Destiny Costs Activision $500M To Develop And Promote

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Activision is spending this much money on Destiny? What? I'm calling B.S. on this one.

Activision Blizzard will spend $500 million developing and promoting developer Bungie's upcoming first-person action game, Destiny, CEO Bobby Kotick revealed during the Milken conference in Los Angeles last week, Reuters reports.
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I wonder what's the % of that amount is for the promotion part.
 
advertising is mega $$$ thats a big fking budget. Atleast bungie has the experience to back up that budget.
 
Actually game development is normally a small portion of a budget. Sometimes less than 20%. The rest go's to overhead and advertising.
 
Grimlaking said:
Actually game development is normally a small portion of a budget. Sometimes less than 20%. The rest go's to overhead and advertising.
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So game developers bitch and moan how they need to sell millions of copies because the development costs are so high, then artificially raise their development costs 50-75% using ridiculous amounts of advertising which in turn forces them to have to sell even more copies than they would to recoup the costs.


Makes sense.
 
As a person who took cost accounting and was able to stay awake for one class! I clearly say it's BS.
 
cageymaru said:
Advertising is more than likely 75% of the cost.
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Now that I can believe.

Liger88 said:
So game developers bitch and moan how they need to sell millions of copies because the development costs are so high, then artificially raise their development costs 50-75% using ridiculous amounts of advertising which in turn forces them to have to sell even more copies than they would to recoup the costs.


Makes sense.
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+1
 
Spire3660 said:
I dont get the hype for this game, its doesnt look that great at all.
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I haven't seen anything that really sells the game for me. It looks like a Halo knockoff, which it is. If there is more to it, they need to focus advertising on it. Show me what's so different and great about this game over the many, many other FPS's on the market.

Advertising smart is better than just throwing $$ to advertising... Spend less, reach farther, and get more sales. It wouldn't take a whole lot. There are a ton of simple, damn near free, ways of getting the word out and generate hype before the release. YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, etc.. can pull in a lot of people and get shares.
 
I've heard absolutely nothing interesting or innovative about this game. Kotaku (ughhhhhhh) even said their experience with it so far has been dull
 
Ur_Mom said:
I haven't seen anything that really sells the game for me. It looks like a Halo knockoff, which it is. If there is more to it, they need to focus advertising on it. Show me what's so different and great about this game over the many, many other FPS's on the market.

Advertising smart is better than just throwing $$ to advertising... Spend less, reach farther, and get more sales. It wouldn't take a whole lot. There are a ton of simple, damn near free, ways of getting the word out and generate hype before the release. YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, etc.. can pull in a lot of people and get shares.
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Eh, it's really more of a mix of Halo and Borderlands with some extra MMO stuff thrown in. I happen to like both of those games, and I'm a big MMO guy. Definitely looking forward to Destiny, but it hasn't hit must buy[/] status just yet. I need to see a lot more first.
 
Liger88 said:
So game developers bitch and moan how they need to sell millions of copies because the development costs are so high, then artificially raise their development costs 50-75% using ridiculous amounts of advertising which in turn forces them to have to sell even more copies than they would to recoup the costs.


Makes sense.
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Look out, looks like we have an experienced account manager on our hands :rolleyes:.

There is a difference between marketing, sales, and production budgets. You want to sell millions of copies not only so you make back the cost of development, but you also set out a production budget that will allow you to invest in the next project. Game developers are not in it for "one-and-done." In this case of the publisher-developer relationship, Bungie has no control over how much money Activision spends in the marketing budget.
 
Liger88 said:
So game developers bitch and moan how they need to sell millions of copies because the development costs are so high, then artificially raise their development costs 50-75% using ridiculous amounts of advertising which in turn forces them to have to sell even more copies than they would to recoup the costs.


Makes sense.
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lol funny catch-22
 
Honestly I hope they lose their ass on this one. The 250m+ Advertising budgets are getting stupid.
 
chockomonkey said:
Advertising is expensive.. I just wonder how it was split. 50/50?
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cageymaru said:
Advertising is more than likely 75% of the cost.
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Liger88 said:
So game developers bitch and moan how they need to sell millions of copies because the development costs are so high, then artificially raise their development costs 50-75% using ridiculous amounts of advertising which in turn forces them to have to sell even more copies than they would to recoup the costs.


Makes sense.
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Of course this is conjecture, but we already know that some "blockbusters" for the dudebro audience like cowadoody spent just over 70% of their budget on advertising (at least according to Activision). Assuming that this game will be relying on the same "you need to have this to be cool on campus" market, it's totally realistic.

Who would have thought that it would cost so much to convince guys who wear flip-flops to buy a game?
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Who would have thought that it would cost so much to convince guys who wear flip-flops to buy a game?
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Who knows. Then there are others, most of [H] included, that will know of a great game without a ton of marketing. If there is a great game, we usually find out about it and buy it without a huge advertising push.

Other people need to have that hype. CoD is in that boat. Build the hype so that it is 'the next big thing' regardless of how the game is. Get people to buy it blindly because their friends are getting it because it's "Soooo sick, bra". I don't buy into that hype, though. CoD can be a decent game (definitely overhyped and has become a generic FPS in my opinion). I have no interest in buying it because others do.
 
So far from what I've seen and what others are saying, actual game play ... it's not all that great. It honestly looks like something you would have seen 3 - 4 years ago. Very very average with absolutely nothing that made me think .. "oh cool" ...
 
Liger88 said:
So game developers bitch and moan how they need to sell millions of copies because the development costs are so high, then artificially raise their development costs 50-75% using ridiculous amounts of advertising which in turn forces them to have to sell even more copies than they would to recoup the costs.


Makes sense.
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Its the publishers, not the devs. What ends up happening is it puts enormous pressure on the dev teams (ex: Dice) because the publisher (ex: EA) works in excessive advertising costs and has unrealistic time tables and expectations.

In short; as "budgets" increase, the devs are stuck with similar funding but much higher expectations.

Advertising is also why so many AAA games are rushed. Ad space (brick and mortar, electronic, etc.) generally isn't purchased when the game goes gold. Its purchased when the publisher's expectations of completion is decided. Don't want to blow their ad budget load because the game was late. It's all about fix as many game-breaking bug's as possible and get it out the door once it's crunch time.
 
haste. said:
Advertising is also why so many AAA games are rushed. Ad space (brick and mortar, electronic, etc.) generally isn't purchased when the game goes gold. Its purchased when the publisher's expectations of completion is decided. Don't want to blow their ad budget load because the game was late. It's all about fix as many game-breaking bug's as possible and get it out the door once it's crunch time.
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Exception to every rule, and in this case - Duke Nukem Forever. Hyped to unreachable expectations. Some people got pre-orders from 10-12 years previous to launch. Still - released "when it was done". That might have been part of the push for publishers to make dev's stay close to the release date. They don't want another "when it's done" release.

IIRC, another late game caused issues and companies have had a lot of problems because of late games and no return on investment. They spend and spend and don't release anything to bring in profit.

So, it's kind of expected to a point. I'd rather wait a bit longer for a better game. Some places just can't do that. They would spend more in development than they would make back in profits....
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Of course this is conjecture, but we already know that some "blockbusters" for the dudebro audience like cowadoody spent just over 70% of their budget on advertising (at least according to Activision). Assuming that this game will be relying on the same "you need to have this to be cool on campus" market, it's totally realistic.

Who would have thought that it would cost so much to convince guys who wear flip-flops to buy a game?
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Does it make you feel super L33t to talk like this?

It is amazing how some of you have friends or even hold a converstation with a member of the opposite sex. I don't get why people on here feel the need to berate someone because they like a mainstream game.
 
No way, no fucking way. 150 with marketing and all? Sure. This is probably targeted at clueless investors.
 
Most likely 80-90% of that cost is advertising

Game companies today like to lie through their fucking teeth at gamers by claiming a game is top quality cause they spend a kojirrion dollars on it, when in fact its cause game producers/distributors now include advertising in as "Game cost"

Think is game companies is the ONLY fucking business that does this ATM and lies to the customer, every other entertainment division seperates production and advertising costs such as TV, movies, books, music etc, but game companies are fucking desperate to keep snowing over gamers why games "Should" cost 70$-80$ each, and what better way then claiming you need to charge that amount when you claim your game cost half a BILLION to "Make" etc

Meanwhile all three STALKER games were made on a budget of 2.1 million dollars, and both Witcher games were made on 13 million dollars........
 
ShamisOMally said:
Most likely 80-90% of that cost is advertising

Game companies today like to lie through their fucking teeth at gamers by claiming a game is top quality cause they spend a kojirrion dollars on it, when in fact its cause game producers/distributors now include advertising in as "Game cost"

Think is game companies is the ONLY fucking business that does this ATM and lies to the customer, every other entertainment division seperates production and advertising costs such as TV, movies, books, music etc, but game companies are fucking desperate to keep snowing over gamers why games "Should" cost 70$-80$ each, and what better way then claiming you need to charge that amount when you claim your game cost half a BILLION to "Make" etc

Meanwhile all three STALKER games were made on a budget of 2.1 million dollars, and both Witcher games were made on 13 million dollars........
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Marketing is included in the total budget for a consumer product and can be an ongoing cost. It would make no financial sense if marketing was a part of normal operating costs. Selling your product is just as much a part of the process as actually making/producing/developing it.

I'm amazed at how many accounting experts we have commenting in this thread. I thought they were a dying breed :rolleyes:.
 
Armenius said:
Marketing is included in the total budget for a consumer product and can be an ongoing cost. It would make no financial sense if marketing was a part of normal operating costs. Selling your product is just as much a part of the process as actually making/producing/developing it.

I'm amazed at how many accounting experts we have commenting in this thread. I thought they were a dying breed :rolleyes:.
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Except the Stalker/Witcher games? They didn't factor in advertising costs

Remember Tomb Raider reboot and them saying it cost "$100 million to make" etc? And then the real numbers came out where it only cost 22 million to make, 78 million of it was advertising

Remember Starwars: The Old Republic costing $300 million? And then it got leaked that the game only cost $42 million to make and the rest was advertising?

And on, and on, and on

Meanwhile Valve, cause they have no investors to report to, has pointed out again and again and again that it costs them around 5-10 million for HL2, 2-3 million for TF2, 5-10 million for L4D, 10-20 million for L4D2, 10-20 million for Portal 2 etc.

Why? Cause they have no investors they need to lie to in order to rake in big bucks, Valve's even gone on record to say that they spent an extra 50-70% AFTER game production costs on advertising, but the point is they keep game production costs and game advertising costs SEPARATED
 
Think is game companies is the ONLY fucking business that does this ATM and lies to the customer, every other entertainment division seperates production and advertising costs such as TV, movies, books, music etc, but game companies are fucking desperate to keep snowing over gamers why games "Should" cost 70$-80$ each, and what better way then claiming you need to charge that amount when you claim your game cost half a BILLION to "Make" etc
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It doesn't matter if it is included or not. It is still ax expense associated with doing business and needs to be accounted for when setting a price point.

Advertising is a very important part of doing business. No matter how you do it.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Exception to every rule, and in this case - Duke Nukem Forever. Hyped to unreachable expectations. Some people got pre-orders from 10-12 years previous to launch. Still - released "when it was done". That might have been part of the push for publishers to make dev's stay close to the release date. They don't want another "when it's done" release.

IIRC, another late game caused issues and companies have had a lot of problems because of late games and no return on investment. They spend and spend and don't release anything to bring in profit.

So, it's kind of expected to a point. I'd rather wait a bit longer for a better game. Some places just can't do that. They would spend more in development than they would make back in profits....
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I would almost call that an anomaly and not an exception. The problem was 3DRealms was bankrupt and it was held up in years of litigation.
 
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