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Forums - Microsoft - Crackdown broke even

kiefer23 on 16 July 2009
outlawauron said:
kiefer23 said:
outlawauron said:
kiefer23 said:
Cypher1980 said:
Guys not all the POS take goes back to the DEV

For instance in the UK Games are 40 GBP on average. But the shop gets them for around 32 GBP.

Distribution and packaging 5 GBP.

Royalties to medium provider 5 GBP.

So the 22 GBP or half of the games POS take is all that makes it back to the DEV.

A game costing 22 million to make therefore must sell a million to break even.

Not many games ever hit GBP22 million.

Gears of War 1 only cost $10 million. I would assume its quite cheap though because the engine is already made etc etc.

Halo 3 cost a rumored $30 million. Payed off for Microsoft since they have made around half a billion dollars off of it.

This still makes me laugh!

What that Gears of War cost Microsoft/Epic the kind of money you find hidden in the back of your sofa?

No, the game cost more than that. They did not include the years of development that went to creating an engine for Gears of War. (Unreal Engine 3) That engine likely cost them more than $10 million. However, this is counterbalanced because the engine was reused and sold to many developers.

 

http://www.videogamer.com/news/gears_of_war_has_cost_10_million_to_produce.html

Epic Games VP Mark Rein has said that next-gen development needn't break the bank - Gears of War has only cost $10 million. The budget does not include development costs of Epic's Unreal Engine 3, but this was NOT designed solely for Gears of War.

They used the current build of the Unreal Engine at the time to create Gears of War which was Unreal Engine 2.9 or something like that. They were building the new version of the engine for Unreal Tournament 3 not Gears of War so really the development cost of the new engine would go into Unreal Tournament 3's development total.

I think if the founder and Vice President of Epic games is saying it only cost them $10 million then i'm going with his figures not yours.



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outlawauron on 16 July 2009

It's a marketing pitch. He's trying to sell his engine to other developers. The game costed more than $10 million to make.

Engine costs alone would be well over $10 million by itself. They just did not count the cost of building and improving that engine with the Gears of War budget. Those costs should be associated with it, but the profits from selling should be thrown in there.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

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Kasz216 on 16 July 2009
outlawauron said:
It's a marketing pitch. He's trying to sell his engine to other developers. The game costed more than $10 million to make.

Engine costs alone would be well over $10 million by itself. They just did not count the cost of building and improving that engine with the Gears of War budget. Those costs should be associated with it, but the profits from selling should be thrown in there.

Yes... from the actual article he linked.

 

The budget does not include development costs of Epic's Unreal Engine 3, but this was not designed solely for Gears of War, plus the developer has saved money by outsourcing work to Epic Games China.

 

He may want to... you know, read his own sources it's embarrising when your own source contradicts you.

 

UE3 was made with Gears.

UT3 was when the PS3 got tweaks to UE3 to make it run smoother so it was up to specs with UE3 for 360.



outlawauron on 16 July 2009

Haha, thanks Kasz. I should have bothered to read it, but I didn't because I had heard it before.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

tyig on 16 July 2009
Kasz216 said:
outlawauron said:
It's a marketing pitch. He's trying to sell his engine to other developers. The game costed more than $10 million to make.

Engine costs alone would be well over $10 million by itself. They just did not count the cost of building and improving that engine with the Gears of War budget. Those costs should be associated with it, but the profits from selling should be thrown in there.

Yes... from the actual article he linked.

 

The budget does not include development costs of Epic's Unreal Engine 3, but this was not designed solely for Gears of War, plus the developer has saved money by outsourcing work to Epic Games China.

 

He may want to... you know, read his own sources it's embarrising when your own source contradicts you.

 

UE3 was made with Gears.

UT3 was when the PS3 got tweaks to UE3 to make it run smoother so it was up to specs with UE3 for 360.

I disagree, based on this I can say dantes's inferno will cost more than dead space because it's using the already existing dead space engine?



But war... war never changes

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sguy78 on 16 July 2009

You would think more third parties would want to make games for the Wii given this information.



outlawauron on 16 July 2009

@ tyig

No, the development cost of Dante's Inferno will not include any engine work if no changes or improvements were made to it. (Which is highly, highly unlikely!)



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

bigdom2786 on 16 July 2009

Wow Realtime Worlds is still bitching about not having the sequel and that that game is getting more hype than APB.....

If you guys believe a word that comes out of Dave Jones' mouth these days, ur easily fooled.

These words are coming from the guy who said he's disappointed that MS didnt give the sequel to a now-dead dev instead of beiung proud that the people who worked on the first game are behind it.



JaggedSac on 17 July 2009
Procrastinato said:

@Squill: thanks ;)

@others:

Note the part where the contract states:

"Royalty Split of Net Receipts (Calculated after cost of goods (Cogs) are

reimbursed): 60% - Take 2; 40% - Interplay. Subject to recoupment of any

advances, royalties will be due sixty (60) days after the month end in which

such units of a Product are shipped."

 

Key word: "advances"... i.e. dev costs.

 

Do they consider the gaurantee an advance?  I think that means that any money over the 2 million will be paid back in this manner.  The gaurantee would be for development costs.  Am I interpretting this wrong?

 



Kasz216 on 17 July 2009
tyig said:
Kasz216 said:
outlawauron said:
It's a marketing pitch. He's trying to sell his engine to other developers. The game costed more than $10 million to make.

Engine costs alone would be well over $10 million by itself. They just did not count the cost of building and improving that engine with the Gears of War budget. Those costs should be associated with it, but the profits from selling should be thrown in there.

Yes... from the actual article he linked.

 

The budget does not include development costs of Epic's Unreal Engine 3, but this was not designed solely for Gears of War, plus the developer has saved money by outsourcing work to Epic Games China.

 

He may want to... you know, read his own sources it's embarrising when your own source contradicts you.

 

UE3 was made with Gears.

UT3 was when the PS3 got tweaks to UE3 to make it run smoother so it was up to specs with UE3 for 360.

I disagree, based on this I can say dantes's inferno will cost more than dead space because it's using the already existing dead space engine?

It wasn't an existing engine.

The Engine was modified for Gears.

It would be like if Dante's Inferno used the unreal engine.  Then they didn't count any of the physics, sound or graphics tweaks they made to the engine to make it run.

They created a number of tools that made the process either... specifically with gears in mind... and with it effecting gears first before it went out to the rest of the public.

This can be seen in the Silicon Knights lawsuit.  Unreal Engine 3 and Gears were developed side by side.