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uncleniccius · May 18, 2014

In the UK, The Sunday Times publish a rich list each year, this list includes the wealthiest 1000 people in the UK, and lists a certain number in more detail.

I was reading the introduction and it mentioned that the "creators of Grand Theft Auto" Dan and Sam Houser are now worth £90 million, and that puts them on the list. I'm not sure if this is thread worthy, but I thought it was, that is slightly less than I expected to be honest.

abracadaver · May 18, 2014

How much of every sold rockstar game do they get ?

uncleniccius · May 18, 2014

abracadaver said:
How much of every sold rockstar game do they get ?

We don't actually know, they must get royalties of some sort considering how important to the games they are.

We do know that they made >£10 million since the last rich list, as you needed £80 million to be on it last year and they were not.. and this year they're worth £90 million.

UrbanRats · May 18, 2014

Maybe it's why their satire of the wealthy comes off as a bit hollow, but i love R*'s games, so i hope they continue to do extra well.

EternalDarko · May 18, 2014

Is that 90m each or combined

freakzilla149 · May 18, 2014

Although it never occurred to me to ask who are the richest people in gaming, it's kind of disappointing to think that the men behind the biggest gaming franchise don't even come close to the richest Hollywood stars.

Where is all the gaming money? Or is it a case of being more evenly distributed since gaming is such a technical field that also requires a lot of manpower.

uncleniccius · May 18, 2014

EternalDarko said:
Is that 90m each or combined

It doesn't make it very clear.
WRT the wealthiest man in gaming, I expect that it would be Notch. Minecraft has now sold over 50 million copies overall, and while console sales aren't just his, the others are outside of the Apple/Google Play cut.

Edit:

it's kind of disappointing to think that the men behind the biggest gaming franchise don't even come close to the richest Hollywood stars.

Kind of hard to compare, Hollywood actors/directors work on one film on contract, and then find another contract, these guys are working for a studio, so it is a different situation.

daviyoung · May 18, 2014

Nice, I like them

dreamfall · May 18, 2014

love 'em. I hope their games continue to be rad!

StuBurns · May 18, 2014

Well deserved, no one is even close in terms of presenting the colossal scope projects R* is.

Joni · May 18, 2014

freakzilla149 said:
Although it never occurred to me to ask who are the richest people in gaming, it's kind of disappointing to think that the men behind the biggest gaming franchise don't even come close to the richest Hollywood stars.

Where is all the gaming money? Or is it a case of being more evenly distributed since gaming is such a technical field that also requires a lot of manpower.

You have to remind yourself how they're making that money.

Sam worked at BMG so just an employee there. He turned DMA Design into Rockstar Games with a couple of people under the lead of Take Two, so Take Two was always the owner. He is making his money just based on his contract with Take Two. It is very different from let's say Jason Jones who founded Bungie and sold it.

Pifje · May 18, 2014

In comparison, the founders of Supercell (Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Boom Beach) got 350 million euros in total when they sold the company, getting over 170 mil each.

Joni · May 18, 2014

Pifje said:
In comparison, the founders of Supercell (Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Boom Beach) got 350 million euros in total when they sold the company, getting over 170 mil € each.

And that is not even close to being the richest people in the industry. Sammy founder Hajime Satomi for instance is worth over a billion, the guy behind Zynga was worth almost 2 billion. Gabe Newell is worth $1,5 billion. The Hiroshi Yamauchi estate was about $2,5 billion. The champion is Yoshikazu Tanaka, the guy behind GREE who is worth $3,5 billion. All numbers coming from Forbes which shows that it pays to actually found a company.

uncleniccius · May 18, 2014

Joni said:
And that is not even close to being the richest people in the industry. Sammy founder Hajime Satomi for instance is worth over a billion, the guy behind Zynga was worth almost 2 billion. Gabe Newell is worth $1,5 billion. The Hiroshi Yamauchi estate was about $2,5 billion. The champion is Yoshikazu Tanaka, the guy behind GREE who is worth $3,5 billion. All numbers coming from Forbes which shows that it pays to actually found a company.

I hadn't even heard of GREE until you mentioned them! That's a huge amount of money!

Gabe is super rich, but I would be intrigued to see whether his fortune will continue to grow in the near future, I expect it will, but you can't be sure.

FloweryMarston · May 18, 2014

<3 housers

EvilKatarn · May 18, 2014

uncleniccius said:
WRT the wealthiest man in gaming, I expect that it would be Notch. Minecraft has now sold over 50 million copies overall, and while console sales aren't just his, the others are outside of the Apple/Google Play cut.

Wouldn't it still be Richart Garriott?

SketchTheArtist · May 18, 2014

I love Rockstar games. I really do but the dev horror stories I hear from their studios makes my skin crawl.

I'd love to not buy their games out of principles but they're far too interesting and fun for me to pull the trigger on them.

Damn it.

uncleniccius · May 18, 2014

EvilKatarn said:
Wouldn't it still be Richart Garriott?

I'm not sure actually, I went wrong with Notch - in a post a few above yours someone talks about billionaires from gaming, would Garriott be a billionaire?

Joni · May 18, 2014

uncleniccius said:
I hadn't even heard of GREE until you mentioned them! That's a huge amount of money!

Gabe is super rich, but I would be intrigued to see whether his fortune will continue to grow in the near future, I expect it will, but you can't be sure.

His current fortune is mostly built on the net worth of his Valve stock and the money he earned at Microsoft. I don't think Valve will increase so much in value.

EvilKatarn said:
Wouldn't it still be Richart Garriott?

uncleniccius said:
I'm not sure actually, I went wrong with Notch - in a post a few above yours someone talks about billionaires from gaming, would Garriott be a billionaire?

Garriott lost a lot of money in the tech bubble. Notch by the way is about $150 million according to Famous Entrepreneurs.

Anyway, richest persons to ever work in gaming would be Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who both freelanced for Atari, but they didn't make their money on gaming of course. Bill Gates was contracted to develop a new OS around the same time he was making DOS; Jobs of course did Breakout and used that money to launch Apple.

uncleniccius · May 18, 2014

Joni said:
His current fortune is mostly built on the net worth of his Valve stock and the money he earned at Microsoft. I don't think Valve will increase so much in value.

Garriott lost a lot of money in the tech bubble. Notch by the way is about $150 million according to Famous Entrepreneurs.

Anyway, richest persons to ever work in gaming would be Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who both freelanced for Atari, but they didn't make their money on gaming of course. Bill Gates was contracted to develop a new OS around the same time he was making DOS; Jobs of course did Breakout and used that money to launch Apple.

Interesting stuff, thanks. I didn't know about Jobs or Gates being directly involved in gaming!

HawksWinStanley · May 18, 2014

Great now give us RDR 2.

jcm · May 18, 2014

freakzilla149 said:
Although it never occurred to me to ask who are the richest people in gaming, it's kind of disappointing to think that the men behind the biggest gaming franchise don't even come close to the richest Hollywood stars.

Where is all the gaming money? Or is it a case of being more evenly distributed since gaming is such a technical field that also requires a lot of manpower.

Shengar · May 18, 2014

jcm said:

Who is this? Why does he have evil looking grin?

Joni · May 18, 2014

jcm said:

You kinda have to appreciate what he did. He bought a company that was almost completely worthless. It is now the biggest third party publisher. And I forgot him earlier: another $2 billion for this guy.

uncleniccius said:
Interesting stuff, thanks. I didn't know about Jobs or Gates being directly involved in gaming!

The Gates thing really amazed me too personally. I found out when I was looking into David Crane. He tells it in one of his interviews.

Longsword · May 20, 2014

As a side note, they also had the key players of King.com (of Candy Crush Fame) on the list.

Summary of their net worth:

Melvyn Morris, chairman, estimated shareholding value $821m
Riccardo Zacconi, chief executive, $698m
Sebastian Knutsson, chief creative officer, $396m
Lars Markgren, Sweden general manager, $203m
Stephane Kurgan, Belgian chief operating officer, $168m

Even coders can make it big:
Patrik Stymne, chief systems architect, $158m
Thomas Hartwig, chief technology officer, $143m

Venture Capital firm that invested 36M$ in King made the biggest bank:
Apax Partners, investor, $3.25bn

This guy was the biggest shareholder in King and sold his stake for 3M, it would now be worth 900M. He must be kicking himself:
Toby Rowland, founder, $0

This is all new money, ie. created by Candy Crush. You can make a lot of dough in the games industry, and it is interesting to see how Rockstar founders stack up to King founders in financial stakes.

Gorillaz · May 20, 2014

I thought they were on the list back in like 05 or 06?

Shengar said:
Who is this? Why does he have evil looking grin?

He's the creator of your favorite series of all time. The evil grin is because he knows you have been happy this past gen.

AniHawk · May 20, 2014

Shengar said:
Who is this? Why does he have evil looking grin?

he's a struggling actor who had a bit part in moneyball

CosmicGroinPull · May 20, 2014

Longsword said:
As a side note, they also had the key players of King.com (of Candy Crush Fame) on the list.

Summary of their net worth:

Melvyn Morris, chairman, estimated shareholding value $821m
Riccardo Zacconi, chief executive, $698m
Sebastian Knutsson, chief creative officer, $396m
Lars Markgren, Sweden general manager, $203m
Stephane Kurgan, Belgian chief operating officer, $168m

Even coders can make it big:
Patrik Stymne, chief systems architect, $158m
Thomas Hartwig, chief technology officer, $143m

Venture Capital firm that invested 36M$ in King made the biggest bank:
Apax Partners, investor, $3.25bn

This guy was the biggest shareholder in King and sold his stake for 3M, it would now be worth 900M. He must be kicking himself:

Toby Rowland, founder, $0

This is all new money, ie. created by Candy Crush. You can make a lot of dough in the games industry, and it is interesting to see how Rockstar founders stack up to King founders in financial stakes.

Damn. It's all just on paper though, right? Could be worth nothing one day.

Longsword · May 20, 2014

CosmicGroinPull said:
Damn. It's all just on paper though, right? Could be worth nothing one day.

Of course (as of course is Houser money most likely -but theirs might be a bit more stable). I would imagine that King guys will cash in on this during this year (or whenever law allows them to), and of course it depends if they manage to make games as successful as Candy Crush.

Farm Heroes Saga seems to be their best bet right now.

King's and Houser's money is all based on the Market Capitalization of Take Two (1.5 Billion) and King (5.2 Billion). As those ebb and flow, so will the net worth of these guys.

jcm · May 20, 2014

Shengar said:
Who is this? Why does he have evil looking grin?

It's bobby kotick. He's grinning because he's made billions of dollars selling us video games. You see that grin as evil because you're perceptive.

Longsword said:
Of course (as of course is Houser money most likely -but theirs might be a bit more stable). I would imagine that King guys will cash in on this during this year (or whenever law allows them to), and of course it depends if they manage to make games as successful as Candy Crush.

Farm Heroes Saga seems to be their best bet right now.

King's and Houser's money is all based on the Market Capitalization of Take Two (1.5 Billion) and King (5.2 Billion). As those ebb and flow, so will the net worth of these guys.

Im sure the Housers have some Take-Two shares, but I'm also sure that GTA generates a ton of cash royalties for them, and that's where most of their money comes from.

Longsword · May 20, 2014

jcm said:
Im sure the Housers have some Take-Two shares, but I'm also sure that GTA generates a ton of cash royalties for them, and that's where most of their money comes from.

I really don't know. Since Housers re-appeared on the rich list this year, I presumed this was due shareholder value increasing rather than cash. I'll need to see if I can find out.

The King founders wealth most certainly is mainly in the shares they own.

Joni · May 20, 2014

Longsword said:
King's and Houser's money is all based on the Market Capitalization of Take Two (1.5 Billion) and King (5.2 Billion). As those ebb and flow, so will the net worth of these guys.

They're supposed to be working on a "profit sharing arrangement".

Vigilant Walrus · May 20, 2014

jcm said:

Not only dat, his success was spawned from EA treating him like shit. the hands that feeds.

sixteen-bit · May 20, 2014

When's EviLore's turn?

Tom_Cody · May 20, 2014

Joni said:
And that is not even close to being the richest people in the industry. Sammy founder Hajime Satomi for instance is worth over a billion, the guy behind Zynga was worth almost 2 billion. Gabe Newell is worth $1,5 billion. The Hiroshi Yamauchi estate was about $2,5 billion. The champion is Yoshikazu Tanaka, the guy behind GREE who is worth $3,5 billion. All numbers coming from Forbes which shows that it pays to actually found a company.

Isn't most of Gabe's money from Microsoft stock?

Joni · May 20, 2014

Tom_Cody said:
Isn't most of Gabe's money from Microsoft stock?

Valve is worth about $2,5 billion, and Gabe should be the biggest shareholder. He is a Microsoft millionaire, but co-founder Mike Harrington and him both sunk a lot of that Microsoft money into Valve so his current value is largely Valve money.

Longsword · May 20, 2014

Joni said:
They're supposed to be working on a "profit sharing arrangement".

OK, then this might be cash from GTAV then. My own experience has always been that big portion of compensation at higher levels has been shares/options.

Would be interesting to see the rankings of all the game millionaires, if one could find reliable numbers.

jcm · May 20, 2014

Longsword said:
OK, then this might be cash from GTAV then. My own experience has always been that big portion of compensation at higher levels has been shares/options.

Would be interesting to see the rankings of all the game millionaires, if one could find reliable numbers.

They aren't listed among Take-Two's major shareholders or insiders who are trading. Of course, that also says Strauss Zelnick has no equity, and that doesn't seem possible.

Tom_Cody · May 21, 2014

Joni said:
Valve is worth about $2,5 billion, and Gabe should be the biggest shareholder. He is a Microsoft millionaire, but co-founder Mike Harrington and him both sunk a lot of that Microsoft money into Valve so his current value is largely Valve money.

Thanks for the response. I had no idea Valve was worth that much.

injurai · May 21, 2014

Vigilant Walrus said:
Not only dat, his success was spawned from EA treating him like shit. the hands that feeds.

He's the true hero of last gen.

Keeping all the neurotic kids out of the good games buy annualizing cod.

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