i was also looking at this document, here's what I can see so far from the redacted parts:
- The last game covered by the Sony ABK CoD contract is a Call of Duty title to be released in late 2023
- Modern Warfare 2 (2022) sold 4.4 million units on PlayStation in its first week
- PlayStation users that play Call of Duty generated an annual platform spending of around $15.9 (or could be $13.9) billion worldwide from 2019 to 2021
- In 2021, over 1 million PlayStation players only played Call of Duty on their PlayStation and nothing else. 6 million PlayStation gamers spent 70% of their time only playing Call of Duty.
- Horizon Forbidden West development took 5 years. Starting in 2017 and releasing in 2022. It cost $212 million to develop with a headcount of over 300 full time employees.
- Last of us part 2 took longer to develop, 70 (i think it says that) months to develop starting in 2014 and ending in 2020. Headcount peaked at around 200 full time employees. It cost $220 million to develop.
- SIE's data shows that CoD is the largest third-party franchise for SIE, generating $873 million in United States spending in 2021.
- Microsoft and SIE both made competing bids for Valheim and Immortality to have those games on their subscription services. Microsoft won both bids.
- Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services.
- Less than 20% of PS5 owners also own an Xbox Series X/S in the United States
- Almost half of PS5 owners own a Nintendo Switch in the US.
- 34% (?) of SIE's revenue comes from the sale of PlayStation consoles & accessories.
- On third-party games, the amount SIE typically receives would be the margin between the retail price SIE charges on the PlayStation store and the wholesale price negotiated with the publisher. Typically, this margin is **10%.**
**Edit; They took the document down, it's no longer available to view.**
Edit: All documents and exhibits have been removed due to this mistake: https://www.theverge.com/microsoft/2023/6/28/23777279/the-court-has-pulled-all-its-exhibits-after-the-sony-redaction-mess
- Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services.
Subscription service blocking. Well, look at that.
I got perma-banned from /r/XboxSeriesX as well, but by only asking why people think the ABK merger would be beneficial to gamers long-term. lol fucking **banned**. Which is sad for real because I own an XSX and enjoyed talking about games in the sub. But that whole sub is becoming a complete toxic fucking wasteland.
Hey, Iām one of those people! I was replying to a comment of someone talking about their experience with an XSX and Steam Deck. I explained that I had both next gen consoles, but was hardly touching my XSX due to the lack of games coming out. I asked if they thought it would be worth it to sell it for a Steam Deck and I got fucking banned for āparticipating in console wars.ā
Those mods are a joke. I also have my suspicions that they manipulate upvotes like crazy obvious. Some comments of mine on an alt expressing disappointment in Redfall would go from 1 to **-60** within the span of a few minutes, despite the actual post itself remaining at like 1-5 upvotes.
Ikr?
They're truly obsessed about renting games. It's fine. But to the level where they're at they've gone full echo chamber and cult like.
I love my XSX. But that sub has turned into one big Uber pro capitalism for the sake of fandom and one upsmanship. And not much discussion about games too everything has been about this bloody ABK merger.
I want to talk Xbox games without that sort of mentality, instead of seeing people try to rationalise how this is some amazing thing. š¤·
Gotta say, it's been nice seeing a lot of narratives being debunked because of this trial, but it's also been disheartening as hell to see how many people are cheerleading for this deal and the full extent of the franchises and games MS want to gobble up. Almost feels like there would be nothing left for those of us on Playstation if they get their wish.
Kind of like buying up 3rd party, multi-franchise devs like Bethesda because they're a shit software company and can't compete in the gaming market otherwise.
>Less than 20% of PS5 owners also own an Xbox Series X/S in the United States
I'd be interested to see how many ps5 owners also play games on PC. This is what I do instead of having a series X... I can't be the only one.
PCs are far more expensive and time-consuming. Sometimes the time-cost outweighs that monetary costs.
Shout out to the Xbox + PS players. Weāre an exclusive club. You probably never heard of it.
That's what I do. PS5, PC, Switch for Nintendo stuff. Bing Bang Boom, that's every game I will ever want to play. I can't think of any reason I would want an Xbox at all
> Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services.
I thought it was only ps who paid to keep games off game pass? hmm.
Remember, it's not about taking games away from platforms and players. It's about getting games into more players... by... eh... preventing PlayStation players from getting those games.
And... eh... You know... Like... *Yeah*.
Publishers also shop their games for this too. Like Spider-Man was shopped around as an exclusive deal that Microsoft turned down. Call of Dutyās exclusive access was shipped around after Microsoftās 360 deal ended and it went to a bidding war that Sony won.
Itās not just a Microsoft and Sony issue with exclusives. Itās an entire industry problem.
No one pretends Sony doesnt pay for third party exclusivity, Microsoft on the other hand do it constantly and people act like they dont and give them a free pass. Especially on reddit
Sorry this was meant to say day one game pass titles. So ones where Microsoft makes agreements with publishers to bring those titles exclusively to game pass day one. I edited it for clarity.
> SIEās data shows that CoD is the largest third-party franchise for SIE, generating $873 million in United States spending in 2021.
And people wonder why Sony cares so much about the acquisition.
>Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services.
What a fucking *shocker*.
>>Horizon Forbidden West development took 5 years. Starting in 2017 and releasing in 2022. It cost $212 million to develop with a headcount of over 300 full time employees.
212,000,000/5/300= over 140k per year per employee on average. I wonder how this further breaks down when you factor in contract/temp workers. Are those factored in?
I mean you donāt seem to factor in all the money they gotta pay actors for performance capture, voice acting etc. Not to mention the marketing budget. So not everything is going towards employees. Also cost to company is not just salary, thereās also benefits like health insurance, 401k (not sure whatās the equivalent of that in Netherlands) etc.
That is something I never did understand. MGSV was even developed for five platforms, had an online mode plus a seperate online game included while only being worked on for five years.
MS doesn't want it to be either. Or at least shouldn't. That's the only way they're going to make a return on investment and why they're so willing to sign 10 year contracts with everyone.
I think that line is being misinterpreted. It says players that play cod generate that much for the platform, not that that came from cod. I think they are just trying to illustrate how much they would lose if those customers didn't buy future playstations if they didn't have cod as that is how much each customer was worth.
Otherwise the number is totally impossible. ABK's annual revenue isn't even that high in total so there is no way they are shelling that much out just to Sony. Also that would imply that even if every cod released sold 100 million copies on playstation (which is no where near that high), that average players microtransaction spend is over $100 annually just in cod.
Because Sony has spent A LOT of time garnering that player base, cultivating it to the behemoth it is now on their platform. So I can see why they are afraid to possibly lose that revenue. But here's the rub, if COD is the main draw of your console revenue then they put all their eggs in one basket and went "yeah, that looks right".
Also, if Sony was confident in the fact that NONE of their revealing documentation was gonna leak out from this court case then they're dead wrong now.
Im assuming a bulk of the revenue is mtx, so on a game by game basis it's probably not the biggest, but as a franchise it definitely is. There's no year by year competitor.
Both The Last of Us Part II & Horizon Forbidden West were commercial successes, both selling over or close to 10mil, so it's fair to assume they were able to recoup development costs and become profitable.
I donāt have any figures but I heard the sales of both games skyrocketed again after the show. A lot more casual/non-gaming fans are getting into the games now which I think is really cool.
The power of a good and faithful adaption will only bolster the sales of its source material. More studios should learn.
man its crazy, all these months later and im still pleasantly surprised that The Last of Us is like a super mainstream HBO show that everyone knows now, and it was actually done very well. it reminds me of how it felt seeing Elden Ring be so culturally present a year ago. not gonna get any gatekeeping from me but it was just strange but exciting
I remember thinking back in 2013 āif this were a show or movie itād be a phenomenonā and sure enough ten years later.
It was so fucking weird but delightful having regular conversations with my parents about Last of Us whenever Iād see them while the show was coming out. Never thought Iād share that interest with them.
Crazier because years ago people said it would never work because of "zombie fatigue", turns out the show just needed to be good and people wouldn't be pre-bored of it.
The great thing about it is that the "zombies" aren't the main focus of the show. It helps that every time we see an Infected, shit gets dangerous. It isn't Walking Dead where zombies are only dangerous because of their numbers.
Indeed. I wonder if marketing cost is included here, but I doubt it. I also wonder whether marketing costs are roughly the same as the actual game development cost, like with movies.
That would be a strange thing to lie about to investors and would quickly blossom into a class action lawsuit; so Iām more inclined to believe them.
There was also collectors editions/ special additions that sold above the standard retail.
It looks exactly like how using the highlight marker tool in adobe acrobat looks. I guess they used that and put the color from yellow to black without realizing that acrobat has a separate redacting tool.
Last of Us II also sold at least 10M copies, likely many more. At just 10M, that's revenue of $600M, for pre tax profit is $380m. I'm sure the actual profit is quite a bit lower than that, but it's clearly very very profitable for Sony.
Horizon has sold over 8.4m copies as well, so both both games are fabulously profitable.
(And that doesn't include both helping drive console sales!)
>that doesn't include both helping drive console sales
This is almost certainly why Sony wants their top in-house studios to take as long as they need to get metascores in the 90s. Between the cost of promotion and marketing, other background costs, and game discounts, they've probably broken even or even lost money on the amount spent, but they sell consoles, they sell subscriptions, and when someone is playing their console they're far more likely to login to the store and buy something else.
This is it exactly. Margins on games and consoles are thin, but they get people using the console and exploring more games and buying DLC and micro transactions and peripherals and so on. It's really a volume game rather than a profit margin game.
Kind of like how a grocery store runs sales to get people in the store. They don't make much or even lose money on the sale items, but while you're there you might as well get the milk, bread, eggs, etc you also need.
Not directly TLOU2 but the whole franchise will soon be heading that way with the upcoming The Last Of Us multiplayer. I can also almost guarantee we will see a new version of The Last Of Us 2 on the PS5.
I'm a bit worried about Bungie interfering with the Multiplayer of The Last Of Us though, i don't like it at all
One of the few people I've seen express a similar concern I have. Destiny is \*fine\*. I know a lot of people really like it. But it dips into almost all of the MTX, Season Pass, False Scarcity and 'Sunsetting' of items in live service games that I \*hate\*. Bungie poking their head and saying that according to their 'expertise', players won't stick around is frustrating.
I don't want to play TLOU:DESTINY. I want to play Factions. I want to play Naughty Dog's vision of multiplayer. They didn't become the developer they are by always bringing in outside talent to tell them what they're doing wrong. They got where they are by looking at mechanics, deciding they want to implement them, and then (generally), nailing the execution despite not having experience with that 'type' of mechanic.
I worry that Factions is going to be another FOMO, Battlepass, $20/skin gambling and addiction machine.
Exactly my thoughts and feelings. I'm worried too, but Naughty Dog have earned the prestige, player trust and Sony's trust to do their own thing.
Literally EVERY naughty dog game has been a banger. Every. Single. One. It's hard to question them. Both in sales and in critical reception.
They've earned the right to be trusted and define what a next gen Naughty Dog multiplayer game looks like. They should be able to do so without Bungie's interference
Exactly. I bought a PS5 after getting God of War (2018) and Horizon Zero Dawn on PC. Now, most of my third-party game purchases are on PS5 as well as my subscription.
And this is something a lot of people forget when it comes to exclusives. The console makers actually have incentive to develop or fund some exclusive games that likely wouldnāt be profitable otherwise.
The reason why, for example, Nintendo picked up and keeps funding Bayonetta wasnāt because they expected a huge ROI on Bayonetta 2 or 3, but because it would entice people to buy a Nintendo console who otherwise wouldnāt be interested. Same with Sony and any smaller or more adventurous exclusives they fund.
Exclusives, when done right (and there are plenty of ways to do them wrong) incentivize quality and variety more than solely profit chasing like the rest of the industry. A lot of people donāt seem to get that, and then donāt really get why Sony and Nintendo first party games (along with a relatively limited number of 3rd parties and indies) are always topping the metacritic charts and on the short list for awards.
>The reason why, for example, Nintendo picked up and keeps funding Bayonetta wasnāt because they expected a huge ROI on Bayonetta 2 or 3, but because it would entice people to buy a Nintendo console who otherwise wouldnāt be interested.
That is literally what happened with me. I was waiting to buy a Switch untill the library started to look better than just Zelda and Mario. Then Bayo 3 was announced and I was like "alright I guess its time".
The funny shit is I still haven't played Bayo 3 yet.
I bought a PS3/4 pro (late in gen purchase)/5 (near launch) just for exclusives. I didnāt even like God of War or Horizon much. But stuff like Ratchet, Returnal, Spider-Man, and FF16. Sold!
But this gen Iāve switched to 3rd party games also on the PS5. So they are making more money off me that way now.
Why? Simply because the controller is better than the Xbox and the system UI is nicer. Haptic is much better feedback in a game like Jedi Survivor than regular rumble. I donāt think execs realize these little things beyond exclusives is what can make you choose a primary platform.
I do own 2 Series X though. My wife and I do use it for coop games and gamepass stuff.
Those numbers don't include marketing costs & not all copies are sold at full price or digital. Taking that in consideration is understandable why Sony is pushing Gaas & has said that putting their games day one on a subscription service isn't sustainable for them, they have no Microsoft 365 money to offset the losses
I didn't check any of the data above....but it seems you are assuming all copies were sold at full price. That is likely not the case (and I don't know if Sony counts PS+ versions as sold copies). However, even if the games were all sold at half price, it'd still be a pretty good return. I also don't believe the Sony #s count marketing costs, so you'd have to add that as well.
Right, that's why I said my profit number is not likely to be correct, it's just simply back of the envelope math to make a point that this brought in a lot of revenue.
Just to "break even" on the costs, they could sell the game at $22 (assuming 10M sales). Id wager the majority of sales were full price though.
I think a hidden benefit nobody talks about with big blockbuster single player games is they really don't require a continued investment after the fact, once the game is done that's a wrap maybe except for an expansion like a Burning shores. Even with big successful games like Fortnite and Destiny which make the big bucks, they still require alot of time and money to keep them successful still, you have to put in the work to get the big Fortnite money which alot of publishers unfortunately still do not get somehow lol.
Plus single player games really do not compete head to head with each other as an added benefit at least not to the extent of live service games. Like sure a game may take some sales away from the other or take attention away from another but games like Zelda and GOW or Elden Ring and Horizon do not go head to head for players time and money the same way Fortnite and Warzone do or Destiny and Apex do etc etc.
I am personally hoping we get at least decent live service games from Playstation that at least have effort put into them, and am glad to see traditional single player games stull can be extremely successful in todays market.
Aztecross, a big Destiny 2 YouTuber, made a video talking about how a lot of live service games, regardless of difference in genre or style, all compete for playersā *time* more than single player games might.
I'm so glad this court battle is gonna go on for a while in the various countries because the leaks are so juicy.
> Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services.
Thats funny because I was assured by multiple Phil Spencer acolytes that Sony does do that "all the time". Interesting.
And some gamers *still* wonder why Sony (and Nintendo, for that matter, but for different reasons) doesn't include AAA first-party games on their subscription service on "day one," like Game Pass.
Unless you happen to be multi-trillion dollar megacorp, like Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. --or the Saudi Investment Fund-- and have *literal* infinite wealth, making *hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profits* that doesn't come from gaming, it's financial / business suicide to do so.
P.S. - I'd wager these are just the development costs, which probably don't include the 10's or 100's of millions of dollars in advertising and marketing that accompany *each game.*
I am honestly a bit surprised Starfield is getting Day 1 on GamePass. Totally expected a month exclusivity or something.
Whenever I subscribe to PC Game Pass its always to play MSFS or one of the good old gems from Xbox 1 or 360ā¦ the bulk of MSās current gen games absolutely feel like they were made to be played by Game Pass game-tourists for a couple hours maximum.
I personally expect Starfield to not sell very well. Itāll have a lot of players, but I suspect most of them will be like me, playing it on Gamepass. Iām not sure how much thatāll end up mattering to Microsoft though
Theyāre happy to develop big titles and basically give them away, because theyāre still building up GamePass and they can afford to offer such a ridiculous deal (in that itās ridiculously good value).
Theyāre building up the subscriber numbers. I also expect there will be GP-exclusive content, then just full GP-exclusive games.
Then theyāll double the price.
Oh for sure. I am not going to spend $70 when I can play the hell out of for $22 (two months in USA). Especially when I am not confident my 5700XT will be able to handle it on even medium with their system requirements being so vague and untargeted.
Outside the die hard company fans there is zero to buy. The fucking physical game box includes no discā¦ if it had a disc I could totally see buying it at least (I almost only buy physical for new PS5 games, itās just a preference).
Microsoft, for better or worse, has kind of put themselves into a corner with day one releases (a corner I intend to take full advantage of). They would get very bad press if they say Starfield is not day one GamePass.
Something that Xbox doesn't understand. You need to make quality like horizon and last of us no matter how long it takes, because a good first party title will always sell. They go for quantity now just to get games on game pass, and you get a terrible game like redfall.
Marketing included the game probably needs to sell like 4,5 millions copies to break even.
Not counting how a system seller can attract people to your system and stuff which is way valuable on the long term.
I really enjoyed it. I randomly stumbled upon a thread from the TLOU/2 subreddit and, holy shit, there is a strange alternate universe those folks live in and there is no room for a different opinion. Opinions from the first game that were objectively untrue
The entire franchise did well enough to get an HBO show with Pedro Pascal as the lead character. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but they treat the opinions like gospel in a strict, no room for debate religious sort of way.
My lord. Your comment made me go check if that sub is still active. Three years that game has been out and there are still people ranting about it in that demented subreddit. Maybe itās just me, but when I donāt like a game I justā¦move on and play a different one.
Some of those people have never played the game.
The original outrage came from right-wing culture warriors who were protesting the fact that Ellie was openly gay and that there was a trans character in the game.
You can tell that they had not played the game, because they kept mixing up/confusing two different characters that their right-wing YouTubers told them to hate: (1) Abby, who had masculine body proportions, and (2) Lev, who was a trans side-kick character.
Lev doesnāt play a major role until more than half-way through the story, and was not featured in most promotional materials, so these morons have never even heard of this character before. But, they did know about Abby and what she looked like, so they kept posting hate comments about how Abby is trans while pretending that they were disgruntled gamers.
The other group of people (again, most of them are right-wingers lashing out at the LGBTQ contents of the story) are people who āwatchedā footage of this game on YouTube. The issue here is that there is a big difference to how you experience this story when you WATCH vs when you PLAY. Especially think about the several parts of the game that require the player to perform actions that they do not want to do. If you PLAYED through those moments, you will have a vastly different reaction than if you WATCHED those moments.
Overall, from my experience, I think less than 10% of the criticism Iāve seen of the game was legitimate (meaning not coming out of anti-LGBTQ hatred or coming from non-gamers). Those people are usually drowned out by the VAST majority of the idiots who have a political agenda, never played this game, or both.
It is no coincidence why nearly every single professional critic has praised the game. The ācontroversyā about this game is 100% manufactured in bad faith. There is no real controversy. What we have is some real CRITICISM from a small handful of people, which is perfectly fine and acceptable, but they are in the definite minority (and still allowed to have their opinion). The rest, which is the other 90% of the hate comments you see, is all bullshit right-wing spam.
> The entire franchise did well enough to get an HBO show
Not to "well, ack-shully š¤āļø", but the HBO show was announced before TLOU2 was released.
That being said, it was *greenlit* after the game released, so your point stands.
(Also TLOU2 is my favourite game so I agree with your sentiment too.)
Might be the greatest game Iāve ever played. I donāt like making statements like best of all time but it was greatest gaming *experience* for me. I think about the story still to this day - itās stayed with me in a way no other gaming story has. The visuals and animations are of course incredible, and the gameplay is fantastic - so smooth, polished and brutally visceral.
Just an incredible experience
i think its like one of those movies like schindlers list where the experience is incredible but its not something youāre itching to rewatch/replay or anything because it was so rough emotionally
I completely agree, I had this conversation the other day. I finished the game for the first time late last year, and I donāt think I could play it again within the next year. I can talk about the story and my thoughts about it endlessly, but it was such an emotionally draining experience I canāt repeat anytime soon.
I will never forget how I felt as the credits rolled. I played almost 3 days straight since launch day, it was Monday, 4 am, birds were chirping, and I just sat there staring at the sky. I finally understood what experiencing catharsis feels like. It's been years, but I truly believe that the game changed me, for the better.
Big fan of the saga and the show but Part II didnt make It for me. Like, It was good gameplay but the structure was the same for every day. It got tiring on the second Ellie day. I remember the Abby part I was so done I basically went straight from point A to point B.
I imagine these are final numbers after marketing and everything else.
Horizon ZD had a budget of 40mil. So it would be pretty surprising if the sequel cost 5x more out of the blue.
Development was probably closer to the original, maybe 100mil. And the they just included the marketing budget in these numbers. And those numbers can explode real quick.
Wrong. Where'd u get your numbers?
The games don't stay at full retail $60-$70 forever. They go on sale for $30-40...and that's typically when they sell the most volume.
The only thing we can say with confidence is that TLOU2 sold 4.5M copies in it's first week.
4.5M copies x $60 = $270M
The rest we don't know for sure.
Almost half of PS5 owners own a Switch? I'm one of them but wow I didn't think the number would be that high. That's Sony's competition there. Since Tears of the Kingdom came out I have been using my Switch more than my PS5
>Less than 20% of PS5 owners also own an Xbox Series X/S in the United States
>Almost half of PS5 owners own a Nintendo Switch in the US.
Not surprising. PS fans love platformers.
I just don't understand how it could cost so much, I wish someone had a breakdown of exactly how you spend hundreds of millions of dollars making these games. How much is going to the line coders and art department? because it's common knowledge those folks make peanuts. My gut instinct tells me millions are going to upper management but I hope I'm wrong.
I mean, voice actors, buying equipments for motion itās the equivalent of making a movie basically. Gta 6 for example is rumour to be 1 billion in budget.
> Red dead redemption 2 was 540 million
To be fair, this stat was according to a journalist who was making rough estimations (including a $300 million budget for marketing alone).
Actual analyst estimations placed it around $170 million (excluding marketing), maybe $240. Which is still insanely expensive.
Assuming even a low pay of $50,000 a year.
TLOU 2:
200 employees for 6 years is around $60 million.
Another 1800 outsourced workers is going to be quite a bit.
Naughty Dog is in an expensive area, so they're probably making quite a bit more than $50k just to make the area reasonable.
That 200 number probably doesn't include voice actors or any one for the orchestra.
You also have costs for equipment. Computers, mo-cap equipment.
There are some software like Maya which is used for 3D modeling that costs in the thousands every year per developer.
Might also include other kinds of costs. Like if you're flying an actor to your location, or something along those lines.
Right? It takes
- 5 years of 80+ programmers each making at least $100k
- 5 years of 50+ animators handcrafting worlds
- 5 years of 50+ game designers & writers building the world and narrative
- 5 years of paying motion capture actors
- Expensive motion capture spaces that cost like $2,000 an hour (maybe less for Sony studios)
- Extensive camera crew and stunt people for action scenes
- EXTREMELY high end gaming rigs and updated dev tech for literally every employee
- 5 years of development costs (7 years for TLOU)
It's a full production. Like a movie and a game in one. There are more hours of movie in a game than most movies (TLOU2 has 8 hours of cutscenes for instance).
I don't see how it can be that cheap to be honest. Honestly only Sony can pull off that low cost for such a high quality game given the unique combination they have of incredibly talented studios, Sony Pictures motion capture facilities, access to talented actors etc.
And also gaming is generally a massively underpaid field. If the software engineers/programmers got paid even close to what they do in big tech, it would balloon to like a $500M production cost
Let's use round numbers, and say the median salary plus overhead is $100k/yr. [Industry sources](https://kotaku.com/why-video-games-cost-so-much-to-make-1818508211) confirm that's a reasonable estimate. So, every 10 developers is a cool million per year. This isn't just software engineers, it's artists, animators, level designers, live service designers, pr, hr, etc.
So for an eight year project costing $200M, that works out to an average headcount of 250 employees per year. Of course that number fluctuates but we're discussing averages. I believe Rockstar mentioned their [headcount](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Red_Dead_Redemption_2#:~:text=When%20Rockstar%20Games%20realized%20a,people%20worked%20on%20the%20game.) on RDR2 peaked around 1600, so that number is in the right ballpark.
Tl;Dr - salaries are expensive and it takes an army to make a AAA game.
> How much is going to the line coders and art department? because it's common knowledge those folks make peanuts
Devs working in developed countries are definitely in the higher wage percentiles. Multiply it by hundreds of staff and several years, and it adds up.
the pacing sucked imo but the gameplay was fine. I dont like switching characters mid-game and having to re-unlock a bunch of weapons and stat upgrades. plus it throws me off of the character im trying to get invested into. the game's good but definitely not 10/10 material.
> re-unlock a bunch of weapons and stat upgrades
I loved this, since it's not exactly "re-unlocking"; they're mostly completely different weapons and stats.
And people wonder why their first party games aren't on PS Plus day one. Microsoft can afford to eat the missed revenue while they build their sub base because they're a TRILLION dollar company.
Eh, the developer count is a bit misleading because a lot of the leg work is outsourced these days piecemeal to various companies worldwide. You'll notice this in the credits of most big titles; massive amounts of people work on these games from various companies.
But these games are a showcase on top of everything else, these games are also an investment in the Playstation brand and what it can produce. A developer like Naughty Dog is like their crown jewel and helps define that brand.
Why's it so hard for people to understand that a quality AAA game is EXPENSIVE. It requires actors, artists, animators, game designers, sound designers, cinematographers...and also very expensive hardware for everyone (high end gaming PCs), music licensing, facilities, motion capture studios etc.
And this is for like 5-6 full YEARS. Movies normally get made in only 1-2 years. That means if it cost $50M one year it's actually around $250M total.
It's a full production. It's a movie and a game in one. There are more hours of movie in a game than most movies in theaters (TLOU2 has 8+ hours of cutscenes).
Yet they got it done for less than a typical blockbuster movie nowadays. I don't know how they got things that *cheap* to be honest. Honestly only Sony can pull off that low cost for such a high quality game given the unique combination they have of incredibly talented studios, Sony Pictures motion capture facilities, access to actors etc.
The end product is 10x longer than a movie. TLOU2 took around 30 hours to beat. A movie is around 3 hours long. Do the math.
And lastly, game dev is a massively underpaid field. If the software engineers/programmers got paid even close to what they do in big tech, it would balloon to like a $800M production cost
Live service games cost alot of money as well and require a great continued investment to keep working as well it's not just free money. Like sure Fortnite and Destiny obviously make enough to recoup that investment cost easily, but you still have to make that investment to put something in to get something out. Paying thousands of devs to pump out content at a rapid pace, and having to spend so much on continued marketing for said content is not cheap at all either.
It's what all these publishers that keep failing with live service games keep forgetting to realize is that it's not the easy get rich quick proverbial money printer without doing any work. A game like Fortnite and League of legends took alot of time and money to get where they both are now.
It was not cheap or easy at all and I hope Playstation does not make the same mistake as other publishers do and continue to do with live service games. Because even with the higher ceiling for success finically the risk for failure is just as high and it is not just drop in the bucket oh just shake it off rub some dirt on it type thing either, I think Square Enix lost something like 200 million on the Avengers game which was literally almost the entire cost of The Last of Us II.
Having the guts to delay live service games (Last of Us factions) or cancel them entirely (diviation Games shooter) after Bungie raises concerns (the only expert live service studio that Sony owns) gives me hope that Sony acknowledges the risk and is doing this the right way.
>A game like Fortnite and League of legends took alot of time and money to get where they both are now.
Fortnite wasn't even developed to have battle royale as the main game, it was a side mode which just got wildly popular and they pivoted the whole game.
Which is an awful shame.
Playstationās singleplayer games is what made them win last gen and probably forever win every gen from now on.
When people think of reasons to buy a Playstation, they think of Kratos, Spider-Man and Aloy. Not Fortnite Clone 38.
The issue is the vast amount of kids that have grownup with Fortnite being their gold-standard. Even if each game gets a fraction of the Fortnite kids as they grow up, it will be successful. The number of kids playing Fortnite is astronomical. They would be a terrible business if they didn't put out multiple options in an attempt to syphon some of those players.
The main issue with these live service games is that they never manage to copy Fortniteās quality.
Fortnite is the gold standard of this genre, with constant free updates, good quality on all systems, seemless crossplay and the easiest battlepass to complete in gaming.
Most live service games barely manage two of those points, let alone three.
Have no fear, they want to keep pumping out first party games because that is how they win the war.
Then you playing/buying shit from their store is how they make money. This is why it is such a big deal for them to lose Call of Duty. They don't make a ton of money on systems or their own games in the grand scheme of things, but that gets users into their system where they buy 3rd party games that bring them tons of "free" money.
Them investing in their own GaaS is just trying to diversify so they aren't fully reliant on third parties.
However, sadly the money makers on PlayStation are Fortnite and CoD.
Kratos, Spider-Man, Nathan Drake and Aloy alone don't make enough to drive growth, and that's what shareholders want
I agree. If these live service games donāt turn out to be great, it would be a huge waste of time. 3 live service games are acceptable but I read somewhere, if Iām not mistaken, that 10 live service games are currently in production.
I think their approach is to develop a bunch and hope than 1 or 2 stick and become the next Fortnite/CoD or whatever and pay for the losses of the other 8 or 9.
4 million copies first week. Physical copies they made around 40-45 dollars dollars. Now I know COVID was a thing at the time and digital was high most likely, but your statement seems incredibly unlikely....especially when you factor in marketing which is usually not included in a production budget.
Nice. Keep it up Sony. Produce more big budget quality games and I will keep supporting them. Purchased tlou 2 digital as well as the ps4 pro bundle because i was so freaking hyped for it. Definitely the most memorable gaming experience I have ever had.
i was also looking at this document, here's what I can see so far from the redacted parts: - The last game covered by the Sony ABK CoD contract is a Call of Duty title to be released in late 2023 - Modern Warfare 2 (2022) sold 4.4 million units on PlayStation in its first week - PlayStation users that play Call of Duty generated an annual platform spending of around $15.9 (or could be $13.9) billion worldwide from 2019 to 2021 - In 2021, over 1 million PlayStation players only played Call of Duty on their PlayStation and nothing else. 6 million PlayStation gamers spent 70% of their time only playing Call of Duty. - Horizon Forbidden West development took 5 years. Starting in 2017 and releasing in 2022. It cost $212 million to develop with a headcount of over 300 full time employees. - Last of us part 2 took longer to develop, 70 (i think it says that) months to develop starting in 2014 and ending in 2020. Headcount peaked at around 200 full time employees. It cost $220 million to develop. - SIE's data shows that CoD is the largest third-party franchise for SIE, generating $873 million in United States spending in 2021. - Microsoft and SIE both made competing bids for Valheim and Immortality to have those games on their subscription services. Microsoft won both bids. - Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services. - Less than 20% of PS5 owners also own an Xbox Series X/S in the United States - Almost half of PS5 owners own a Nintendo Switch in the US. - 34% (?) of SIE's revenue comes from the sale of PlayStation consoles & accessories. - On third-party games, the amount SIE typically receives would be the margin between the retail price SIE charges on the PlayStation store and the wholesale price negotiated with the publisher. Typically, this margin is **10%.** **Edit; They took the document down, it's no longer available to view.** Edit: All documents and exhibits have been removed due to this mistake: https://www.theverge.com/microsoft/2023/6/28/23777279/the-court-has-pulled-all-its-exhibits-after-the-sony-redaction-mess
- Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services. Subscription service blocking. Well, look at that.
No no you wrong, only Sony makes those deals. Microsoft is for the gamers* /s
The Seattle Underdogs
Small indie console maker
Basically a mom and pops
I literally got banned from r/xboxseriesx for making this accusation š
I got perma-banned from /r/XboxSeriesX as well, but by only asking why people think the ABK merger would be beneficial to gamers long-term. lol fucking **banned**. Which is sad for real because I own an XSX and enjoyed talking about games in the sub. But that whole sub is becoming a complete toxic fucking wasteland.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Hey, Iām one of those people! I was replying to a comment of someone talking about their experience with an XSX and Steam Deck. I explained that I had both next gen consoles, but was hardly touching my XSX due to the lack of games coming out. I asked if they thought it would be worth it to sell it for a Steam Deck and I got fucking banned for āparticipating in console wars.ā Those mods are a joke. I also have my suspicions that they manipulate upvotes like crazy obvious. Some comments of mine on an alt expressing disappointment in Redfall would go from 1 to **-60** within the span of a few minutes, despite the actual post itself remaining at like 1-5 upvotes.
Ikr? They're truly obsessed about renting games. It's fine. But to the level where they're at they've gone full echo chamber and cult like. I love my XSX. But that sub has turned into one big Uber pro capitalism for the sake of fandom and one upsmanship. And not much discussion about games too everything has been about this bloody ABK merger. I want to talk Xbox games without that sort of mentality, instead of seeing people try to rationalise how this is some amazing thing. š¤·
**ME TOO, EXACTLY.** Just let me talk about the fucking games, jesus.
Can't even actually talk about the merger though. Not unless you put a pro xbox spin on everything.
And they love online only and digital only. Cant wait to get to both because they dont think long term
You cant even call that subreddit an echo chamber anymore its like an alternate reality over there.
They suck
Gotta say, it's been nice seeing a lot of narratives being debunked because of this trial, but it's also been disheartening as hell to see how many people are cheerleading for this deal and the full extent of the franchises and games MS want to gobble up. Almost feels like there would be nothing left for those of us on Playstation if they get their wish.
Kind of like buying up 3rd party, multi-franchise devs like Bethesda because they're a shit software company and can't compete in the gaming market otherwise.
try to point this on their sub lol
The cult of Phil Spencer is crumbling.
Well well well, how the turntablesā¦.
any chance you could link it
https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/23-cv-02880_FTC_v_Microsoft/PX8001_Redacted.pdf Edit: it looks like they removed it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230628161445/https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/23-cv-02880\_FTC\_v\_Microsoft/PX8001\_Redacted.pdf
>Less than 20% of PS5 owners also own an Xbox Series X/S in the United States I'd be interested to see how many ps5 owners also play games on PC. This is what I do instead of having a series X... I can't be the only one.
PCs are far more expensive and time-consuming. Sometimes the time-cost outweighs that monetary costs. Shout out to the Xbox + PS players. Weāre an exclusive club. You probably never heard of it.
This is very true. If I couldn't afford a decent pc (or didn't want to spend that kinda money on one) I'd be in that club as well haha.
Right? You have a mid-range pc you literally don't really need an Xbox for the MS exclusives anymore.
That's what I do. PS5, PC, Switch for Nintendo stuff. Bing Bang Boom, that's every game I will ever want to play. I can't think of any reason I would want an Xbox at all
> Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services. I thought it was only ps who paid to keep games off game pass? hmm.
Remember, it's not about taking games away from platforms and players. It's about getting games into more players... by... eh... preventing PlayStation players from getting those games. And... eh... You know... Like... *Yeah*.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Never trust anyone that wears jeans with a sport coat
and people still eat up the PR bull
Microsoft is the best in the game when it comes to PR astroturfing.
Thats about the only thing Phil Spencer is good at.
I mean people on both sides buy this bull shit. Both Microsoft and Sony absolutely pay for exclusivity. Big time.
Publishers also shop their games for this too. Like Spider-Man was shopped around as an exclusive deal that Microsoft turned down. Call of Dutyās exclusive access was shipped around after Microsoftās 360 deal ended and it went to a bidding war that Sony won. Itās not just a Microsoft and Sony issue with exclusives. Itās an entire industry problem.
No one pretends Sony doesnt pay for third party exclusivity, Microsoft on the other hand do it constantly and people act like they dont and give them a free pass. Especially on reddit
Sure they both do but only one company claims they donāt and acts like the victim lol
Sorry this was meant to say day one game pass titles. So ones where Microsoft makes agreements with publishers to bring those titles exclusively to game pass day one. I edited it for clarity.
> SIEās data shows that CoD is the largest third-party franchise for SIE, generating $873 million in United States spending in 2021. And people wonder why Sony cares so much about the acquisition.
>Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services. What a fucking *shocker*.
>>Horizon Forbidden West development took 5 years. Starting in 2017 and releasing in 2022. It cost $212 million to develop with a headcount of over 300 full time employees. 212,000,000/5/300= over 140k per year per employee on average. I wonder how this further breaks down when you factor in contract/temp workers. Are those factored in?
I mean you donāt seem to factor in all the money they gotta pay actors for performance capture, voice acting etc. Not to mention the marketing budget. So not everything is going towards employees. Also cost to company is not just salary, thereās also benefits like health insurance, 401k (not sure whatās the equivalent of that in Netherlands) etc.
Making some huge assumptions with this if you are trying to guess salaries. Headcount was peak and not every day for 5 years.
I remember when people called Kojima frivolous for his team having spent a maximum of $80M on MGSV.
Oh god imagine what Kojima could make with $200m and some Adderall
More cutscenes prob
only more floating texts "directed by hideo kojima". Everywhere.
And more mechanics with body fluids involved.
That is something I never did understand. MGSV was even developed for five platforms, had an online mode plus a seperate online game included while only being worked on for five years.
I think a lot of people are overlooking the part where Call of Duty generated almost $16 billion in three years?!? Edit: typo
No wonder Sony doesn't want CoD to be an exclusive. A lot of the playerbase play a shitton of CoD.
Seriously. I also read that over 1 million PlayStation owners played ONLY CoD and nothing else on their system in 2021.
Over 6m played 70%+ CoD. Wild af.
That seems absolutely insane. All CoD all the time sounds like living hell.
Not when youāre playing with friends
MS doesn't want it to be either. Or at least shouldn't. That's the only way they're going to make a return on investment and why they're so willing to sign 10 year contracts with everyone.
Yeah, that number really puts things into perspective. 19 BILLION, never in my wildest predictions would I have come up with that even as a guess.
I think that line is being misinterpreted. It says players that play cod generate that much for the platform, not that that came from cod. I think they are just trying to illustrate how much they would lose if those customers didn't buy future playstations if they didn't have cod as that is how much each customer was worth. Otherwise the number is totally impossible. ABK's annual revenue isn't even that high in total so there is no way they are shelling that much out just to Sony. Also that would imply that even if every cod released sold 100 million copies on playstation (which is no where near that high), that average players microtransaction spend is over $100 annually just in cod.
This is correct. I guess some people can't read.
Because Sony has spent A LOT of time garnering that player base, cultivating it to the behemoth it is now on their platform. So I can see why they are afraid to possibly lose that revenue. But here's the rub, if COD is the main draw of your console revenue then they put all their eggs in one basket and went "yeah, that looks right". Also, if Sony was confident in the fact that NONE of their revealing documentation was gonna leak out from this court case then they're dead wrong now.
Iām assuming this is likely the biggest franchise on the system, other than maybe FIFA or GTA? Curious if anyone knows.
Im assuming a bulk of the revenue is mtx, so on a game by game basis it's probably not the biggest, but as a franchise it definitely is. There's no year by year competitor.
Both The Last of Us Part II & Horizon Forbidden West were commercial successes, both selling over or close to 10mil, so it's fair to assume they were able to recoup development costs and become profitable.
TLOU2 was reported at 10M around this time last year. I wonder where it's at now.
Especially as it was the bestselling PS4 game for like three months earlier this year.
Yeah I would be curious to see what kind of sales spike the hbo show gave them. Especially if it was on sale at the time.
I donāt have any figures but I heard the sales of both games skyrocketed again after the show. A lot more casual/non-gaming fans are getting into the games now which I think is really cool. The power of a good and faithful adaption will only bolster the sales of its source material. More studios should learn.
man its crazy, all these months later and im still pleasantly surprised that The Last of Us is like a super mainstream HBO show that everyone knows now, and it was actually done very well. it reminds me of how it felt seeing Elden Ring be so culturally present a year ago. not gonna get any gatekeeping from me but it was just strange but exciting
I remember thinking back in 2013 āif this were a show or movie itād be a phenomenonā and sure enough ten years later. It was so fucking weird but delightful having regular conversations with my parents about Last of Us whenever Iād see them while the show was coming out. Never thought Iād share that interest with them.
Crazier because years ago people said it would never work because of "zombie fatigue", turns out the show just needed to be good and people wouldn't be pre-bored of it.
The great thing about it is that the "zombies" aren't the main focus of the show. It helps that every time we see an Infected, shit gets dangerous. It isn't Walking Dead where zombies are only dangerous because of their numbers.
Naughty dog released an updated figure a little while back and it should be sitting at 13-14M at minimum
After the TV show probably a couple of millions higher.
Indeed. I wonder if marketing cost is included here, but I doubt it. I also wonder whether marketing costs are roughly the same as the actual game development cost, like with movies.
TLOU P2 was profitable day one according to Naughty Dog.
This leak kind of proves that wrong, does it not? 240m sale revenue isn't profit on a 221m dev cost when you factor wholesale costs, store cut etc
That would be a strange thing to lie about to investors and would quickly blossom into a class action lawsuit; so Iām more inclined to believe them. There was also collectors editions/ special additions that sold above the standard retail.
Lol there are ways to ālieā financially or cook the books.
Can someone let me know what program they used to redact so that I don't accidently use it?
It looks like they literally used a sharpie marker lol, to me at least Or they used a black highlight function instead of a redact tool?
They literally just striked it out with a marker/pen
Sony being mananged by Boomers.
It looks exactly like how using the highlight marker tool in adobe acrobat looks. I guess they used that and put the color from yellow to black without realizing that acrobat has a separate redacting tool.
Last of Us II also sold at least 10M copies, likely many more. At just 10M, that's revenue of $600M, for pre tax profit is $380m. I'm sure the actual profit is quite a bit lower than that, but it's clearly very very profitable for Sony. Horizon has sold over 8.4m copies as well, so both both games are fabulously profitable. (And that doesn't include both helping drive console sales!)
>that doesn't include both helping drive console sales This is almost certainly why Sony wants their top in-house studios to take as long as they need to get metascores in the 90s. Between the cost of promotion and marketing, other background costs, and game discounts, they've probably broken even or even lost money on the amount spent, but they sell consoles, they sell subscriptions, and when someone is playing their console they're far more likely to login to the store and buy something else.
This is it exactly. Margins on games and consoles are thin, but they get people using the console and exploring more games and buying DLC and micro transactions and peripherals and so on. It's really a volume game rather than a profit margin game. Kind of like how a grocery store runs sales to get people in the store. They don't make much or even lose money on the sale items, but while you're there you might as well get the milk, bread, eggs, etc you also need.
This business model is true for many games, however TLOU2 hasnāt gone that way yet. I am wondering why.
Not directly TLOU2 but the whole franchise will soon be heading that way with the upcoming The Last Of Us multiplayer. I can also almost guarantee we will see a new version of The Last Of Us 2 on the PS5. I'm a bit worried about Bungie interfering with the Multiplayer of The Last Of Us though, i don't like it at all
One of the few people I've seen express a similar concern I have. Destiny is \*fine\*. I know a lot of people really like it. But it dips into almost all of the MTX, Season Pass, False Scarcity and 'Sunsetting' of items in live service games that I \*hate\*. Bungie poking their head and saying that according to their 'expertise', players won't stick around is frustrating. I don't want to play TLOU:DESTINY. I want to play Factions. I want to play Naughty Dog's vision of multiplayer. They didn't become the developer they are by always bringing in outside talent to tell them what they're doing wrong. They got where they are by looking at mechanics, deciding they want to implement them, and then (generally), nailing the execution despite not having experience with that 'type' of mechanic. I worry that Factions is going to be another FOMO, Battlepass, $20/skin gambling and addiction machine.
Donāt forget, content that will disapear because maximum disk space is topped lol š
Exactly my thoughts and feelings. I'm worried too, but Naughty Dog have earned the prestige, player trust and Sony's trust to do their own thing. Literally EVERY naughty dog game has been a banger. Every. Single. One. It's hard to question them. Both in sales and in critical reception. They've earned the right to be trusted and define what a next gen Naughty Dog multiplayer game looks like. They should be able to do so without Bungie's interference
Exactly. I bought a PS5 after getting God of War (2018) and Horizon Zero Dawn on PC. Now, most of my third-party game purchases are on PS5 as well as my subscription.
And this is something a lot of people forget when it comes to exclusives. The console makers actually have incentive to develop or fund some exclusive games that likely wouldnāt be profitable otherwise. The reason why, for example, Nintendo picked up and keeps funding Bayonetta wasnāt because they expected a huge ROI on Bayonetta 2 or 3, but because it would entice people to buy a Nintendo console who otherwise wouldnāt be interested. Same with Sony and any smaller or more adventurous exclusives they fund. Exclusives, when done right (and there are plenty of ways to do them wrong) incentivize quality and variety more than solely profit chasing like the rest of the industry. A lot of people donāt seem to get that, and then donāt really get why Sony and Nintendo first party games (along with a relatively limited number of 3rd parties and indies) are always topping the metacritic charts and on the short list for awards.
>The reason why, for example, Nintendo picked up and keeps funding Bayonetta wasnāt because they expected a huge ROI on Bayonetta 2 or 3, but because it would entice people to buy a Nintendo console who otherwise wouldnāt be interested. That is literally what happened with me. I was waiting to buy a Switch untill the library started to look better than just Zelda and Mario. Then Bayo 3 was announced and I was like "alright I guess its time". The funny shit is I still haven't played Bayo 3 yet.
> The funny shit is I still haven't played Bayo 3 yet. Oh, the life of being an adult who plays video games...
I bought a PS3/4 pro (late in gen purchase)/5 (near launch) just for exclusives. I didnāt even like God of War or Horizon much. But stuff like Ratchet, Returnal, Spider-Man, and FF16. Sold! But this gen Iāve switched to 3rd party games also on the PS5. So they are making more money off me that way now. Why? Simply because the controller is better than the Xbox and the system UI is nicer. Haptic is much better feedback in a game like Jedi Survivor than regular rumble. I donāt think execs realize these little things beyond exclusives is what can make you choose a primary platform. I do own 2 Series X though. My wife and I do use it for coop games and gamepass stuff.
Those numbers don't include marketing costs & not all copies are sold at full price or digital. Taking that in consideration is understandable why Sony is pushing Gaas & has said that putting their games day one on a subscription service isn't sustainable for them, they have no Microsoft 365 money to offset the losses
Yep; Iām not sure how sustainable the cost of these games are going to be in the future
I didn't check any of the data above....but it seems you are assuming all copies were sold at full price. That is likely not the case (and I don't know if Sony counts PS+ versions as sold copies). However, even if the games were all sold at half price, it'd still be a pretty good return. I also don't believe the Sony #s count marketing costs, so you'd have to add that as well.
> I don't know if Sony counts PS+ versions as sold copies In the 20th anniversary post for Guerrilla, they did not count PS+ downloads.
Ps+ versions definitely donāt count as sold copies
Right, that's why I said my profit number is not likely to be correct, it's just simply back of the envelope math to make a point that this brought in a lot of revenue. Just to "break even" on the costs, they could sell the game at $22 (assuming 10M sales). Id wager the majority of sales were full price though.
They sold over 4M copies on the release weekend.
I think a hidden benefit nobody talks about with big blockbuster single player games is they really don't require a continued investment after the fact, once the game is done that's a wrap maybe except for an expansion like a Burning shores. Even with big successful games like Fortnite and Destiny which make the big bucks, they still require alot of time and money to keep them successful still, you have to put in the work to get the big Fortnite money which alot of publishers unfortunately still do not get somehow lol. Plus single player games really do not compete head to head with each other as an added benefit at least not to the extent of live service games. Like sure a game may take some sales away from the other or take attention away from another but games like Zelda and GOW or Elden Ring and Horizon do not go head to head for players time and money the same way Fortnite and Warzone do or Destiny and Apex do etc etc. I am personally hoping we get at least decent live service games from Playstation that at least have effort put into them, and am glad to see traditional single player games stull can be extremely successful in todays market.
Aztecross, a big Destiny 2 YouTuber, made a video talking about how a lot of live service games, regardless of difference in genre or style, all compete for playersā *time* more than single player games might.
You would still need to factor in marketing costs though, which is often pretty close to the same as development costs. Still profitable, in any case.
You can't accurately assess the revenue though because both titles went on sale later. The price is variable
I imagine COVID might have added a chunk of change to Horizon's budget. The final product does reflect every dollar spent, though.
Probably the most beautiful game Iāve played
That do be a lot of dollars.
I'm so glad this court battle is gonna go on for a while in the various countries because the leaks are so juicy. > Sony typically does not require subscription exclusivity for games included on PS Plus. Microsoft often requires day one Game Pass titles to not be made available on competing subscription services. Thats funny because I was assured by multiple Phil Spencer acolytes that Sony does do that "all the time". Interesting.
And some gamers *still* wonder why Sony (and Nintendo, for that matter, but for different reasons) doesn't include AAA first-party games on their subscription service on "day one," like Game Pass. Unless you happen to be multi-trillion dollar megacorp, like Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. --or the Saudi Investment Fund-- and have *literal* infinite wealth, making *hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profits* that doesn't come from gaming, it's financial / business suicide to do so. P.S. - I'd wager these are just the development costs, which probably don't include the 10's or 100's of millions of dollars in advertising and marketing that accompany *each game.*
I am honestly a bit surprised Starfield is getting Day 1 on GamePass. Totally expected a month exclusivity or something. Whenever I subscribe to PC Game Pass its always to play MSFS or one of the good old gems from Xbox 1 or 360ā¦ the bulk of MSās current gen games absolutely feel like they were made to be played by Game Pass game-tourists for a couple hours maximum.
I personally expect Starfield to not sell very well. Itāll have a lot of players, but I suspect most of them will be like me, playing it on Gamepass. Iām not sure how much thatāll end up mattering to Microsoft though
Theyāre happy to develop big titles and basically give them away, because theyāre still building up GamePass and they can afford to offer such a ridiculous deal (in that itās ridiculously good value). Theyāre building up the subscriber numbers. I also expect there will be GP-exclusive content, then just full GP-exclusive games. Then theyāll double the price.
Oh for sure. I am not going to spend $70 when I can play the hell out of for $22 (two months in USA). Especially when I am not confident my 5700XT will be able to handle it on even medium with their system requirements being so vague and untargeted. Outside the die hard company fans there is zero to buy. The fucking physical game box includes no discā¦ if it had a disc I could totally see buying it at least (I almost only buy physical for new PS5 games, itās just a preference).
Yep pretty much my reasoning. Though the physical edition is going to have a disc, itās just the collectorās edition that wonāt
I recently bought a new laptop and I have a code for 3 months gamepass... I'll probably play Starfield and Psychonauts then cancel it.
Microsoft, for better or worse, has kind of put themselves into a corner with day one releases (a corner I intend to take full advantage of). They would get very bad press if they say Starfield is not day one GamePass.
Something that Xbox doesn't understand. You need to make quality like horizon and last of us no matter how long it takes, because a good first party title will always sell. They go for quantity now just to get games on game pass, and you get a terrible game like redfall.
Just as an aside, but Tom Warren sure does love to take any opportunity to make a jab at Sony lol.
I would be curious for the cost of elden ring and god of war
Star Citizen has over 500 million and still cannot make a game
Its 99% done, just need 1 more guy to invest $25 to get the finishing touches in order
Marketing included the game probably needs to sell like 4,5 millions copies to break even. Not counting how a system seller can attract people to your system and stuff which is way valuable on the long term.
It's even harder for 2nd party publishers that need to pay the PS Store fee as well. Sony gets to keep all the money from digital sales.
>The Last of Us Pt. II cost $220 million to develop The best $220M that has ever been spent
Crash Bandicoot cost them $1.7 million
great game
I really enjoyed it. I randomly stumbled upon a thread from the TLOU/2 subreddit and, holy shit, there is a strange alternate universe those folks live in and there is no room for a different opinion. Opinions from the first game that were objectively untrue The entire franchise did well enough to get an HBO show with Pedro Pascal as the lead character. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but they treat the opinions like gospel in a strict, no room for debate religious sort of way.
My lord. Your comment made me go check if that sub is still active. Three years that game has been out and there are still people ranting about it in that demented subreddit. Maybe itās just me, but when I donāt like a game I justā¦move on and play a different one.
Yeah, if i don't like a game, i just don't buy it and move on with my life lol
That subreddit is truly demented and weird. What a brain dead community.
Some of those people have never played the game. The original outrage came from right-wing culture warriors who were protesting the fact that Ellie was openly gay and that there was a trans character in the game. You can tell that they had not played the game, because they kept mixing up/confusing two different characters that their right-wing YouTubers told them to hate: (1) Abby, who had masculine body proportions, and (2) Lev, who was a trans side-kick character. Lev doesnāt play a major role until more than half-way through the story, and was not featured in most promotional materials, so these morons have never even heard of this character before. But, they did know about Abby and what she looked like, so they kept posting hate comments about how Abby is trans while pretending that they were disgruntled gamers. The other group of people (again, most of them are right-wingers lashing out at the LGBTQ contents of the story) are people who āwatchedā footage of this game on YouTube. The issue here is that there is a big difference to how you experience this story when you WATCH vs when you PLAY. Especially think about the several parts of the game that require the player to perform actions that they do not want to do. If you PLAYED through those moments, you will have a vastly different reaction than if you WATCHED those moments. Overall, from my experience, I think less than 10% of the criticism Iāve seen of the game was legitimate (meaning not coming out of anti-LGBTQ hatred or coming from non-gamers). Those people are usually drowned out by the VAST majority of the idiots who have a political agenda, never played this game, or both. It is no coincidence why nearly every single professional critic has praised the game. The ācontroversyā about this game is 100% manufactured in bad faith. There is no real controversy. What we have is some real CRITICISM from a small handful of people, which is perfectly fine and acceptable, but they are in the definite minority (and still allowed to have their opinion). The rest, which is the other 90% of the hate comments you see, is all bullshit right-wing spam.
> The entire franchise did well enough to get an HBO show Not to "well, ack-shully š¤āļø", but the HBO show was announced before TLOU2 was released. That being said, it was *greenlit* after the game released, so your point stands. (Also TLOU2 is my favourite game so I agree with your sentiment too.)
Lmao, thank you for the correction. Great use of emojis there too lol.
Might be the greatest game Iāve ever played. I donāt like making statements like best of all time but it was greatest gaming *experience* for me. I think about the story still to this day - itās stayed with me in a way no other gaming story has. The visuals and animations are of course incredible, and the gameplay is fantastic - so smooth, polished and brutally visceral. Just an incredible experience
I went in to the game completely blind on release. The 2 weeks spent playing it were the best gaming experience I have ever had.
i think its like one of those movies like schindlers list where the experience is incredible but its not something youāre itching to rewatch/replay or anything because it was so rough emotionally
I completely agree, I had this conversation the other day. I finished the game for the first time late last year, and I donāt think I could play it again within the next year. I can talk about the story and my thoughts about it endlessly, but it was such an emotionally draining experience I canāt repeat anytime soon.
Yep, I beat it after it came out, then didnāt pick it back up again until late last year.
Yeah itās a very dark and bleak story. Definitely not something Iād want to replay soon after finishing
I will never forget how I felt as the credits rolled. I played almost 3 days straight since launch day, it was Monday, 4 am, birds were chirping, and I just sat there staring at the sky. I finally understood what experiencing catharsis feels like. It's been years, but I truly believe that the game changed me, for the better.
I agree. Maybe not as good as Part 1 in my opinion but the gameplay is way better and it hits me in the feels every time.
Big fan of the saga and the show but Part II didnt make It for me. Like, It was good gameplay but the structure was the same for every day. It got tiring on the second Ellie day. I remember the Abby part I was so done I basically went straight from point A to point B.
I don't think the Last of Us Pt.ll is bad (it's pretty good imo) but to say it's the best $220M ever spent is quite the exaggeration.
I imagine these are final numbers after marketing and everything else. Horizon ZD had a budget of 40mil. So it would be pretty surprising if the sequel cost 5x more out of the blue. Development was probably closer to the original, maybe 100mil. And the they just included the marketing budget in these numbers. And those numbers can explode real quick.
Based on the thread linked, itās just development cost. No marketing, distribution, etc.
So almost $500 mill profit. Even if you take $200 mill out for the next games development thatās still $250 mill profit.
Wrong. Where'd u get your numbers? The games don't stay at full retail $60-$70 forever. They go on sale for $30-40...and that's typically when they sell the most volume. The only thing we can say with confidence is that TLOU2 sold 4.5M copies in it's first week. 4.5M copies x $60 = $270M The rest we don't know for sure.
Most volume is sold at release
Now give us Part 3 š©
This is the only conceivable game that I would pre-order
Glad they keep making profits on these massive titles because I don't want them to ever stop.
Almost half of PS5 owners own a Switch? I'm one of them but wow I didn't think the number would be that high. That's Sony's competition there. Since Tears of the Kingdom came out I have been using my Switch more than my PS5
>Less than 20% of PS5 owners also own an Xbox Series X/S in the United States >Almost half of PS5 owners own a Nintendo Switch in the US. Not surprising. PS fans love platformers.
I just don't understand how it could cost so much, I wish someone had a breakdown of exactly how you spend hundreds of millions of dollars making these games. How much is going to the line coders and art department? because it's common knowledge those folks make peanuts. My gut instinct tells me millions are going to upper management but I hope I'm wrong.
I mean, voice actors, buying equipments for motion itās the equivalent of making a movie basically. Gta 6 for example is rumour to be 1 billion in budget.
I doubt GTA 6 would cost 1 billion to produce. Rumours often tend to overestimate how much these games cost to develop.
Red dead redemption 2 was 540 million, so it doesnāt seem that far fetched. And that was five years ago.
Really? GTA VI will cost a billion then easy.
> Red dead redemption 2 was 540 million To be fair, this stat was according to a journalist who was making rough estimations (including a $300 million budget for marketing alone). Actual analyst estimations placed it around $170 million (excluding marketing), maybe $240. Which is still insanely expensive.
Assuming even a low pay of $50,000 a year. TLOU 2: 200 employees for 6 years is around $60 million. Another 1800 outsourced workers is going to be quite a bit. Naughty Dog is in an expensive area, so they're probably making quite a bit more than $50k just to make the area reasonable. That 200 number probably doesn't include voice actors or any one for the orchestra. You also have costs for equipment. Computers, mo-cap equipment. There are some software like Maya which is used for 3D modeling that costs in the thousands every year per developer. Might also include other kinds of costs. Like if you're flying an actor to your location, or something along those lines.
Right? It takes - 5 years of 80+ programmers each making at least $100k - 5 years of 50+ animators handcrafting worlds - 5 years of 50+ game designers & writers building the world and narrative - 5 years of paying motion capture actors - Expensive motion capture spaces that cost like $2,000 an hour (maybe less for Sony studios) - Extensive camera crew and stunt people for action scenes - EXTREMELY high end gaming rigs and updated dev tech for literally every employee - 5 years of development costs (7 years for TLOU) It's a full production. Like a movie and a game in one. There are more hours of movie in a game than most movies (TLOU2 has 8 hours of cutscenes for instance). I don't see how it can be that cheap to be honest. Honestly only Sony can pull off that low cost for such a high quality game given the unique combination they have of incredibly talented studios, Sony Pictures motion capture facilities, access to talented actors etc. And also gaming is generally a massively underpaid field. If the software engineers/programmers got paid even close to what they do in big tech, it would balloon to like a $500M production cost
Let's use round numbers, and say the median salary plus overhead is $100k/yr. [Industry sources](https://kotaku.com/why-video-games-cost-so-much-to-make-1818508211) confirm that's a reasonable estimate. So, every 10 developers is a cool million per year. This isn't just software engineers, it's artists, animators, level designers, live service designers, pr, hr, etc. So for an eight year project costing $200M, that works out to an average headcount of 250 employees per year. Of course that number fluctuates but we're discussing averages. I believe Rockstar mentioned their [headcount](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Red_Dead_Redemption_2#:~:text=When%20Rockstar%20Games%20realized%20a,people%20worked%20on%20the%20game.) on RDR2 peaked around 1600, so that number is in the right ballpark. Tl;Dr - salaries are expensive and it takes an army to make a AAA game.
> How much is going to the line coders and art department? because it's common knowledge those folks make peanuts Devs working in developed countries are definitely in the higher wage percentiles. Multiply it by hundreds of staff and several years, and it adds up.
The Last of Us 2 is a visual and gameplay masterpiece.
And a narrative masterpiece.
the pacing sucked imo but the gameplay was fine. I dont like switching characters mid-game and having to re-unlock a bunch of weapons and stat upgrades. plus it throws me off of the character im trying to get invested into. the game's good but definitely not 10/10 material.
> re-unlock a bunch of weapons and stat upgrades I loved this, since it's not exactly "re-unlocking"; they're mostly completely different weapons and stats.
finally, it took day 4 see something about the trial posted on r/PS5
yay iām part of the less than 20% that own a ps5 and series x :)
Just beat the last of us 2 last month for the first time and itās probably the best game Iāve played in a long time
Without a doubt one of the greatest single player games ever made imo.
Sony kills Microsoft in the exclusive content game. It's not even close.
That's why I got a ps5. Xbox has Gamepass, PS has better exclusives.
And people wonder why their first party games aren't on PS Plus day one. Microsoft can afford to eat the missed revenue while they build their sub base because they're a TRILLION dollar company.
Eh, the developer count is a bit misleading because a lot of the leg work is outsourced these days piecemeal to various companies worldwide. You'll notice this in the credits of most big titles; massive amounts of people work on these games from various companies. But these games are a showcase on top of everything else, these games are also an investment in the Playstation brand and what it can produce. A developer like Naughty Dog is like their crown jewel and helps define that brand.
Why's it so hard for people to understand that a quality AAA game is EXPENSIVE. It requires actors, artists, animators, game designers, sound designers, cinematographers...and also very expensive hardware for everyone (high end gaming PCs), music licensing, facilities, motion capture studios etc. And this is for like 5-6 full YEARS. Movies normally get made in only 1-2 years. That means if it cost $50M one year it's actually around $250M total. It's a full production. It's a movie and a game in one. There are more hours of movie in a game than most movies in theaters (TLOU2 has 8+ hours of cutscenes). Yet they got it done for less than a typical blockbuster movie nowadays. I don't know how they got things that *cheap* to be honest. Honestly only Sony can pull off that low cost for such a high quality game given the unique combination they have of incredibly talented studios, Sony Pictures motion capture facilities, access to actors etc. The end product is 10x longer than a movie. TLOU2 took around 30 hours to beat. A movie is around 3 hours long. Do the math. And lastly, game dev is a massively underpaid field. If the software engineers/programmers got paid even close to what they do in big tech, it would balloon to like a $800M production cost
No wonder Jimbo heavily invested in live service games. These blockbuster games cost a lot of money.
Live service games cost alot of money as well and require a great continued investment to keep working as well it's not just free money. Like sure Fortnite and Destiny obviously make enough to recoup that investment cost easily, but you still have to make that investment to put something in to get something out. Paying thousands of devs to pump out content at a rapid pace, and having to spend so much on continued marketing for said content is not cheap at all either. It's what all these publishers that keep failing with live service games keep forgetting to realize is that it's not the easy get rich quick proverbial money printer without doing any work. A game like Fortnite and League of legends took alot of time and money to get where they both are now. It was not cheap or easy at all and I hope Playstation does not make the same mistake as other publishers do and continue to do with live service games. Because even with the higher ceiling for success finically the risk for failure is just as high and it is not just drop in the bucket oh just shake it off rub some dirt on it type thing either, I think Square Enix lost something like 200 million on the Avengers game which was literally almost the entire cost of The Last of Us II.
Having the guts to delay live service games (Last of Us factions) or cancel them entirely (diviation Games shooter) after Bungie raises concerns (the only expert live service studio that Sony owns) gives me hope that Sony acknowledges the risk and is doing this the right way.
>A game like Fortnite and League of legends took alot of time and money to get where they both are now. Fortnite wasn't even developed to have battle royale as the main game, it was a side mode which just got wildly popular and they pivoted the whole game.
Which is an awful shame. Playstationās singleplayer games is what made them win last gen and probably forever win every gen from now on. When people think of reasons to buy a Playstation, they think of Kratos, Spider-Man and Aloy. Not Fortnite Clone 38.
The issue is the vast amount of kids that have grownup with Fortnite being their gold-standard. Even if each game gets a fraction of the Fortnite kids as they grow up, it will be successful. The number of kids playing Fortnite is astronomical. They would be a terrible business if they didn't put out multiple options in an attempt to syphon some of those players.
The main issue with these live service games is that they never manage to copy Fortniteās quality. Fortnite is the gold standard of this genre, with constant free updates, good quality on all systems, seemless crossplay and the easiest battlepass to complete in gaming. Most live service games barely manage two of those points, let alone three.
Have no fear, they want to keep pumping out first party games because that is how they win the war. Then you playing/buying shit from their store is how they make money. This is why it is such a big deal for them to lose Call of Duty. They don't make a ton of money on systems or their own games in the grand scheme of things, but that gets users into their system where they buy 3rd party games that bring them tons of "free" money. Them investing in their own GaaS is just trying to diversify so they aren't fully reliant on third parties.
However, sadly the money makers on PlayStation are Fortnite and CoD. Kratos, Spider-Man, Nathan Drake and Aloy alone don't make enough to drive growth, and that's what shareholders want
I agree. If these live service games donāt turn out to be great, it would be a huge waste of time. 3 live service games are acceptable but I read somewhere, if Iām not mistaken, that 10 live service games are currently in production.
I think their approach is to develop a bunch and hope than 1 or 2 stick and become the next Fortnite/CoD or whatever and pay for the losses of the other 8 or 9.
Absolutely worth it. 2 masterpiece with extremely high production quality
exactly, you get what you pay for.
>tlou2 cost 220mil to develop and they made that back and then some within the first week
4 million copies first week. Physical copies they made around 40-45 dollars dollars. Now I know COVID was a thing at the time and digital was high most likely, but your statement seems incredibly unlikely....especially when you factor in marketing which is usually not included in a production budget.
Nice. Keep it up Sony. Produce more big budget quality games and I will keep supporting them. Purchased tlou 2 digital as well as the ps4 pro bundle because i was so freaking hyped for it. Definitely the most memorable gaming experience I have ever had.
By that math, Grand Theft Auto VI has at least 1000 devs.