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Forums - Gaming - Only 30% of games recover their development costs!?

Showertea on 11 August 2008
Groucho said:
Showertea said:

That's a really bad comparison, man. Ratchet + Clank Future sold a little over a million copies (1.27) while Mario Galaxy sold almost 7. I could see them having similar dev. budgets, but the Mario game gave back a 5 fold higher profit. A better question is asking if Ratchet + Clank cost less to make than Carnival Games, which sold 1.89 Million copies so far. And it took six months to develop. http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2007/08/24/carnival-games-wii-developer-this-is-not-a-mini-game-collection/

 

Um...  So you're saying that, since SMG made much more money (gross) than the latest R&C (gross)... that Nintendo knew this ahead of time and thus invested more in it than a typical AAA platformer title, and thus the comparison is bad?

There are a lot of publishers who would *love* to live on your planet. =)

I'm saying that you can't compare Ratchet and Clank to Mario because Mario is a AAA Title that sells multimillions and Ratchet and Clank is an A title that only sells 1-2 million. You should compare Mario Galaxy to AAA titles like MGS, Halo 3, or GTA4 which all cost 50+ Million to make, or compare Ratchet and Clank to other games that sell 1-2 Million like Carnival Games, which probably cost less than 5 million overall.

 



Wii has more 20 million sellers than PS3 has 5 million sellers.

Acolyte of Disruption

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Words Of Wisdom on 11 August 2008
Kasz216 said:

On the 360 maybe.

A Wii looking game on the PS3 probably would cost more though. I mean look at the recent interview about rage. He had to put his best people, and twice as many people on the PS3 to do as much work as the 360 do to it's crazy hardware.

It is problematic that people seem to insist on "HD level" graphics. (Which aren't even really HD level since a lot aren't at 720, but it's a certain "look" demanded.)

I think that there's a learning curve with the PS3 that many developers have yet to fully realize. 

That's why I used the Wii and the 360 in my example and not the PS3 though.  ^_^



CaptDS9E on 11 August 2008

3 out of 10 games ? Well thats a good ratio of actual good games, to not so good. Also maybe companies should spread out releases a bit. it's all nice and good to be out for the holidays but anytime I take a look at Sept-December I want to weep. Release some more during the summer time. Battlefield and Soul Calibur did well last month. This month is only Madden and Too Human as the big releases. Sept has a load of them.



Twitter:CaptDS9E

Chemical on 11 August 2008

I dont know whether that percentage is true or not but there is one thing I do know: there has been a lot of mergers recently. Activision Blizzard, EA and Bioware, the list can go on but I am lazy. Also Square-Enix(merged some time ago) has announced some time ago that they have a warchest for purchasing developers to expand in the west, Ubisoft announced something similar.

If you paid attention to E3 you would have noticed that pretty much every game that was shown was a sequel FFXIII, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 5 etc etc etc. You can also look at the most anticipated lists for the rest of the year and you will find a lot of sequels. Quoting Yahtzee here: "Back in NES days you could make a game about a chef riding cockroaches with a gun that shoots velocoraptors , now a game is considered innovative if the space marine protagonist has moustache. "

We are getting shorter games with little innovation even though our hardware is getting better due to a population of gamers addicted to HD. Personally I found the graphics of PS2 era to be good enough *cough* Shadow of the Collossus *cough* at this point developers should concentrate on making bigger, more immersive gaming worlds rather than shorter worlds that have amazing textures that i will ignore because i am concentrating on my dam crosshair.



Proud owner of the following gaming devices:

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Smashchu2 on 11 August 2008
Copycon said:
"My guess and analysis shows that less than 3 out of 10 games recover their development and marketing costs with boxed goods sales"

Please back up those numbers Mr. Deering. Does he include every little indie studio there is? Most of the big players must be able to make money otherwise the wouldn't be big players on the scene.

It might actually be those big guys that take the losses. They make these major cost games that take millions to make, but will never make it back.

 



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Coca-Cola on 11 August 2008

It can also depend on a company.
Microsoft delivers good games while Midway does not.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6195745.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6195745



SaviorX on 11 August 2008

According to that chart listed above, Carnival Games probably cost around $3 million to make.

BTW, making games on the Wii doesn't make things worse.



Leatherhat on July 6th, 2012 3pm. Vita sales:"3 mil for COD 2 mil for AC. Maybe more. "  thehusbo on July 6th, 2012 5pm. Vita sales:"5 mil for COD 2.2 mil for AC."

Riachu on 11 August 2008
Chemical said:
I dont know whether that percentage is true or not but there is one thing I do know: there has been a lot of mergers recently. Activision Blizzard, EA and Bioware, the list can go on but I am lazy. Also Square-Enix(merged some time ago) has announced some time ago that they have a warchest for purchasing developers to expand in the west, Ubisoft announced something similar.

If you paid attention to E3 you would have noticed that pretty much every game that was shown was a sequel FFXIII, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 5 etc etc etc. You can also look at the most anticipated lists for the rest of the year and you will find a lot of sequels. Quoting Yahtzee here: "Back in NES days you could make a game about a chef riding cockroaches with a gun that shoots velocoraptors , now a game is considered innovative if the space marine protagonist has moustache. "

We are getting shorter games with little innovation even though our hardware is getting better due to a population of gamers addicted to HD. Personally I found the graphics of PS2 era to be good enough *cough* Shadow of the Collossus *cough* at this point developers should concentrate on making bigger, more immersive gaming worlds rather than shorter worlds that have amazing textures that i will ignore because i am concentrating on my dam crosshair.

The games are getting shorter because the textures take so much time to make that they can't create huge worlds like they used to.

 



 

http://www.youtube.com/user/InvaderZimGuy1?feature=mhum

Godot on 11 August 2008
Riachu said:
Chemical said:
I dont know whether that percentage is true or not but there is one thing I do know: there has been a lot of mergers recently. Activision Blizzard, EA and Bioware, the list can go on but I am lazy. Also Square-Enix(merged some time ago) has announced some time ago that they have a warchest for purchasing developers to expand in the west, Ubisoft announced something similar.

If you paid attention to E3 you would have noticed that pretty much every game that was shown was a sequel FFXIII, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 5 etc etc etc. You can also look at the most anticipated lists for the rest of the year and you will find a lot of sequels. Quoting Yahtzee here: "Back in NES days you could make a game about a chef riding cockroaches with a gun that shoots velocoraptors , now a game is considered innovative if the space marine protagonist has moustache. "

We are getting shorter games with little innovation even though our hardware is getting better due to a population of gamers addicted to HD. Personally I found the graphics of PS2 era to be good enough *cough* Shadow of the Collossus *cough* at this point developers should concentrate on making bigger, more immersive gaming worlds rather than shorter worlds that have amazing textures that i will ignore because i am concentrating on my dam crosshair.

The games are getting shorter because the textures take so much time to make that they can't create huge worlds like they used to.

 

 

That's why many people preferred San Andres with a huge world that looks like shit to GTA4 which was a much better looking world.



How many cups of darkness have I drank over the years? Even I don't know...

 

ion-storm on 11 August 2008
Godot said:
Riachu said:
Chemical said:
I dont know whether that percentage is true or not but there is one thing I do know: there has been a lot of mergers recently. Activision Blizzard, EA and Bioware, the list can go on but I am lazy. Also Square-Enix(merged some time ago) has announced some time ago that they have a warchest for purchasing developers to expand in the west, Ubisoft announced something similar.

If you paid attention to E3 you would have noticed that pretty much every game that was shown was a sequel FFXIII, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 5 etc etc etc. You can also look at the most anticipated lists for the rest of the year and you will find a lot of sequels. Quoting Yahtzee here: "Back in NES days you could make a game about a chef riding cockroaches with a gun that shoots velocoraptors , now a game is considered innovative if the space marine protagonist has moustache. "

We are getting shorter games with little innovation even though our hardware is getting better due to a population of gamers addicted to HD. Personally I found the graphics of PS2 era to be good enough *cough* Shadow of the Collossus *cough* at this point developers should concentrate on making bigger, more immersive gaming worlds rather than shorter worlds that have amazing textures that i will ignore because i am concentrating on my dam crosshair.

The games are getting shorter because the textures take so much time to make that they can't create huge worlds like they used to.

 

 

That's why many people preferred San Andres with a huge world that looks like shit to GTA4 which was a much better looking world.

 

A lot of people prefer San Andreas because it doesn't take itself too seriously and the hand to hand combat and car handling don't suck like they do in GTA4.



Yes