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Forums - Sales - Game Development Costs?

HappySqurriel on 03 November 2007

In the last game developer salary survey the average salary of an American game developer was over $75,000 per year; when you factor in all of the costs associated with employing a developer (benefits, office space, support staff, etc.) the cost per developer year is probably (far) more than $100,000. We know that games on the scale of Metal Gear Solid 4 have 100 to 200 person development teams and these projects can span 2 to 3 years.

When you combine these two statistics, the range you get is $20,000,000 to $60,000,000 (which is pretty much the range we have heard industry insiders and analysts claim). All games are not projects on this scale, for example a game like Guitar Hero 3 probably had a much smaller development team (guestimate 50 people) and a much shorter development cycle (guestimate 12 to 18 months).

Now, when you compare apples to apples between the PS2/Wii and the XBox 360/PS3 it has been claimed by several well respected developers that the development cost has increased by 3 to 4 times. This is (mainly) because of how much more expensive it is to create the artistic assets for a XBox 360/PS3 game, and how many more of these assets you need to create in order to have a convincing environment; those minor details in XBox 360/PS3 game, regardless of whether it is shiny-bumpy metal or that every desk in an office now has pens, were created by someone at a cost.



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Daileon on 03 November 2007
fkusumot said:
Dodece said:
Actually costs vary some games are relatively cheap to produce. While the high end or AAA games cost more. I actually read a article that gave a good rule of thumb for AAA development costs on the respective platforms, or how many units need to be sold to break even.

Wii 250,000
360 350,000
PS3 600,000

The Wii is markedly cheaper due to the weaker technology. Further more since it is relatively well known code the process is very simple comparatively speaking. The older technology is the easier it is to code for. You could probably make a eight bit game yourself for less then a thousand dollars with the proper development tools. Where as it cost tens of thousands of dollars at the time.

The 360 seems to be on par graphics wise with the PS3 right now. The difference is the technology is very universal its a console that thinks its a PC. The software tools have had time to develop so the costs have come down.

The PS3 is very new technologically speaking. The Cell processor is still poorly understood. The large game size, and the weak developer tools are hampering progress for developers. The costs might even be higher for some depending on delays as they try to figure the hardware out.

Thats what I understood anyway. Needless to say the gist is that a AAA game on the PS3 is more then twice as expensive to develop then a similar level of game on the Wii, and a similar level of game on the 360 is just over half the development cost.

So that should answer your question. However there are obviously exceptions to the rule. I would wager that a Mario Galaxy must sell over half a million due to the long development cycle. Halo 3 probably cost a good chunk more then the average AAA title on the 360, and Killzone dear god they better hope it makes a profit. That and Final Fantasy might each need to sell over two million copies before its all done and over with.


 Your article was wrong. It cost twice as much to make a 360 title as a Wii title.


Well... Let's say the developer get US$ 30 for each Wii game and US$ 40 for each X360 game.

250000 x 30 = 7500000
350000 x 40 = 14000000

So it's almost twice.



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