Development budgets of various games

[tuluse]

Somebody could easily Kickstart System Shock or Thief sequels with a budget of $3-4 million.

I was wondering where all the LGS-esque kickstarter projects were and people told me there were just too expensive to do on a kickstarter budget.

The closest we've got is Tangiers. Which looks cool but they didn't ask for enough money for me to take them seriously.

 

[Direwolf]

Somebody could easily Kickstart System Shock or Thief sequels with a budget of $3-4 million.

I was wondering where all the LGS-esque kickstarter projects were and people told me there were just too expensive to do on a kickstarter budget.

The closest we've got is Tangiers. Which looks cool but they didn't ask for enough money for me to take them seriously.

I reckon people are over-blowing the increase in development costs. If we adjust them for inflation and take into account all the technology changes, I can only see 2x-2.5x times 1999 budgets. Not 10x like some people claim.

 

[Infinitron]

Somebody could easily Kickstart System Shock or Thief sequels with a budget of $3-4 million.

I was wondering where all the LGS-esque kickstarter projects were and people told me there were just too expensive to do on a kickstarter budget.

The closest we've got is Tangiers. Which looks cool but they didn't ask for enough money for me to take them seriously.

An unofficial Thief sequel with low quality graphics is doable on Kickstarter...if you have an engine.

I don't know if Thief's stated budget included the development costs of the Dark Engine, but even if it did, it seems like something that LGS's programmers put together over a long period of time. The thing about Kickstarters is that they also need to have limited delivery times (no more than two years or so from funding).

That tends to lead to very "structured" development cycles that preclude things like having a "skunkworks" team hack together a cool new engine in their spare time, with an amortized cost. Things like that are the luxury of an established company - like Obsidian and Onyx (shame they couldn't use that).

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller

Would you be willing to release figures for the budget of your game? Marketing included?

We don't have a set budget for obvious reasons, so we simply paid for things that were necessary at some point (concept art, art, music, engine, packs & upgrades, website, hosting, hardware upgrades, some living expenses for two team members, etc). Overall, we spent about 20k.

We didn't spend anything on marketing as there was no reason to do that either (too early), but we were quoted 2-3k a month by a very good company and I'd gladly sign up with them if they are still accepting new clients.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I was just joking about the marketing budget.

But you do prove with your game that development doesn't have to be a money sink.

 

[tuluse]

I was just joking about the marketing budget.

But you do prove with your game that development doesn't have to be a money sink.

Right, you just need 7 years instead.

 

[Jarpie]

I have hard time believing that SWTOR cost "just" 200 million with the license too. Star Wars license probably would cost 100 million alone, knowing Lucas.

I noticed it said "development budget" and I'm wondering if that includes marketing since I remember people saying they spend $200 million on marketing. If that's true then SWTOR costed double it's development.

Yeah, I noticed the same. I don't think that includes marketing budget, or even licensing cost. 200 million dollars sounds about the right just for the development cost given how long it was in development.

 

[felipepepe]

Right, you just need 7 years instead.

If instead of registering at the Codex you had started to develop a game, you would be finishing it now.... think about that.

 

[Roguey]

That's not a comprehensive list, but I'm not going to help them out any with links.

 

[Xor]

I have hard time believing that SWTOR cost "just" 200 million with the license too. Star Wars license probably would cost 100 million alone, knowing Lucas.

I noticed it said "development budget" and I'm wondering if that includes marketing since I remember people saying they spend $200 million on marketing. If that's true then SWTOR costed double it's development.

Yeah, I noticed the same. I don't think that includes marketing budget, or even licensing cost. 200 million dollars sounds about the right just for the development cost given how long it was in development.

Checking quickly, I found a few sources for the $200 million development budget - specifically not including marketing or the license fee - that seemed to come from EA, but I can't find any reliable source for the $200 marketing budget. The first place I remember reading that was in that ex-developer confession that was posted around the time TOR came out, so I have to assume that's where that number came from.

I did find an article on joystiq saying an analyst estimated the total budget was $500 million but he could have pulled that number from anywhere, so I wouldn't necessarily trust it.

Considering the aggressive marketing campaign TOR had though, $500 million might not be far off.

 

[WhiteGuts]

GTA 5 is something like 265 M$.

 

[laclongquan]

3 Millions USD= Estimated Development and Maintainance Cost of Unreal World

Once I ask Sami, the dev of Unreal World what figure would he name if some major game company ask for his baby, Unreal World.

With his permission, I will post the answer here

Okay, so there's a program called SLOCcount which analyzes lines of code
and gives detailed report of development effort and average price for
the work. And I did analyze UrW sources with it.

Here are the results: (with current code)

Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 22.22 (266.67)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 1.74 (20.88)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 12.77
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 3,001,949
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).

----

So total estimated cost to develop UrW (so far) is around three million
dollars. And it matches pretty well that this amount of code would take
approximately 22 Person-Years to make.

SLOCcount thinks that estimated number of developers to come up with UrW
sources would be 12 persons. Well, I did by myself wink.gif


Naturally SLOCcount doesn't take into account that music and graphics
and photo shoots have taken quite a bit of time as well. So the average
price (and person-years) would be even higher if we'd add in all the
additional artwork as well.

So 3 million dollars would be the approximate value of UrW, based on
averages.

As you can see, that figure is more like auto-calculation of coding alone. Not arts and graphics. Not marketing. Opportunity cost, lost wage cost, that kind of thing.

But the important thing is not the number, but the tool he used to calculate it, SLOCcount.

So I'd like Vince D Weller to put his Age of Decadence codings to that sucker, to see how much it should worth.

Base on a common baseline we should have something to compare, no?

Vault Dweller

 

[A user named cat]

I like how Shenmue cost almost $50 million and had some of the worst voice acting ever used in a game. They could've grabbed random people off the street for free and it would've been better.

 

[Vault Dweller]

3 Millions USD= Estimated Development and Maintainance Cost of Unreal World

Once I ask Sami, the dev of Unreal World what figure would he name if some major game company ask for his baby, Unreal World.

With his permission, I will post the answer here

Okay, so there's a program called SLOCcount which analyzes lines of code
and gives detailed report of development effort and average price for
the work. And I did analyze UrW sources with it.

Here are the results: (with current code)

Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 22.22 (266.67)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 1.74 (20.88)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 12.77
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 3,001,949
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).

----

So total estimated cost to develop UrW (so far) is around three million
dollars. And it matches pretty well that this amount of code would take
approximately 22 Person-Years to make.

SLOCcount thinks that estimated number of developers to come up with UrW
sources would be 12 persons. Well, I did by myself wink.gif


Naturally SLOCcount doesn't take into account that music and graphics
and photo shoots have taken quite a bit of time as well. So the average
price (and person-years) would be even higher if we'd add in all the
additional artwork as well.

So 3 million dollars would be the approximate value of UrW, based on
averages.

As you can see, that figure is more like auto-calculation of coding alone. Not arts and graphics. Not marketing. Opportunity cost, lost wage cost, that kind of thing.

But the important thing is not the number, but the tool he used to calculate it, SLOCcount.

So I'd like Vince D Weller to put his Age of Decadence codings to that sucker, to see how much it should worth.

Base on a common baseline we should have something to compare, no?

Vault Dweller

Isn't it a pointless exercise? You don't determine the value of something by how many years of work you put in it. I'm always surprised when some indie developers estimate the value of their games by paying themselves an imaginary salary. Like I worked for years and I would accept no less than 75,000 imaginary dollars, so the total cost is $225,000! Um, no it isn't. Same here. The guy worked alone and did a monumental work, but that doesn't mean that this monumental work is worth $3 mil. If nobody wants your engine, its value is 0 dollars even if you worked your whole life on it. If you put it together in an afternoon but everyone wants it, its value is hundreds of millions.

 

[felipepepe]

Vide Minecraft and Flappy Bird Vs StarWars: The Old Republic and Duke Nukem Forever.

 

[laclongquan]

Totally agree! That number is inflated since it's auto-calculated, by dumb code lines in an app, you know, and Sami said so, not that he put it down himself. Which is why I said put yours to the test. We do the comparison based on a common baseline, no?

I agree that the game doesnt worth 3 million, either. But that is neither here or there. Comparison, biatches! How do you like it~