SmokedMeat
Gamer™
It cost a hell of a lot less to make then Tomb Raider, which was a linear affair, with nowhere near as much content.
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The Witcher 3's budget was $32 million (120M Zloty) plus $35 million in marketing
- Thread starter boskee
- Start date
It cost a hell of a lot less to make then Tomb Raider, which was a linear affair, with nowhere near as much content.
Robert already packing his bags
Its only been repeated in every Witcher thread since the Witcher 2 was announced as well
Yup lets just move all the development to places where we can pay people less. Brilliant!
What a great drive by shit post.
Jibbajabbawockky
Member
I actually noticed quite a few ads for it on TV which I never recalled seeing before for TW2. Hell, you see more ads on TV for stuff like Clash of Clans than you do for proper "AAA" budgeted games nowadays. The TV spots for Wild Hunt were some of the first I had seen for a non mobile game in quite some time.
Yeah. On one hand it seems crazy yet if you're dropping that much money on the development of a game, you want to make sure it sells. Although, companies spending almost as much on marketing as development always makes me wonder what the hell is so expensive about marketing a game? Just buying ad spots on the web or TV? Paying for staff and marketing people to do hands on events and that sort of thing?
EdwardTeach
Member
You guys don't have a clue about economics. It is nothing to do with "currency differences". Poland has the euro, same currency a most of the rest of Europe including Germany and France. In Paris you will be charged about 5$ for just a cup of tea or 8$+ for a pint of beer, it won't cost anything like that in Warsaw and that has nothing to do with the currency.
haha, your numbers are a bit off across everything. I don't work in gaming, but I work in advertising (and have made a lot of ads for games), so I'll help you adjust some of those.
Any highly skilled creative working on major projects (I count programmers as creatives) in the US is getting at least 80k a year. A good art director at an agency / production house is definitely making over $150k, senior level creative is probably over $200k. You can probably chop 30% off those numbers for game dev jobs because their more "passion project" type work, but to think that a highly skilled AI programmer or cinematic character animator is working for $35k is crazy, especially considering cost of living for cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
As for execs, the CEO of EA is making 800k, and that's outside of stock / other incentives.
Vyse The Legend
Member
Really? I can't go one evening without being beaten over the head with Witcher 3 ads.
Seriously, it is standard of living. You don't need to normalize or compare wages across the board. These people are probably considered in a well paid job in that part of the region.
Even in the States it is the same thing.
If you live in California, your wage will be high but everything and taxes will normalize your wage since you have to pay more for everything.
Now if your job pays you Californian wage since the HQ is there, but you are living in Texas and working at another branch then you are in a win-win-win-win-win position.
Even in the States it is the same thing.
If you live in California, your wage will be high but everything and taxes will normalize your wage since you have to pay more for everything.
Now if your job pays you Californian wage since the HQ is there, but you are living in Texas and working at another branch then you are in a win-win-win-win-win position.
Let's not talk about destiny.
These are the wonders of cutting the cord. I haven't seen a single witcher ad, other than a couple ad banners.
Polish currency salaries tend to keep costs down.
This is how expectations get skewed all the way out into bizarro world. Even taking into account the wage difference, it's extremely impressive of them to have put out a game of that scope and that fidelity, on that budget.
Vyse The Legend
Member
I don't have cable either... They show up in front of YouTube ads, Hulu, everywhere. Ugh. Lol.
diffusionx
Gold Member
As plenty of others have said, this really only says that development in Poland is much cheaper than the US. I don't think it really offers lessons to anyone else. Put the same staff doing the same work in the US and it's a $50M+ game.
wolfhowwl
Banned
Pretty sure that Poland hasn't adopted the euro yet.
LurkerPrime
Member
KingRagnar
Banned
Isn't the budget for Skyrim like 3 times more?
texhnolyze
Banned
So, reading these comments, devs should've just move to Poland so they can have less budget for games development?
With the resources they had, they've made a truly amazing game.
Can't remember the last game to build an experience and world you can get lost in for hours on end.
Despite the glitches that people whine about despite a constant stream of patches, this destroys AC which is always a dull affair. And I'm sure probably three times the budget.
Can't remember the last game to build an experience and world you can get lost in for hours on end.
Despite the glitches that people whine about despite a constant stream of patches, this destroys AC which is always a dull affair. And I'm sure probably three times the budget.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
The got the publishing rights to NA. I don't believe they financed it, but maybe I'm wrong.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
That's life. To give you an example I work for a an entertainment business and we're pricing out signs for the front of our business to replace the current one. A decent sign could cost us more than pretty much everything we've built in the building combined. Just a sign out front. Yeah...
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
You think it costs that much to make crossbows and armor?
Once Poland is too expensive India is next! :|
Fishing for a tag?
Portugeezer
Member
So did CDPR pay for the marketing, or did MS take that bill, at least it the US?
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Lol, ok champ.
Yup. I live in the Midwest. It's a helluva lot cheaper to live here than the high population zones of the coasts.
Its still 70 effing million $...
Its an absurdly high cost for an entertainment product.
This isn't cheap,affordable or small time by any stretch of imagination.
lifeexpectancy
Member
Make awesome game.
Spend more on marketing than you did on making the game, meaning you need to sell more than twice as many copies to make your investment back.
Granted they did recoup costs, of course, but I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have sold just as well without all the marketing $$$ spent. Seems like wasted money to me.
Spend more on marketing than you did on making the game, meaning you need to sell more than twice as many copies to make your investment back.
Granted they did recoup costs, of course, but I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have sold just as well without all the marketing $$$ spent. Seems like wasted money to me.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
It was already explained, lower pay to employes in comparasion with companies of other countries.
Sakura
Member
Somehow I doubt the "low" budget is due to lower wages...
edit: wait I can't do math
I think the marketing budget being bigger than the development budget is a little weird though. Do you really need to spend 35 million just to sell a few million copies of the game? Especially one that is a sequel to a pretty well received game? I can't help but wonder if the game wouldn't have done similarly as well with a marketing budget of maybe 20 million.
So if you had a team in the US of 100 people, that's still less than 1 million dollars a year in salaries. The game had a development budget of 32 million dollars. Even if you paid them those US wages I'm sure the budget would still be sub 40 million.
edit: wait I can't do math
I think the marketing budget being bigger than the development budget is a little weird though. Do you really need to spend 35 million just to sell a few million copies of the game? Especially one that is a sequel to a pretty well received game? I can't help but wonder if the game wouldn't have done similarly as well with a marketing budget of maybe 20 million.
Marketing costs were split amongst CDPR's retail distribution partners. As you can see, today's news means the game ultimately cost more than twice what CDPR had anticipated two years ago while the marketing budget increased by about $7m.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
iirc I think there is a gulf between the budget of Skyrim and GTA V, if done in the US or UK I imagine W3 would fall between the two.
Um... what?
Anyway The Witcher 3 team encompassed most of the studio at some point to my knowledge and the company is 250 people, of which I think ~200 are developers.
Also beyond the salary, you'd have to pay office rent and software/hardware costs, and then any kind of insurance plans, so paying someone $83K is more like $95-$100K per person.
LurkerPrime
Member
Not marketing a game sabotages its ability to sell day one, which is the most profitable period for releases. It seems ridiculous, but make no mistake that such extravagent marketing budgets are necessary to make games that sell big. Trailers and previews get people talking, and engorge the hype of those following the game, leading to more buzz around release.
Some games - like Larian's Divinity: Original Sin - can manage great success through (unintended) grassroots marketing, but it's not a realistic plan when tens of millions of dollars are on the line. Wild success without marketing are the exception in all cases.
We're talking development though. 32M$ for development considering the scope of what they did, dev time etc. absolutely IS cheap in the context of the AAA budgets industry.
I'm not arguing that's how it should be, I definitely think it's crazy too. But 32M$ is not expensive when looking at comparables. Have the same product in the USA and it would cost you 70M$ to make. Now that's pretty expensive.
Silentium
Member
If you adjust the 120,000,000 złoty development costs to reflect purchasing power parity (not a perfect measure/use here, but still useful as an indication), you get approximately US$62.4M. Added to the marketing costs (assuming most of that is foreign/western spend), you end up with almost $100M total spend, which seems reasonably consistent with what other publishers/developers have said AAA game development costs (notwithstanding epics like GTA V). Thus based the favourable development costs and the success of the Witcher III, I'm thinking the big Western developers may be taking a closer look at Eastern Europe.
Sakura
Member
For some reason I was thinking 100 x 83,000 = 830,000 even though it would be 8.3 million. Clearly I need more time to wake up.
Regret Upon Approval
Member
The marketing cost is something I think can be looked at and compared to other games. As it isn't as effected by country of development as much as development.
Or at least I think.
It is also info not always readily shared.
MW2 had a marketing budget of 200 million, about 4x development cost.
And that is with non-Polish development costs.
So I think W3 was far from overdoing it on marketing costs.
In the case of W3, it would be hard-pressed for marketing to be cheaper than development since I imagine you can't reduce marketing costs like you can with development by being in Poland. Unless you give up on trying to appeal to a global market I suppose.
Or at least I think.
It is also info not always readily shared.
MW2 had a marketing budget of 200 million, about 4x development cost.
And that is with non-Polish development costs.
So I think W3 was far from overdoing it on marketing costs.
In the case of W3, it would be hard-pressed for marketing to be cheaper than development since I imagine you can't reduce marketing costs like you can with development by being in Poland. Unless you give up on trying to appeal to a global market I suppose.