![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Ex-Sony Exec Says 70% of Games Lose Money
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
The thing people are forgetting are the associated costs outside of development that kill budgets, such as testing. If you have a game in testing w/ a 20 man team for say a month (highly unusual, but we'll go with it), the people in testing are generally making $10/hr. Often this is done through an agency, but for sake of figures, we'll say in-house testing (so $10/hr). Average day will have 8 hour days (highly unusual top-notch games, but for sake of argument again). This gives us a figure of about $1600 per day per team. If we have a large project, the testing team may be 40 or 50 people, so prices escalate quickly. If the testing is done through an agency, then they are going to be charging well above this (think $15-$20 on the optimistic side).
Throw into here a group of say 10 programmers who are making say $35/hr (depending on the company and position, this could be low or high, but figure average). Once again figure in the (unlikely) 8 hour day. Here's another $2800 per day. If we have a group of 10 artists making say $25/hr, here's another $2000 per day.
Now, these figures are going to be common on say the average project. Give the project a year to complete, where the testers are only there for the last two months of the project. Even with this rather small scale game, and ignoring things like say musician and sound effects guys, middleware licensing, and then just general marketing and production runs, we still come up with a rough guestimate of ~$1.3 million.
Taking all this into account, if the game is simply average (which most games are), it would have to sell roughly 22,000 copies at $60 to "break even". However, some of the money goes to the store, some to the distributor, some to the platform licensing costs (for consoles, handhelds), etc, so figure double that amount to really break even.
Now of course, this being an EXTREMELY optimistic scenario, where the likelihood is that the costs will be significantly higher, and the associated costs for other various things are added in, it's not too difficult to see why the majority of games would have trouble breaking even, let alone make a profit.
Throw into here a group of say 10 programmers who are making say $35/hr (depending on the company and position, this could be low or high, but figure average). Once again figure in the (unlikely) 8 hour day. Here's another $2800 per day. If we have a group of 10 artists making say $25/hr, here's another $2000 per day.
Now, these figures are going to be common on say the average project. Give the project a year to complete, where the testers are only there for the last two months of the project. Even with this rather small scale game, and ignoring things like say musician and sound effects guys, middleware licensing, and then just general marketing and production runs, we still come up with a rough guestimate of ~$1.3 million.
Taking all this into account, if the game is simply average (which most games are), it would have to sell roughly 22,000 copies at $60 to "break even". However, some of the money goes to the store, some to the distributor, some to the platform licensing costs (for consoles, handhelds), etc, so figure double that amount to really break even.
Now of course, this being an EXTREMELY optimistic scenario, where the likelihood is that the costs will be significantly higher, and the associated costs for other various things are added in, it's not too difficult to see why the majority of games would have trouble breaking even, let alone make a profit.
exactly.. im still waiting on a version of GTA4 that is playable... my friend has it on ps3... while the physics are better, my san andreas on pc still looks better...
SamuraiInBlack
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2003
- Messages
- 5,771
Truth. I still see copies of the Diablo and Starcraft BattleChests come in at least once a month. I even see Warcraft III come in once in awhile too, so people are still buying games that are YEARS old. I mean come on, SC was played on what, a 486 back in the day!?
A good game has awesome replay value, no matter how horrible it may look or sound compared to modern day stuff.
mastertard
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2007
- Messages
- 140
Similar can be said of the movie industry, most movies lose money... and 70% might be accurate. I've even heard 80% before. But seriously, just take a look at the NPD sales charts and you'll see how important brand imaging is in influencing sales rather than gameplay OR graphics.
That's why Hollywood is pumping out sequels like no other, because it's a proven formula until it's completely milked for what it's worth. Same idea behind why so many damn WW2 games came out over the past few years.
It sucks because some innovative games that are actually good don't make money, whereas the shitty ass "once-a-year-roster-update" Madden series makes bank.
That's why Hollywood is pumping out sequels like no other, because it's a proven formula until it's completely milked for what it's worth. Same idea behind why so many damn WW2 games came out over the past few years.
It sucks because some innovative games that are actually good don't make money, whereas the shitty ass "once-a-year-roster-update" Madden series makes bank.
Sign me up. That was the first RPG I ever really played.
Agreed, it does seem 70% of games out there especially for the ps3 are crap, and the 30% is the few good ones IE gta4, MGS4,SC4
Outamyhead
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2008
- Messages
- 4,263
I believe they are still trying to get people to play Planet Side (that sucked, compared to Tribes 2), and like previous posters had said, the main factor is 70% of the games are total shite...look at that last Gundam game (yeeeeuuuuggghhhhhh!!!), the Bourne Conspiracy was a conspiracy, since it was missing the other 2 parts of the bourne films (4 if you are talking about the books), and piracy is normally the scape goat besides the real reason of the games sucking.
And then we get the ported version of the same crap on the PC like they are expecting us to buy it, when the sales figures come back they blame piracy again, except it sticks because the PC has that reputation, although I have bought every game I own, and it's next to impossible to pirate a game from STEAM (not that I have tried, but I would imagine the unique user ID and activation code association causes headaches for the hackers).
you know, its just like the movies that are made. Take office space for example, when it came out in theaters it flopped, when it was released on DVD it made a killing. same thing goes for some games. we all end up going back to old games because they were better than the new ones. Sony needs to quit polishing turds and actually put the money toward the games that people like.
albert6719
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2005
- Messages
- 140
QFT
I mean just look at Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft as the standard for QUALITY games with good gameplay rather than fancy-schmancy graphics. I would rather pay $50+ for a GOOD PLAYING game than that same money for a GOOD LOOKING game any day of the week.
