John-ShepardYeah, we know what you're thinking: "Well damn, it should be profitable."
But in fact, the very well-received Tomb Raider reboot didn't cross the line into profitability until late last year . The acclaimed title launched in the first week of March and needed most of the rest of 2013 just to break even. That's because publisher Square Enix and developer Cyrstal Dynamics dumped over $100 million into the game's development.
That's also why Square Enix had such staggering expectations for the game; they anticipated that Tomb Raider would sell 5-6 million copies in the first month. These days, you can only manage such a feat if your name is Call of Duty , Assassin's Creed , or Grand Theft Auto . And Tomb Raider still did extremely well, ultimately selling 3.4 million in its first 30 days on shelves. Still, Square Enix was quoted as saying they were "extremely disappointed" that it didn't sell more.
Well, many gamers have been saying for years that Square Enix has lost all touch with reality, but whatever. At least Tomb Raider is finally making money. Still, all this begs the question: Did all those involved know that the game wouldn't hit expectations and hence, they started work on the next-gen version, now called the Definitive Edition…? Just a theory.
Related Game(s): Tomb Raider
There's your reason for the $60 tag on the DE.
A publisher based in reality needs to tell Square Enix that the investment in a reboot or new IP is made in hopes that the franchise will be successful down the road. Not in hopes that it will break records the first time out.
One would think that'd be common sense, especially for a publisher of Square Enix's size and experience.
But…one would be wrong.
Holy crap, $100 mil?
Now I have to wonder how much extra the definitive edition cost… Work from three studios over the course of a full year to improve the graphics, surely that didn't come cheap. Square-Enix had to be out of their damn minds to pump that much money into the project.
I remember when it was a big deal that Final Fantasy VII had like a few million dollars sunk into its development. Things are getting out of hand these days.
Still nowhere near as bad as the movie industry Paramount gave M. Night and crew $150mil to make that absolute trainwreck called The Last Airbender.
To put this into perspective LoTR Return of the King was roughly $94mil and The Dark Knight was $184mil.
I know I'm alone but I kinda feel bad for Shyamalan, he got so hot the pressure came on and he was crushed. Probably crushed by Hollywood more than his own crazy ideas. They make sure to mainstreamize everything into crapola. Games are headed in that direction now too.
Not as bad as the movie industry, true, but $100 mil is pretty standard for blockbuster films, while GTA IV was the first time that mark was breached by a game, and it's only been done a couple of times since then. Thing is, Avatar was quite a hot topic when The Last Airbender came out, so there was some rationale behind the massive expenditure. Prior to the reboot, Lara hadn't really been relevant since, when, the turn of the century? The name may still be known, but it didn't really carry the same clout that once it did. That figure is insane.
As for Shyamalan, I think he's just been doing the wrong movies lately. The big budget action films like The Last Airbender and After Earth just don't fit his style the same way that more bizarre ones like Lady in the Water do. He's still got some good movies left in him somewhere.
I thought gran turismo was 60 mil. Wasnt gta 4, 100 million? Did they include advertisement cost and all?
it's likely not 100 million into it's development but instead it's development and marketing combined.
EDIT: this reminds me of the Beyond Two SOuls thing. Kotaku had just posted (a couple days ago anyway) a detailed breakdown of game costs over the last decade or so. Beyond Two Souls was quoted in being 27 million to make. Pretty sure that was without marketing. 1 million copies, many discounted, spells for a financial disaster for Sony.
btw, they had Heavenly Sword listed as 20 million to make. And nearly 2 million sold didn't cut the mustard there either.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 1/18/2014 12:57:53 AM
oh, and ahem, S-E got 5 of my dollars for this game =p
EDIT: no wait. S-E got maybe $2-3 dollars, Amazon got the rest
Last edited by Temjin001 on 1/18/2014 1:00:45 AM
I hope Crystal Dynamics gets a couple bucks too.
http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649
here's that article. it really is worth a look.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 1/18/2014 12:52:23 PM
whats wrong with people these days?
they look across the road and see someone doing x so they expect if they do it the results going to be the same.
does not work that way.
$E need to just disappear off the face of the earth, there bringing down their own franchises and bringing down eidos one of the last good teams with them!
i always knew $E would destroy eidos, but i didnt think it would happen THIS quickly!
biggest injustice this industry has seen since M$ bought rare and restricted them to crappy kinect titles!
The money they're putting into developing games is kind of ridiculous. I can understand a title like GTA or COD where you're pretty much guaranteed to sell a metric fuck-ton, but otherwise, they need to be more realistic. In my opinion, if you sell a million of ANYTHING and don't make a profit, you've done something terribly wrong. I hate to say it, but part of the blame goes to the fact that games still cost $60. I'm no economist, but I'd guess that keeping the same price tag for going on 3 generations isn't good business, especially with development prices going through the room. Then again, it doesn't make sense to have digital versions have the same price of games from brick and mortar stores. Just price the games $80 and Gamestop and $60 online and be done with it.
Well based on my own experience and what I have seen on this forum in regards to gamers expectations in games, can't say its much different with some devs as well. Maybe expectations and reality are a bit out of sync with everyone.
We gamers know, mostly, what we like, we expect it and at times do not get it. Devs are the same, or maybe becoming more so and more so from a busness point-of-view. Good or bad.
I think we are going to see more of this in this current gen. Higher budgets for what is deemed a bigger game, content or graphically, and expectation of bigger returns.
We already see this in movies with the expectation, hope, of a movie to earn 3 times more than it cost to be deemed making a profit. Gonna see it in game development.
Here hoping a balance is found, minus a little of the greed maybe.
Keep playing!
Devs need to learn how to be more efficient with their budgets.
I could probably deliver a game as good or better than Tomb Raider for one half to one quarter the cost, if I was managing a studio.
I am one of the best budgeters of anyone I know, and I am always being pestered for advice by everyone I know plus their friends and family on how to manage money.
Last edited by JROD0823 on 1/18/2014 4:54:57 PM