 April 2013
zarx said:
darkknightkryta said:
Tomb Raider had about 100 people working on it (roughly counted in the credits). At an average wage of 70k and a dev time of 3 years, the game should have cost 21 million (Which is roughly what Uncharted 2 cost). 3.5 million copies, even at 30 dollar profit, that's 105 million Square should have made off of Tomb Raider in revenue... 85 million in profit, did I screw up somewhere?


licensing (middleware and tools, music, console development), equipment (PCs, furnature etc), building up keep (lease, utilities etc), outsourcing, Benefits (insurance, health plan etc), the game was in development for over 4 years (tho the first 2 were likely preproduction with a small team of 10-50), and the big one marketing. Total buget is probably $80m+.

And marketing, I don't know where did I read that it was pretty high for this game.

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_crazy_man_ on 09 April 2013
richardhutnik said:
_crazy_man_ said:
spurgeonryan said:
So happy they did not mention DQX. I actually think they are kind of happy with the sales and money they are making from online content.

Subscription based MMO's are quite profitable, even if they only get a couple 100,000 subs

Except, there is so much competition, that no only are you driven to have to pay for server demands of MMOs, you have to have people play free.  Even World of Warcraft is doing this.  Star Wars is doing this.  If they are all switching to play for free and micropayment, then getting several hundred thousands to pay regularly is really pushing it also, and not a lock.

Expect there is no competetion for MMO's on Wii/Wii U.

And since was WoW free?  yeah they have the whole "first 20 levels" free but they are not free.



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darkknightkryta on 09 April 2013
zarx said:
darkknightkryta said:
Tomb Raider had about 100 people working on it (roughly counted in the credits). At an average wage of 70k and a dev time of 3 years, the game should have cost 21 million (Which is roughly what Uncharted 2 cost). 3.5 million copies, even at 30 dollar profit, that's 105 million Square should have made off of Tomb Raider in revenue... 85 million in profit, did I screw up somewhere?


licensing (middleware and tools, music, console development), equipment (PCs, furnature etc), building up keep (lease, utilities etc), outsourcing, Benefits (insurance, health plan etc), the game was in development for over 4 years (tho the first 2 were likely preproduction with a small team of 10-50), and the big one marketing. Total buget is probably $80m+.

Depends what they did with middleware and tools.  Those also don't cost that much in the grand scheme of things (Unreal 3 for instance is 700k per game).  Lease, utilities, etc, are all subsidized by other games (If any are in development, though likely not and can rack up).  If they built their own tools then that's all covered in employee salaries.  I still don't believe that 80 million figure though.  God of War 3 was in dev for the same time and came under budget at 45 million.



zarx on 09 April 2013
darkknightkryta said:
zarx said:
darkknightkryta said:
Tomb Raider had about 100 people working on it (roughly counted in the credits). At an average wage of 70k and a dev time of 3 years, the game should have cost 21 million (Which is roughly what Uncharted 2 cost). 3.5 million copies, even at 30 dollar profit, that's 105 million Square should have made off of Tomb Raider in revenue... 85 million in profit, did I screw up somewhere?


licensing (middleware and tools, music, console development), equipment (PCs, furnature etc), building up keep (lease, utilities etc), outsourcing, Benefits (insurance, health plan etc), the game was in development for over 4 years (tho the first 2 were likely preproduction with a small team of 10-50), and the big one marketing. Total buget is probably $80m+.

Depends what they did with middleware and tools.  Those also don't cost that much in the grand scheme of things (Unreal 3 for instance is 700k per game).  Lease, utilities, etc, are all subsidized by other games (If any are in development, though likely not and can rack up).  If they built their own tools then that's all covered in employee salaries.  I still don't believe that 80 million figure though.  God of War 3 was in dev for the same time and came under budget at 45 million.

I am guessing $40-50m for marketing. the other stuff may be small in the grand scheme but it all adds up, especially benifits health and savings plans etc. 



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cmeese47 on 09 April 2013
darkknightkryta said:
Tomb Raider had about 100 people working on it (roughly counted in the credits). At an average wage of 70k and a dev time of 3 years, the game should have cost 21 million (Which is roughly what Uncharted 2 cost). 3.5 million copies, even at 30 dollar profit, that's 105 million Square should have made off of Tomb Raider in revenue... 85 million in profit, did I screw up somewhere?


You forgot marketing cost, voice actor salaries, music liscencing and more. Still I agree they should have made a profit.



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darkknightkryta on 09 April 2013
zarx said:
darkknightkryta said:
zarx said:
darkknightkryta said:
Tomb Raider had about 100 people working on it (roughly counted in the credits). At an average wage of 70k and a dev time of 3 years, the game should have cost 21 million (Which is roughly what Uncharted 2 cost). 3.5 million copies, even at 30 dollar profit, that's 105 million Square should have made off of Tomb Raider in revenue... 85 million in profit, did I screw up somewhere?


licensing (middleware and tools, music, console development), equipment (PCs, furnature etc), building up keep (lease, utilities etc), outsourcing, Benefits (insurance, health plan etc), the game was in development for over 4 years (tho the first 2 were likely preproduction with a small team of 10-50), and the big one marketing. Total buget is probably $80m+.

Depends what they did with middleware and tools.  Those also don't cost that much in the grand scheme of things (Unreal 3 for instance is 700k per game).  Lease, utilities, etc, are all subsidized by other games (If any are in development, though likely not and can rack up).  If they built their own tools then that's all covered in employee salaries.  I still don't believe that 80 million figure though.  God of War 3 was in dev for the same time and came under budget at 45 million.

I am guessing $40-50m for marketing. the other stuff may be small in the grand scheme but it all adds up, especially benifits health and savings plans etc. 

And God of War had none of this?  Well, benefits no, but everything else yes.  It's impossible for Tomb Raider to not have been profitable unless there was some terrible mismanagement, or stealing happening.  Plus the Eidos PR guy were actually happy with what Tomb Raider did, he must have had some idea of the game's budget.  There's something going on behind the scenes at Square, most likely Final Fantasy 14 is costing the company a lot and they were expecting Tomb Raider and Hitman to bail them out which is terrible.



darkknightkryta on 09 April 2013
cmeese47 said:
darkknightkryta said:
Tomb Raider had about 100 people working on it (roughly counted in the credits). At an average wage of 70k and a dev time of 3 years, the game should have cost 21 million (Which is roughly what Uncharted 2 cost). 3.5 million copies, even at 30 dollar profit, that's 105 million Square should have made off of Tomb Raider in revenue... 85 million in profit, did I screw up somewhere?


You forgot marketing cost, voice actor salaries, music liscencing and more. Still I agree they should have made a profit.

It's unfortunate, but voice actors aren't paid well.  They get by with doing many shows, games, movies, etc.  Music was made in house if I recall correctly and the composers are part of the people I counted in the credits.  I don't think the game had over, let's even say 70 million, in marketting.  If it did I facepalm at Square Enix.



Daisuke72 on 10 April 2013

At any rate, I hope final fantasy 15 will be worthwhile in comparison to FF13.