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[Jimmyfenix]

Yeah this pretty much sours the entire experience. I'd ask for a refund but I reaaaaaaally don't feel like paying for anything on that shithouse of a store. Paypal refund plz.

You can't upgrade until Wednesday.

 

[Toemon]

For reference, Microsoft spent $500 million on marketing alone for the original Kinect.

Not really comparable since that was on advertising, shipping, localization and game support. This was literally for one game if the OP is to be believed.

 

[Aika'svyse]

I see these companies go under, it seems the decisions are being made by crazy people

 

[sjay1994]

Fuckery.

Those that pre-ordered the PS3 Digital Guardian Edition can't access some or all of the DLC, or even the game itself. Can't upgrade to PS4 either. If you try to access any piece of Destiny content on PSN it prompts you to purchase it...again.

Having the same problem on PS4.

I can play the game, but can't acess the digital guardian stuff

 

[jett]

You can't upgrade until Wednesday.

What about everything else I mentioned.

 

[ReplacementPelican]

That's kind of my point. Regardless of the quality of the title, throwing a stupid amount of money at it ensures sales on mass. Their confidence was not in the game, but their expenditure on it.

Oh, sorry. I misunderstood you.

 

[Alienous]

How much did Borderlands 2 cost?

 

[Kyo645]

Fuckery.

Those that pre-ordered the PS3 Digital Guardian Edition can't access some or all of the DLC, or even the game itself. Can't upgrade to PS4 either. If you try to access any piece of Destiny content on PSN it prompts you to purchase it...again.

They changed the wording on their website yesterday to reflect that the upgrade will come tomorrow

The PlayStation®4 digital upgrade will be available to you as close to launch as possible. We anticipate the PlayStation®4 version will be ready for you by Wednesday 9/10 at 6pm PDT, but please check back here for updates. Unfortunately, the PlayStation®4 upgrade will NOT be available for pre-order or pre-load.

Not being able to access the dlc sucks though hope they fix it

 

[suntoryTime]

I thought Bungie originally denied the 500 million dollar figure?

 

[moggio]

If anything it shows what massive bloat there is in game production.

 

[SwiftDeath]

So the first game was quite expensive then even if you try and factor out marketing and manufacturing costs

 

[JohnGrimm]

So they really spent $500m on one game? Is this Activision trying to snatch back records from Rockstar?

 

[AHA-Lambda]

How much did Borderlands 2 cost?

Some of Aliens: Colonial Marines budget

 

[Nikodemos]

And people wondered why none of the two could even touch an exclusivity deal.

 

[MilesTeg]

So they really spent $500m on one game? Is this Activision trying to snatch back records from Rockstar?

It's Activision trying to build up an IP to the scale of Call of Duty. They want another cash cow and right now it looks like they've got it. Of course, they don't own the IP or Bungie, but that doesn't really matter.

 

[Son Of D]

What I'm really interested in is how much of that was spent on marketing.

I read that it was $360m. However that was on Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Netherscourge]

I hope they didn't spend too much on the lousy Live Action commercial...

 

[steadfast]

I hope they didn't spend too much on the lousy Live Action commercial...

$775M just for the Zeppelin song.

 

[Cidd]

50mil on the game development and 450mil on marketing.

Spoiler

/s

 

[bananas]

$775M just for the Zeppelin song.

That's an illegal amount.

You could rent out the Staples Center with that kind of money.

 

[legend166]

I knew the "$500 million is for the whole decade" line made no sense. Let's say they put out 3 games in a decade - that's $166 million per game. We already know Activision have no problem throwing out $200+ million in marketing for COD games, and this is their next COD, so I wouldn't expect anything less. So let's say $300 for marketing + a $200 million development, and you've got yourself $500 million.

Now, obviously you'd expect a lot of that initial development cost won't be needed for the sequels.

 

[Dawnbuster]

$775M just for the Zeppelin song.

It costs about 600k-800k for most big-name music licensing in commercials, combining 6 months of tv play in the big 6 markets in addition to online use.

Outliers are the Rolling Stones, etc. It's pretty rare for anyone to get over a million.

 

[speculawyer]

I don't care what you guys say about safe AAA concepts, $500m will never not be some Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay ordeal.

It took me a few seconds . . .

 

[Steel]

Possibly relevant:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/destiny-grosses-more-325-million-145400825.html

The 5 day sell-through(not sell-in) was 325 million.

 

[silvermember]

I guess the investors have a different opinion on "shows the confidence we have" now.

 

[Majukun]

how the hell did they spent so much?did they start setting piles of money on fire to keep the office warm?

 

[KageMaru]

Yeah, I just noticed that. That's insane.

And it does seem that most of gaf (including myself) thought $500m was the franchise deal not just this one game.

Well they aren't going to start the next game from scratch, so this money can also be seen as an investment towards the future of the franchise.

 

[Principate]

I wonder how much they spent on the Paul McCartney song. The whole endeavour just seem so stupid. If they spent their time ensuring the game was good it would likely have had far better legs.

 

[Jarmel]

Would be ridiculous if that's just for the one game, especially considering that both activision and bungie have previously gone on record to say that $500 million was an investment in the franchise for the next 10 years, with Destiny 1's budget closer to $180 million.

Nobody has flat out said what Destiny's development costs were as far as I'm aware. The closest we have is the pre-delay contract from the Activision lawsuit that had just the development costs for Destiny pegged at $150 million and that's before the delay.