Typo? Isn't it more like the other way around, devs getting less for their PS3 versions because Sony is charging $3 more (higher license fee than MS).

Isn't that what the source wrote?

1.
Bioshock:
I estimate Bioshock cost $20-25 million to make and probably another $10-15 million went to it's marketing and promotion. As it sold rufly 3-4 million copies on 3 platforms, it probably made $75-100 million in revenue to the publisher.

So profit would be $40-50 million. The publisher takes most of the profits (remember that publishers have a lot of expenses other than funding the developer and marketing games, they have their own staff, offices, economically trained personel, expenses for accounting and lawyer services etc). In this case with Bioshock, I would think the developer (Take-2 Boston) would get just $5-10 million or so as a bonus, and publisher  Take-Two would take the rest ($30-40 mill).

I estimate Crysis to have cost $30 million to develop and $15 million to market = $45 million total cost.
Crysis revenue rufly 2 million copies x $15 = $30 million (many PC games sell for very cheap, and Crysis was heavily bundled with graphics cards and whatnot, thus only $15 per copy in revenue)
So I estimate Cry-tek and EA lost money on Crysis, but they'll make it back from licensing their game engine and also from sequels to Crysis, like the multiplatform Crysis 2.



2. "For a game priced at $40..wat goes to publisher,what goes to Developer n what part goes to shop/seller?
lets have an example of Call of Duty 4"

- This totally depends on how much the game sold compared to it's target sales! Call of Duty 4 is an extreme example - a game that sold way more than anyone expected, and thus the publisher takes the most of the profits.

13 million x $30 = $390 million. Let's say the game cost $30 million and marketing cost $40 million, that gives you $320 as profit. At such a high profit level Id estimate that Activision gets 75% off that sum and Infinity Ward only 25%.
So Id guess rufly: publisher Activsion gets $240 million, and developer Infinity Ward gets a profit of $80 million from CoD4.

thanx

The CEO of Crytek said in an interview that Crysis indeed made a profit. Too lazy to search a link though...

^

Crysis costed 15 Million Euro to make, thats what i heard in german TV

Crysis made a profit? I thought it was one of the most pirated PC games of all time? Plus it didn't sell well when it was first around, 200k copies? Not to mention the rig u needed to run the game when it was first out. ugh.

Anyways I would suggest not arguing with The Source, he uh, prolly knows his stuff.

Ok google search comes up with 22 million to make, not bad at all. 88,000 copies were sold after a month of release but shortly after it looks like it started selling like wild fire.

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2008/02/01/crysis-over-1-million-copies-sold/

@Barozi

I've read too Cevat Yerli claiming that Crisis made profit, although in vague words. I don't believe him a single bit. Overall yes, they will eventually get a nice return on the investment (after engine licensíng and sequels) but there's no way they have made a profit yet with such HUGELY disappointing sales. It just doesn't make sense when you're a bit familiar with gaming business mechanics like I am.

@ the others

One said 15 million Euros, and the other $22 million as budget for Crisis. (yeah 15 mill Euros equals about $22 mill correct). But in general the dev costs you see in interviews and on the web are underestimated. I dont have the time to explain it deeply right now, but there's different ways to present a budget. You can choose to include just the transient costs like salaries of the team + cost for licensing software +outsourcing, or you can include all costs (+ investments in equipment & tools, +rent for the offices, +cost of necessary, permanent staff around the team etc, in other words costs associated with running a software development house).

My $30 mill estimation of Crisis cost tries to cover ALL the actual costs to produce this game. And $30 mill is on the lower side. It could well be $40 mill with all above factors included.

@Slimebeast: Crytek have other worries, like that bill in parliament which wouldn't let them make violent video games in Germany.