FranXico
Member
Multiplayer based games with scheduled events.
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Shmunter
Member
Yeah I can see that
ToadMan
Member
Jaffe/Ross interview - Gays Gone cost about $200 million.
Jaffe estimated sales around 5 million.
5 * 60 mil = $300 million to total. Take out 30% for support and sales channels and all that other stuff an DG probably made no profit attributable to the Bend studio itself. Maybe a loss in fact.
For a company like Sony to be effective, they need clear at least 50% - ideally they’d be looking to get a 2x ROI on a game.
They needed more like 10 million sales to make this a hit. Cue the PC release. They don’t need to win with every game but they need their winners to win big enough and to avoid too many losers.
EDIT : Gays gone is a typo! .... but it also happens to be true
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Derift
Member
I
I don't mean this as a shot at the writter but the opinions in that thread just seem silly... outside of the leak about MGS being licenced out, people are just jumping to conclusions... some people are saying MS will buy the ip and kojima will work on it which to me is just silly.... it reminds me of this comment I just saw
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Mr Moose
Member
skit_data
Member
Insane Metal
Member
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MasterCornholio
Member
Nice. Probably one of the most requested features. Hopefully they allow us to expand the internal soon.
ToadMan
Member
Setsuna Mudou
Member
And no way all the sales were done at $60 price tag, if anything that's an optimistic view.
But fuck, 200M for that game? Sounds like way too much. The Insomniac deal cost <300M and they produce success after success :O
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Wait what? He said this?
Impossible. There is no way days gone cost $200 million. They are a 100 person studio. Nd is 350 people. So does that mean tlou2 cost $600 million?
Bernd Lauert
Banned
Days Gone cost $200m the same way Halo Infinite cost $500m.
(as in, it didn't)
(as in, it didn't)
skit_data
Member
Announcing a New Funding Round of $1 Billion to Support Epic’s Long-Term Vision for the Metaverse
Epic Games announces a new round of $1 billion in funding to help develop the long-term vision for the Metaverse. Sony Group Corporation and a host of investment partners are supporting Epic’s growth.
Sony invests another $200 million in Epic Games to strengthen their strategic partnership.
”This round includes an additional $200M strategic investment from Sony Group Corporation, which builds on the already close relationship between the two companies and reinforces their shared mission to advance the state of the art in technology, entertainment, and socially-connected online services.”
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ToadMan
Member
Well that’s the back of the napkin math based on what they said.
It was 5 years to make. They had 50 ish staff at first so that could get to $20million a year to run if the salaries, benefits and real estate are decent which I assume they are.
But Ross said they scaled up the team significantly so if it got to double or perhaps treble the size that could run to closer $50 million a year for the latter phases so yeah it could get up towards $200mil.
I don’t know these are just rough figures so I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in it.
I think one of the reasons companies like to keep this stuff under wraps is they don’t want to say exactly how much stuff costs vs how much they make partly because the big selling games
Might create a backlash from consumers thinking they’re being scalped.
ToadMan
Member
Bernd Lauert
Banned
Having a staff of 100 doesn't cost 50 million a year. More like 10-15 million tops.
ethomaz
Banned
Death Stranding is actually the best Kojima’s game created.
Microsoft wants to buy Metal Gear license from Konami
Hopefully they'll make Liquid livewww.neogaf.com
MGS4 is the second best MGS game and the unique to win twice in different years GOTY in GAF.
I’m not sure what are you trying to imply.
Death Stranding is basically what games should be.... games made for gamers.
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Setsuna Mudou
Member
I honestly hope that math is overinflated because fuck me what a waste. I got the game on ps plus and still didn't feel compelled to play past the area you start venturing alone.
Was shocking to see the reaction here to the possible cancellation of a sequel, i could not be happier if that was true.
ToadMan
Member
Timestamped.
You’re gonna need to suspend your ADHD through the ramble chat here.
Jaffe talks about AAA games being $200m (or north of, all told).
Later Ross says they started with 45 and then got a lot bigger (maybe 120) that they had a “big budget” and exceeded that budget by “a lot”. EDIT Ross also says selling 4 or 5 mil “just to break even”.
It’s later in the vid
davidjaffe
offers the 5 mill sales estimate.
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ToadMan
Member
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Not a chance in hell Days Gone cost $200 million lol
ethomaz
Banned
Timestamped.
You’re gonna need to suspend your ADHD through the ramble chat here.
Jaffe talks about AAA games being $200m (or north of, all told).
Later Ross says they started with 45 and then got a lot bigger (maybe 120) that they had a “big budget” and exceeded that budget by “a lot”.
It’s later in the vid
Days Gone budget is AAA... that was already knew... it is over $80 million using some actual industry mark.
The 5 million estimate seems reliable when it crossed 5 million late 2020.
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Bernd Lauert
Banned
ToadMan
Member
Its right there in the vid if you want to piece it together.
Now you know why DG 2 is not likely.
I think people are greatly underestimating the costs to produce this stuff and they’re probably out also underestimating how much money is made on a hit and/or mtx.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Where? All David gave was a generric number but the reality is there's no one budget that fits all for AAA games. It's a wide spectrum
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ethomaz
Banned
I believe some guys here have a false view of game budget.
Blend with Days Gone worked with 120 employees (not counting 3rd-parties) so that means an average of ~$15 million of salaries per year.
The game was in development since 2013 and got full production in 2015.
From 2015 to 2019 (launch) it is 4 years of salaries.
We are talking here about $60 million only with salaries.
The game mostly likely crossed $100 million with dev budget easily.
Said that the David guess is a generic one... I believe Days Gone didn't reach $200 million budget.
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Timestamped.
You’re gonna need to suspend your ADHD through the ramble chat here.
Jaffe talks about AAA games being $200m (or north of, all told).
Later Ross says they started with 45 and then got a lot bigger (maybe 120) that they had a “big budget” and exceeded that budget by “a lot”. EDIt Ross also says selling 4 or 5 mil “just to break even”.
It’s later in the vid
If it's $200 million (sorry not enough evidence for me) then I am glad Sony shut them down. thats way too much.
wtf are they paying these 100 devs working in oregon of all places that is inflating the budget so much. Insomniac, ND and SSM are all in LA and employ far more people.
StabbyStabStabStabStab
Member
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
you take an average of $100k per person, and thats $10 million per year. VERY generous AVERAGE even for studios high paying jobs like games designers and art designers since they only make up a portion of the studio and only people with a lot of experience get paid north of $100k. This studio is in Oregon too. Their average salaries should be lower.
I am just not seeing how a 100 person studio that started with just 45 and grew to 100 only towards the end of the dev cycle. Epic made Gears 1 with 45 devs and their budget was $10 million. that was in 2006 but that game was in dev for over 2 years. Average salaries havent even gone up since, let alone by 10x.
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skit_data
Member
Timestamped.
You’re gonna need to suspend your ADHD through the ramble chat here.
Jaffe talks about AAA games being $200m (or north of, all told).
Later Ross says they started with 45 and then got a lot bigger (maybe 120) that they had a “big budget” and exceeded that budget by “a lot”. EDIt Ross also says selling 4 or 5 mil “just to break even”.
It’s later in the vid
If Days Gone did indeed cost 200 million, no wonder Sony didnt greenlight a sequel. It may not be a bad game but other Sony 1st party studios have done much better games with 1/4 of that budget. Add a long development time, they only churned out 1 game this gen and the fact that its arguably ”unecessary” if you want a more varied game portfolio.
Why would Sony have two studios making post-apocalyptic Zombie games for 200 million dollars? One had to go, and i think the decision was obvious.
ToadMan
Member
That’s part of the problem, in that vid Ross says they hired more people - how do you convince the skilled staff not readily available in Bend to leave the development “hotspots” in Cali or their university towns where their buddies are?
Gotta offer enough to offset the change in lifestyle, and more limited career options from moving out to Oregon.
The other thing is that for each employee’s net salary a large corp are paying probably 50%+ and maybe more in both taxes and benefits like medical cover, stock, 401k and whatever other stuff they provide.
A developer costing US$150,000 a year salary is probably costing over $200k just on direct cost. Add in office space and equipment, power, aircon, coffee, donuts. Blah blah.
It seemed like Bend scaled up a lot during this project too so I think there’s inefficiencies present that ND and insomniac for example have already overcome.
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yeah, I know that but its still not that much. That means those $10 million becomes $15 million a year with benefits and taxes. And again, they only scaled up in the latter half of the development cycle. Before that they were a 45 person studio for the longest time.
I said this in another thread, but games just dont cost this much. RDR2 which took like 5 years and 7 internal studios and 3,000 devs working in western studios is probably a $200 million game. Remember those Destiny rumors where they said the first destiny cost $500 million? Well, turns out that was the entire 10 year contract Bungie signed with Activision to make Destiny games for 10 years. That means the studio cost $50 million a year to run. Which sounds normal for a 600 person studio like Bungie.
ToadMan
Member
Ross didn’t say whe they scaled up - in fact he said they wanted to make an open world game with 45 realised it wasn’t enough and hired more.
That to me sounds like fairly early in the cycle.
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KingT731
Member
Timestamped.
You’re gonna need to suspend your ADHD through the ramble chat here.
Jaffe talks about AAA games being $200m (or north of, all told).
Later Ross says they started with 45 and then got a lot bigger (maybe 120) that they had a “big budget” and exceeded that budget by “a lot”. EDIt Ross also says selling 4 or 5 mil “just to break even”.
It’s later in the vid
The marketing budget for the game must have been ridiculous. Considering we already know TLOU2 is Sony's most expensive game.
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Setsuna Mudou
Member
Close but no cigar.
Why?
Setsuna Mudou
Member
You had me until you mentioned a corporation paying taxes
FatKingBallman
Banned
SSD compression in PS5 again in the action
MLB 21 XSX/S - 72.4 GB
MLB 21 PS5 - 59.1 GB
MLB 21 XSX/S - 72.4 GB
MLB 21 PS5 - 59.1 GB
LiquidRex
Member
Not the full update most were expecting... External USB utilisation is good, but the Internal SSD drive bay activation is still out of reach.
ethomaz
Banned
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ToadMan
Member
They’re getting the game for free on GP and now it turns out they’re getting more of it!
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Actually, they cant get out of paying the payroll tax which is 6%. Social Security + Medicaid. Every employee gets it deducted from their paycheck but every employer also has to match it per employee. So if they are paying $100k to a guy, that becomes $106k. Most top companies offer 401k matching upto 10% so add another $10k to that. Then you have medical insurance which is anywhere from 75%-100% if the company is trying to remain competitive. My company pays 75% of it and thats basically $1500 a month. So Todd is right, typically you have to add around 50% to every person's salary if you want to calculate their overall cost to their employer.You had me until you mentioned a corporation paying taxes
The city, state and federal taxes they can get out of, but city and state dont give them tax breaks beyond the first couple of years.
Setsuna Mudou
Member
No, I know that. I was asking what else is missing, obviously no rational person is expecting external drives to run PS5 games
Setsuna Mudou
Member
But then you offset the cost of doing business from actual taxes a company would have to pay. Money is shuffled around in "creative" ways so no actual taxes are paid by mega corporations
Bladed Thesis
Member
I think they're including the marketing budget in that 200m and its just an estimate.
Knowing the costs of marketing, I'd say 130-160 is very reasonable guess for Days Gone. If they went over budget, like Ross said by "a lot" could be closer to that $200m figure. Keep in mind, they could've made changes to the engine, there could've been complications or something. All those things rarely get talked about (unless Jason has a hate boner for a particular company) but happen all the time in game development.
$200m wouldn't be unheard of, especially if they're including the marketing number in there. Witwer and Pirri don't come cheap. The entire cast of voice actors and likenesses probably cost upwards of 3-4m easily. These costs add up so fast. Now fly them out to out to Bend, Oregon 4-5 times for voice over work and motion capture. Again, this shit adds up.
Knowing the costs of marketing, I'd say 130-160 is very reasonable guess for Days Gone. If they went over budget, like Ross said by "a lot" could be closer to that $200m figure. Keep in mind, they could've made changes to the engine, there could've been complications or something. All those things rarely get talked about (unless Jason has a hate boner for a particular company) but happen all the time in game development.
$200m wouldn't be unheard of, especially if they're including the marketing number in there. Witwer and Pirri don't come cheap. The entire cast of voice actors and likenesses probably cost upwards of 3-4m easily. These costs add up so fast. Now fly them out to out to Bend, Oregon 4-5 times for voice over work and motion capture. Again, this shit adds up.
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Setsuna Mudou
Member
How's that one? Afaik there's just certification needed on SSDs that can match the i/o speeds of the internal drive. Unless I'm missing something, that's on SSD makers, not a firmware limitation.
FatKingBallman
Banned
Pretty cool, right!.gif
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Good news fellow PS5 Gamers. Sony has invested another $200 million into Epic Games bringing their total to $450 million in the last six months.
All those savings from shutting down Japan Studios are going into Epic Games who as we all know are struggling since Fortnite only made them $2 billion in profits last year. Good guy Sony.
On a serious note, just imagine the outrage if all the rumors about Sony Bend, Koji Pro and Bluepoint are true and people find out Sony invested half a billion into Epic Games while MS shows up at E3 with exclusives from Bluepoint and KojiPro. They are putting undue pressure on their 4 AAA studios to deliver IMHO. Especially if they are being forced to work on cross gen games.
All those savings from shutting down Japan Studios are going into Epic Games who as we all know are struggling since Fortnite only made them $2 billion in profits last year. Good guy Sony.
On a serious note, just imagine the outrage if all the rumors about Sony Bend, Koji Pro and Bluepoint are true and people find out Sony invested half a billion into Epic Games while MS shows up at E3 with exclusives from Bluepoint and KojiPro. They are putting undue pressure on their 4 AAA studios to deliver IMHO. Especially if they are being forced to work on cross gen games.
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