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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Ubisoft wanted Splinter Cell: Blacklist to sell 5 million copies - only sold 2 million

Daisuke72 on 06 January 2014
superhippy420 said:
DarkFury said:

5 Million target sounds very much the reality, I'm afraid.

The THQ bankruptcy papers give us a glimpse on the cost of AAA development and how many copies games need to be profitable. This is some of the best info I've ever seen on what it costs to make games nowadays:

http://www.consulgamer.com/platforming/thqs-recovery-sales-targets-and-development-budget-timing/787/attachment/thq-sales-targets/

So the total cost of making some AAA games (including marketing, corporate overhead etc. I am sure):

Saint's Row 4: 123 Million
Homefront 2: c. 100 Million
Darksiders 2: c. 80 million

and so on... (fascinating read, btw) So if the SC:BL had a typical AAA budget, 4-5 million sales are indeed required to put the game in black. :(

This also shows how most of these games have not been profitable, btw -check their sales against these targets.

I don't worry about Ubi Toronto though: Ontario government has supported Ubisoft with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, so I don't think Ubi can easily pull the plug on that that Studio.

The cost of game development is the main reason why I think Sony will be in big trouble in the coming years, unless their 1st party games start to sell much better.   A game like SM3DW sells 1.5 million (90 million in revenue) and I wouldnt be shocked if Nintendo is already making a profit on it or has atleast broken even.  A game like Killzone Shadow Fall sells 1.2 million (72 million in revenue) and it may not even be halfway to breaking even, considering how much more it must cost to develop a game with the specs that it has.  Hopefully Sony's 1st party sales really pick up because for as much as we all talk about console sales, they don't really mean anything in terms of the parent company's success.   The gamecube only sold 20 million consoles but Nintendo sold 72 million 1st party games and actually made more money off it then Sony did off the PS3.


LOL Anything to hate on Sony huh?

 

First and foremost, the numbers Darkfury made were purely estimates, and second of all, the biggest confirmed budget of ANY Sony first party game is KZ2 which costed 40M, hell KZ3 was actually cheaper to make because some of kz2's budget went towards the engine. Actually Gran Turismo had a higher budget but we all know that it recouped its money. Want to know UC2's budget? 22 Million dollars, a game that went on to sell 6M copies. I don't know where the hell did you pull this myth that Sony spends as much money on their games as third parties from, but you can keep it, it's simply not true and you're basing it off nothing but Sony hate. 

 

1.2 million x $40 = 48 Millon in revenue for Sony btw, and the game will EASILY sell 3m lifetime. Please tell me how Sony is in trouble, and use facts.



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Dgc1808 on 06 January 2014
superhippy420 said:
DarkFury said:

5 Million target sounds very much the reality, I'm afraid.

The THQ bankruptcy papers give us a glimpse on the cost of AAA development and how many copies games need to be profitable. This is some of the best info I've ever seen on what it costs to make games nowadays:

http://www.consulgamer.com/platforming/thqs-recovery-sales-targets-and-development-budget-timing/787/attachment/thq-sales-targets/

So the total cost of making some AAA games (including marketing, corporate overhead etc. I am sure):

Saint's Row 4: 123 Million
Homefront 2: c. 100 Million
Darksiders 2: c. 80 million

and so on... (fascinating read, btw) So if the SC:BL had a typical AAA budget, 4-5 million sales are indeed required to put the game in black. :(

This also shows how most of these games have not been profitable, btw -check their sales against these targets.

I don't worry about Ubi Toronto though: Ontario government has supported Ubisoft with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, so I don't think Ubi can easily pull the plug on that that Studio.

The cost of game development is the main reason why I think Sony will be in big trouble in the coming years, unless their 1st party games start to sell much better.   A game like SM3DW sells 1.5 million (90 million in revenue) and I wouldnt be shocked if Nintendo is already making a profit on it or has atleast broken even.  A game like Killzone Shadow Fall sells 1.2 million (72 million in revenue) and it may not even be halfway to breaking even, considering how much more it must cost to develop a game with the specs that it has.  Hopefully Sony's 1st party sales really pick up because for as much as we all talk about console sales, they don't really mean anything in terms of the parent company's success.   The gamecube only sold 20 million consoles but Nintendo sold 72 million 1st party games and actually made more money off it then Sony did off the PS3.

i'm not too worried about SONY in this department. There development teams have become very collaborative and games as high in production as Uncharted 2 were made on $20M. Their big 2 as far as we know were Killzone2 at about $40M (3.5-4 years in development and with a large work force) and Gran Turismo 5 at around 70M (~6 years of dev time on a large workforce). Killzone2 more than likely covered it's expenses easily and Gran Turismo definitely did fine considering how well just the demo sold. It really comes down to marketting and corperate expenses.

In the past they also had the habit of selling their hardware at a loss inittially. PS2 loses were in the $100-$50 range for some time and PS3 loses started at over $200. PS3 also got $100 price cuts in it's first 2 years and SONY had to continusly trim and cut on hardware to keep up with this. Game budgets seem to be fine considering most of their studies release more frequently and aren't as big as Polyphony.



4 ≈ One

superhippy420 on 06 January 2014
Dgc1808 said:
superhippy420 said:
DarkFury said:

5 Million target sounds very much the reality, I'm afraid.

The THQ bankruptcy papers give us a glimpse on the cost of AAA development and how many copies games need to be profitable. This is some of the best info I've ever seen on what it costs to make games nowadays:

http://www.consulgamer.com/platforming/thqs-recovery-sales-targets-and-development-budget-timing/787/attachment/thq-sales-targets/

So the total cost of making some AAA games (including marketing, corporate overhead etc. I am sure):

Saint's Row 4: 123 Million
Homefront 2: c. 100 Million
Darksiders 2: c. 80 million

and so on... (fascinating read, btw) So if the SC:BL had a typical AAA budget, 4-5 million sales are indeed required to put the game in black. :(

This also shows how most of these games have not been profitable, btw -check their sales against these targets.

I don't worry about Ubi Toronto though: Ontario government has supported Ubisoft with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, so I don't think Ubi can easily pull the plug on that that Studio.

The cost of game development is the main reason why I think Sony will be in big trouble in the coming years, unless their 1st party games start to sell much better.   A game like SM3DW sells 1.5 million (90 million in revenue) and I wouldnt be shocked if Nintendo is already making a profit on it or has atleast broken even.  A game like Killzone Shadow Fall sells 1.2 million (72 million in revenue) and it may not even be halfway to breaking even, considering how much more it must cost to develop a game with the specs that it has.  Hopefully Sony's 1st party sales really pick up because for as much as we all talk about console sales, they don't really mean anything in terms of the parent company's success.   The gamecube only sold 20 million consoles but Nintendo sold 72 million 1st party games and actually made more money off it then Sony did off the PS3.

i'm not too worried about SONY in this department. There development teams have become very collaborative and games as high in production as Uncharted 2 were made on $20M. Their big 2 as far as we know were Killzone2 at about $40M (3.5-4 years in development and with a large work force) and Gran Turismo 5 at around 70M (~6 years of dev time on a large workforce). Killzone2 more than likely covered it's expenses easily and Gran Turismo definitely did fine considering how well just the demo sold. It really comes down to marketting and corperate expenses.

In the past they also had the habit of selling their hardware at a loss inittially. PS2 loses were in the $100-$50 range for some time and PS3 loses started at over $200. PS3 also got $100 price cuts in it's first 2 years and SONY had to continusly trim and cut on hardware to keep up with this. Game budgets seem to be fine considering most of their studies release more frequently and aren't as big as Polyphony.


The thing is though is those are just pure development costs.    Sony also has to pay a hefty cut to retailers, shipping costs, marketing costs, and whatever other stuff Sony needs to pay for.   Theres just no way a game like Killzone 2's total costs were only 40m. while Saints Row were 123 m.          Its actually pretty crazy how much of the total costs actually go into devolopment.  I saw somewhere that GTAV's development costs alone were about 200+m. so they may have actually spent 400m. after all the marketing (which there was a TON of) and the cuts to the retailers.    Obviously is was worth it for them, but the total cost to these companies can be insane.   Nintendo has been avoiding marketing costs for years, but I think they need to invest some $$$ into the Wii U.   All the ad's they put out at holiday time obviously helped sales.



Daisuke72 on 06 January 2014
superhippy420 said:
Dgc1808 said:
superhippy420 said:
DarkFury said:

5 Million target sounds very much the reality, I'm afraid.

The THQ bankruptcy papers give us a glimpse on the cost of AAA development and how many copies games need to be profitable. This is some of the best info I've ever seen on what it costs to make games nowadays:

http://www.consulgamer.com/platforming/thqs-recovery-sales-targets-and-development-budget-timing/787/attachment/thq-sales-targets/

So the total cost of making some AAA games (including marketing, corporate overhead etc. I am sure):

Saint's Row 4: 123 Million
Homefront 2: c. 100 Million
Darksiders 2: c. 80 million

and so on... (fascinating read, btw) So if the SC:BL had a typical AAA budget, 4-5 million sales are indeed required to put the game in black. :(

This also shows how most of these games have not been profitable, btw -check their sales against these targets.

I don't worry about Ubi Toronto though: Ontario government has supported Ubisoft with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, so I don't think Ubi can easily pull the plug on that that Studio.

The cost of game development is the main reason why I think Sony will be in big trouble in the coming years, unless their 1st party games start to sell much better.   A game like SM3DW sells 1.5 million (90 million in revenue) and I wouldnt be shocked if Nintendo is already making a profit on it or has atleast broken even.  A game like Killzone Shadow Fall sells 1.2 million (72 million in revenue) and it may not even be halfway to breaking even, considering how much more it must cost to develop a game with the specs that it has.  Hopefully Sony's 1st party sales really pick up because for as much as we all talk about console sales, they don't really mean anything in terms of the parent company's success.   The gamecube only sold 20 million consoles but Nintendo sold 72 million 1st party games and actually made more money off it then Sony did off the PS3.

i'm not too worried about SONY in this department. There development teams have become very collaborative and games as high in production as Uncharted 2 were made on $20M. Their big 2 as far as we know were Killzone2 at about $40M (3.5-4 years in development and with a large work force) and Gran Turismo 5 at around 70M (~6 years of dev time on a large workforce). Killzone2 more than likely covered it's expenses easily and Gran Turismo definitely did fine considering how well just the demo sold. It really comes down to marketting and corperate expenses.

In the past they also had the habit of selling their hardware at a loss inittially. PS2 loses were in the $100-$50 range for some time and PS3 loses started at over $200. PS3 also got $100 price cuts in it's first 2 years and SONY had to continusly trim and cut on hardware to keep up with this. Game budgets seem to be fine considering most of their studies release more frequently and aren't as big as Polyphony.


The thing is though is those are just pure development costs.    Sony also has to pay a hefty cut to retailers, shipping costs, marketing costs, and whatever other stuff Sony needs to pay for.   Theres just no way a game like Killzone 2's total costs were only 40m. while Saints Row were 123 m.          Its actually pretty crazy how much of the total costs actually go into devolopment.  I saw somewhere that GTAV's development costs alone were about 200+m. so they may have actually spent 400m. after all the marketing (which there was a TON of) and the cuts to the retailers.    Obviously is was worth it for them, but the total cost to these companies can be insane.   Nintendo has been avoiding marketing costs for years, but I think they need to invest some $$$ into the Wii U.   All the ad's they put out at holiday time obviously helped sales.

Once again you're uninformed, first party games net Sony around $40 a copy, and why isn't it possible for Killzone's budget to be only 40M? And why are you running with that clearly overblown and guessed Saint's Row budget? Your argument makes 0 sense.



outlawauron on 06 January 2014
Rogerioandrade said:
you know... when games need to sell 5 million to give their developer some profit, something wrong is really going on in this industry....
Didn´t people learn from Square Enix mistakes last year ?

This statement your making has nothing to do with what they've said.


Publishers wants to do expotentially better than just profitting. They want Splinter Cell to do well enough to finance multiple games on its own.



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oniyide on 06 January 2014

the series was never that popular, doesnt matter how much it cost to make, the best selling one did just under 5mil lifetime across 3 consoles. Why Ubi thought this would do better is beyond me



d21lewis on 06 January 2014
superhippy420 said:

The cost of game development is the main reason why I think Sony will be in big trouble in the coming years, unless their 1st party games start to sell much better.   A game like SM3DW sells 1.5 million (90 million in revenue) and I wouldnt be shocked if Nintendo is already making a profit on it or has atleast broken even.  A game like Killzone Shadow Fall sells 1.2 million (72 million in revenue) and it may not even be halfway to breaking even, considering how much more it must cost to develop a game with the specs that it has.  Hopefully Sony's 1st party sales really pick up because for as much as we all talk about console sales, they don't really mean anything in terms of the parent company's success.   The gamecube only sold 20 million consoles but Nintendo sold 72 million 1st party games and actually made more money off it then Sony did off the PS3.


I've considered this as well.  People I've encountered keep saying "The PS4 architecture is so easy to develop for that it's actually cheaper to get the full capabilities than the PS3) or something like that.  

That's great.  Does that mean that suddenly every game from every dev is going to reach full potential?  Of course not!  Voice acting, motion capture, online components, AI, etc.--those things will still be expensive.  I think that it's going to be harder to seperate the big titles from the average titles and to get the most of these new "infinite" resources, it's going to take a fair amount of money.



soulfly666 on 06 January 2014

What could have possibly made them think this had even a small chance of hitting 5 million? That is an absurd expectation.



Lawlight on 06 January 2014
superhippy420 said:

The thing is though is those are just pure development costs.    Sony also has to pay a hefty cut to retailers, shipping costs, marketing costs, and whatever other stuff Sony needs to pay for.   Theres just no way a game like Killzone 2's total costs were only 40m. while Saints Row were 123 m.          Its actually pretty crazy how much of the total costs actually go into devolopment.  I saw somewhere that GTAV's development costs alone were about 200+m. so they may have actually spent 400m. after all the marketing (which there was a TON of) and the cuts to the retailers.    Obviously is was worth it for them, but the total cost to these companies can be insane.   Nintendo has been avoiding marketing costs for years, but I think they need to invest some $$$ into the Wii U.   All the ad's they put out at holiday time obviously helped sales.


I doubt Saints Row 4 cost 123M.



d21lewis on 06 January 2014
Lawlight said:
superhippy420 said:

The thing is though is those are just pure development costs.    Sony also has to pay a hefty cut to retailers, shipping costs, marketing costs, and whatever other stuff Sony needs to pay for.   Theres just no way a game like Killzone 2's total costs were only 40m. while Saints Row were 123 m.          Its actually pretty crazy how much of the total costs actually go into devolopment.  I saw somewhere that GTAV's development costs alone were about 200+m. so they may have actually spent 400m. after all the marketing (which there was a TON of) and the cuts to the retailers.    Obviously is was worth it for them, but the total cost to these companies can be insane.   Nintendo has been avoiding marketing costs for years, but I think they need to invest some $$$ into the Wii U.   All the ad's they put out at holiday time obviously helped sales.


I doubt Saints Row 4 cost 123M.


Same here.  Hell, Saints Row 4 uses a lot of stuff from SR3.  In fact, I think I read somewhere that SR4 was originally just DLC for SR3 but got expanded into a full game.  Even then, SR4 recycles a lot of missions.