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Forums - Sales Discussion - Selling 1 million units is no longer enough

Kasz216 on 25 December 2009
Aprisaiden said:
Kasz216 said:
Aprisaiden said:
Selling 500k+ for most games is still considered a success, as the game should break-even or return some profitability. This article is mainly referring to high budget titles and the big issue with them is the way they are given excessive marketing budgets, development budgets AND are expected to generate enough profit to make up for the lower budget titles that failed to turn profitable.

The answer to this problem is to learn how to reduce the cost of high budget titles and for the industry to actively teach various consumers that they should be buying the high quality AAA budget titles for there consoles and not "casual mini-game collection 8,567: this time we got 40% on meta-critic"

Except.... 10-20 million keeps getting quoted this generation as an AVERAGE.

The 10-20 million figure is for higher budget titles and for titles using new engine's, many titles however are built using the same engine for well under that cost (an example is that all of Insomnaic's games have used the 1 core engine with a few modifcations made for ratchet/resistance).

 

 Also we don't know how the 10-20 million figure is calulated, is it development only? does it include marketing costs? How much do publishers get per game sold $15? $20?, are big buget titles like GTA4($100 million for dev+marketing) / MW2($200million? dev+marketing) included? are budget titles made for under $1-$5 million included?

No.  The 10-20 million is for an average title... we have a LOT of evidence pointing to this.  What you consider "Call of Juraz" a high budget game?  Really?


Example

"The Epic VP indicated that the average game project budgets for the PlayStation 2/Xbox game generation was $2 to 6 million, whereas the average budget for next-gen gaming can be $8 to 20 million. Noting that the average team size for the PS3/Xbox 360 generation is 60 to 80 people, he claimed that a combination of outsourcing and engine licensing enabled companies such as Epic to run at a much lower full-time employee base and cost."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10971

Example 2

To put things in perspective, the article gives the example of Namco, who, in 1982, made Pac-Man for nearly $100,000 (today, it would be about double that amount, due to inflation). According to BBC News, the average PS3 game costs nearly $15 million to make -- and that's before any marketing is done for the game

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/29/cost-of-next-gen-game-production-is-a-burden-on-developers/

 



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johnsobas on 25 December 2009

it's interesting because NES games used to cost $50, now games cost $60. Now consider how much more it costs to make a game now, before games could be made by a single person or small group. Now consider how much more $50 was back in 1984 compared to 2009.



currently playing: Skyward Sword, Mario Sunshine, Xenoblade Chronicles X

MaxwellGT2000 on 26 December 2009
Kasz216 said:
Aprisaiden said:
Kasz216 said:
Aprisaiden said:
Selling 500k+ for most games is still considered a success, as the game should break-even or return some profitability. This article is mainly referring to high budget titles and the big issue with them is the way they are given excessive marketing budgets, development budgets AND are expected to generate enough profit to make up for the lower budget titles that failed to turn profitable.

The answer to this problem is to learn how to reduce the cost of high budget titles and for the industry to actively teach various consumers that they should be buying the high quality AAA budget titles for there consoles and not "casual mini-game collection 8,567: this time we got 40% on meta-critic"

Except.... 10-20 million keeps getting quoted this generation as an AVERAGE.

The 10-20 million figure is for higher budget titles and for titles using new engine's, many titles however are built using the same engine for well under that cost (an example is that all of Insomnaic's games have used the 1 core engine with a few modifcations made for ratchet/resistance).

 

 Also we don't know how the 10-20 million figure is calulated, is it development only? does it include marketing costs? How much do publishers get per game sold $15? $20?, are big buget titles like GTA4($100 million for dev+marketing) / MW2($200million? dev+marketing) included? are budget titles made for under $1-$5 million included?

No.  The 10-20 million is for an average title... we have a LOT of evidence pointing to this.  What you consider "Call of Juraz" a high budget game?  Really?


Example

"The Epic VP indicated that the average game project budgets for the PlayStation 2/Xbox game generation was $2 to 6 million, whereas the average budget for next-gen gaming can be $8 to 20 million. Noting that the average team size for the PS3/Xbox 360 generation is 60 to 80 people, he claimed that a combination of outsourcing and engine licensing enabled companies such as Epic to run at a much lower full-time employee base and cost."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10971

Example 2

To put things in perspective, the article gives the example of Namco, who, in 1982, made Pac-Man for nearly $100,000 (today, it would be about double that amount, due to inflation). According to BBC News, the average PS3 game costs nearly $15 million to make -- and that's before any marketing is done for the game

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/29/cost-of-next-gen-game-production-is-a-burden-on-developers/

 

EA has also stated the average HD game is 20 million and said for them to break even they need to sell around 1.1 million, they've also stated that Wii budgets were 1/4th of the HD budgets on average so about 5 million which is in line with last gen as Factor 5 stated, the guys that know all too well how high budgets are for this gen.



MaxwellGT2000 - "Does the amount of times you beat it count towards how hardcore you are?"

Wii Friend Code - 5882 9717 7391 0918 (PM me if you add me), PSN - MaxwellGT2000, XBL - BlkKniteCecil, MaxwellGT2000

MaxwellGT2000 on 26 December 2009

Site having some issues sorry for the double post!



MaxwellGT2000 - "Does the amount of times you beat it count towards how hardcore you are?"

Wii Friend Code - 5882 9717 7391 0918 (PM me if you add me), PSN - MaxwellGT2000, XBL - BlkKniteCecil, MaxwellGT2000

Kasz216 on 26 December 2009

Yeah, there are like a dozen quotes that place the average HD game at 10-20 million.

I just went with the first two i can find in a google search.



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errorrrr on 26 December 2009

they need to hire more competent devs, coders, artists, etc instead of crappy ones that waste time writing junk code since they are getting paid by salaries...

Seriously, gaming should go in FORWARD BOTH VISUALLY, TECHNOLOGICALLY, and QUALITY.

Honestly, computer technology is going forward, and you are telling games to go backwards??

This analyst might as well also tell AMD, Intel, ATI, and Nvidia and all other computer hardware makers stop making new hardware for the consumer since who really need a i7 core + NVIDIA GTX 285 to play mario?



numonex on 26 December 2009

2 million is considered to be the bare minimum these days due to the escalating development costs.
3 or 4 million+ is now considered the yardstick of which success is measured.
Games that cost a minimal amount will obvuiously only have to sell 1 million to be considered to be successful.



johnsobas on 26 December 2009
errorrrr said:

they need to hire more competent devs, coders, artists, etc instead of crappy ones that waste time writing junk code since they are getting paid by salaries...

Seriously, gaming should go in FORWARD BOTH VISUALLY, TECHNOLOGICALLY, and QUALITY.

Honestly, computer technology is going forward, and you are telling games to go backwards??

This analyst might as well also tell AMD, Intel, ATI, and Nvidia and all other computer hardware makers stop making new hardware for the consumer since who really need a i7 core + NVIDIA GTX 285 to play mario?


that doesn't mean anything if companies are losing money.  Games should move forward as much as they can while maintaining a healthy margin of profitability.  If you're gonna wish otherwise you're just wishing for the downfall of the game industry.  Quality is what really matters anyway.



currently playing: Skyward Sword, Mario Sunshine, Xenoblade Chronicles X

Seraphic_Sixaxis on 26 December 2009

all of a sudden huh?



pariz on 26 December 2009
Xxain said:
d we'll see more games developed with smaller teams and smaller budgets relying lesson the latest technology and more on fundamental gameplay qualities." <------- YEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!


I second that.



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