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Dead Space 2 cost $60 million to make, sold 4 million copies, underperformed
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
You're right. It's the reason why I could never run a public company. I couldn't prioritize bad products that constantly making money, over great games that break even.
KILL ME if I ever do something like that.
Im kind of amazed at how some people argue that Man four million sold and its still not enough, idiots. Those four million copies are not sold at full price and many are bought during discounts. Hell, didnt they sell DS 2 on Steam for like /$ 2,49 multiple times?
I assume that out of those millions of copies maybe one million (and I imagine thats not the case) were sold at /$ 60/55. Looking at the information we have, lets be generous, EA receives 20 bucks when its being sold at full price. This is the best case scenario and even then they wouldnt have fully earned 1/3 of their budget back. I have no idea how big the cut is when discounts hit, but I imagine it wont bring in a lot of money.
I think lots of those copies were sold at a price of under 20 bucks new. Wouldnt be the first. Ask Mirrors Edge. Darksiders II. Or any other well received title that went on to under perform.
I assume that out of those millions of copies maybe one million (and I imagine thats not the case) were sold at /$ 60/55. Looking at the information we have, lets be generous, EA receives 20 bucks when its being sold at full price. This is the best case scenario and even then they wouldnt have fully earned 1/3 of their budget back. I have no idea how big the cut is when discounts hit, but I imagine it wont bring in a lot of money.
I think lots of those copies were sold at a price of under 20 bucks new. Wouldnt be the first. Ask Mirrors Edge. Darksiders II. Or any other well received title that went on to under perform.
Breath of the wild needed to sell 2 million to break even.
This information is from Nintendo itself, so it's up there with some of the most expensive games of all time.
TheMoon
Member
Don't forget they also made a PSN/XBLA-specific download title tie-in game and up-ported DS:Extraction with PS Move support as a limited edition bonus (I don't remember if that was even available separately?!).
They went full transmedia batshit with the animated movie(s), novels, spin-off games... probably also a comic, I'd have to look that up.
GroinShooter
Member
I don't know how much to this day but wikipedia states 605K copies sold.
WickedLaharl
Member
When do you think we'll get another MotorStorm or Driveclub?
TheMoon
Member
sounds like VG Chartz. Way too specific to be official.
We got quite a lot of MotorStorms already.
Always-honest
Banned
Well, i bought it.
If only you paid 60 million dollars for it.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Driveclub is different and you know it. The game can out like one year late.
Lostconfused
Member
That happened with the inception of the franchise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Space_(series)#Related_media
Clarkus Darkus
Member
No wonder DS3 was full on co-op cover shooter with weapon microtransactions. Wonder how that one sold and fared since the 360 era was full of games in that mould( resi 5/6, Mass effect 3 MP)
Baron_Calamity
Member
Can someone explain where exactly that 60 million is going to?
Yes I know basically its to pay the salaries of the people working on it. I mean where did all the man-hours go to?
Graphics come down to this:
What is costing so much? Non-graphic parts of games aren't getting better. AI hasn't seriously evolved, gameplay mechanics are getting simpler, and they no longer have to build a new engine for each game. Its all unreal or unity these days.
I wonder how much of it is throwing out and redoing completed work? Some manager comes in and decide that location isn't doing it for him or is getting poor marks from focus groups and then months and millions of dollars are thrown out on a whim.
Yes I know basically its to pay the salaries of the people working on it. I mean where did all the man-hours go to?
Graphics come down to this:
- 3D models
- Animation
- Texture work
- Lights and shader programing
- Bug and Glitch fixes
- Optimising for hardware limitations
What is costing so much? Non-graphic parts of games aren't getting better. AI hasn't seriously evolved, gameplay mechanics are getting simpler, and they no longer have to build a new engine for each game. Its all unreal or unity these days.
I wonder how much of it is throwing out and redoing completed work? Some manager comes in and decide that location isn't doing it for him or is getting poor marks from focus groups and then months and millions of dollars are thrown out on a whim.
BodiesWithoutOrgans
Member
Would love to know how much its costs Nintendo to make games
Just listing art, which is only ONE part of a process that takes years and involves hundreds of people...there are TONS of things you need to spend money and time on. Here are just A FEW:
- Project management/coordinators
- Programming (this is no joke. so many man-hours.)
- Sound design/production/recording
- Tool Development/Pipeline
- Pre-production (storyboarding, concept art, etc.)
- Level Design
- QA Testing
- Localisation/translation
- Marketing (THIS IS HUGE and I feel like people don't realize how much you have to do to have a proper marketing campaign)
- Middleware/codec/tech license fees
The list goes on and on and on. Just look at the credits of an AAA game. They are huge. Everybody in there got paid by someone at some point. Everybody in there was doing something. It wasn't just people getting paid and taking their sweet time. These people were probably on an insane production crunch to boot. Many of these things (like recording) can't even be done in-house. Studio rental time. Recording studio fees. Voice acting fees. There are people to be paid everywhere and at every step of the process.
People really don't understand the scope of production or of marketing.
Also, if you have the resources there are still very good reasons why you might want to use your own engine rather than UE or Unity....
Baron_Calamity
Member
The original Dead Space had deeper, more complex, gameplay than Dead Space 2 or 3.
Baron_Calamity
Member
I agree but it was stated over and over again in this thread that graphics are the main driver of game budgets ballooning every generation.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Good question. Does anybody know how much DS3 sold?
TheSpecialOne
Banned
If the publisher only sees $12 of a $60 game then at 4 million copies sold, it made a loss.
They see $30 - $40 and more then that if its digital.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Isn't it closer to $18 per $60 game?
Found a kotaku article stating the marketing budget for dead space 2 was $5M-$10M.
https://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649
"According to a document from the advertising industry Effie Awards, EA's media expenditures on the sci-fi horror sequel's "Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2" marketing campaign were between $5 million and $10 million."
Maybe that's only specifically for the "your mom hates dead space 2" campaign?
https://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649
"According to a document from the advertising industry Effie Awards, EA's media expenditures on the sci-fi horror sequel's "Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2" marketing campaign were between $5 million and $10 million."
Maybe that's only specifically for the "your mom hates dead space 2" campaign?
Whether the campaigns are GOOD or not is something else...but no matter what they do it's still really expensive.
Painted ads on sides of buildings, print ads, stuff on the sides of buses, video ads on TV and online...all of it adds up to some ludicrously large amounts, and it's still pretty necessary right now.
Maybe in the future these 'traditional' forms of advertising will die out, but you definitely need them today.
I linked to this Kotaku article early on in the thread that puts the amount of money a publisher sees from a $60 purchase at $27. The article was published in February 2010, and Dead Space 2 came out just under a year later, so I'd presume it didn't fluctuate too much in that time. Likely also worth noting that while a digital version of Dead Space 2 is available and would presumably see a bigger return to the publisher due to the platformer holder's cut being 30% (I'm assuming there are no other fees involved seeing as there's no physical stock to account for, also, Dead Space 2 was released before EA's Origin platform went live so it's not like digital PC sales would have seen a 100% return back to EA), digital was also much smaller contributor to sales in 2011.
Yeah, the article is saying that $5-$10 million estimate is only for the Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2 campaign.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
So with digital sales the game probably made at least $100 million right?
Mr.Deadshot
Member
Worst Dead Space game. 1 is still the best. Also loved 3 and Extraction. 2 was disappointing for me.
Glass Rebel
Member
For me, Dead Space 2 was the kind of game where I saw every single dollar on screen but had to ask myself... why?
Going from the original to the sequel was a bit of a headscratcher because I didn't really think the franchise would warrant that kinda budget.
Going from the original to the sequel was a bit of a headscratcher because I didn't really think the franchise would warrant that kinda budget.
slosherbomb
Member
how bad did dead space 3 do
Allonym
There should be more tampons in gaming
What!? Dead Space 2 had the best gameplay and the best assortment of weapons and armors. Dead Space had a great story and but its gameplay isn't as good as DS2. I don't think that many people would share your preference for DS3 or DS2.
Sad to see these games go. DS2 is the best action horror game ever made with RE5 and RE4 being close runners up. Damn. Shit is crazy. I'm not sure why DS2 is the focal point though, DS3 is where the story and gameplay just suffered tremendously.
Not even close.
Guys, again, out of those four million copies sold, the majority was sold at a lower price. At best, Id say it made about $ 30 million dollars. Well a little bit better.
Edit: with that Kotaku link, Id say about 35-40 million bucks then.
No. What I meant was that even though digital offers more favorable margins for publishers/developers, in 2011 digital would have likely only been a small fraction of the four million listed in the OP*. I included the point of digital sales just to point out that in 2011 it would have been likely that physical was driving the force, meaning for the most part, you could assume EA/Visceral were making at most $27/copy of Dead Space 2 as opposed to whatever the higher payout digital would have been. And as Sadist added, it's possible that many of these copies were also sold at a discount. Apologies if I wasn't clear!
*to clarify further, I'm not saying that Dead Space 2 would have made its money back were you to transplant it from 2011 to 2017 as is. There are many other factors to contend with in 2017, and clearly many modern games still under-perform even with an increase in digital sales.
Makoto Yuki
Banned
Dead Space and Dead Space 2 are exactly what I wanted RE5 to be like. A continuation of the horror aspects of Resident Evil while refining the controls and action of RE4.
Incredible games, both of them too bad DS3 wasn't anything to write home about.
Incredible games, both of them too bad DS3 wasn't anything to write home about.
Only thing I've ever heard sales wise was that it did 605,000 in the first month which is pretty bad. Most sales come in the first few weeks when people are hyped about a game. I'd venture a guess and say it barely broken a million sales. The word of mouth on how bad the game was probably hurt it pretty badly.
A positive thing to look at from a development cost perspective is that the tools used to create the great looking games that we play today are much better than they were back when dead space 2 was being made.
Things like substance designer originally released in 2010, and then painter in 2014. Tools like these are what help to at least slow ballooning development costs.
I mean these days I guess you can just buy a ticket and hope to win the lottery?
Things like substance designer originally released in 2010, and then painter in 2014. Tools like these are what help to at least slow ballooning development costs.
I mean these days I guess you can just buy a ticket and hope to win the lottery?
CassidyIzABeast
Member
In memory of DS2, enjoy some beast gameplay
Dead Space 2 ~ Plasma Cutter Only "No Bench, No Store, No Damage"
Dead Space 2 ~ Plasma Cutter Only "No Bench, No Store, No Damage"
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
That Jason tweet ain't wrong. But at this point I doubt we're gonna see a crash of the whole industry. Of the AAA industry? Maybe.
Someone definitely got fired by that.
Someone definitely got fired by that.
Come to think of it my experience with Dead Space was kinda weird. It ended up being one of those "I think it's a good game but didn't get super hyped over it personally" kind of deals, but I still don't completely understand how I came to that conclusion.
Dead Space 1 did A LOT of shit I'd wanted game developers to do for a long time. I appreciated how it intelligently modernized Resident Evil's mechanics and then combined them with an homage to System Shock 2. Visceral created an immersive 3rd person shooter in a very modern but also classic way. I recognized the story and progression as something very carefully designed. I just... didn't really feel anything while playing the actual game. I recognized all Dead Space's good points on an intellectual level but not an intuitive one. It didn't feel scary at all (and I played it on a home theater system with the lights turned off) and I pretty much breezed through the game. Then I played it on hard and intentionally tried to run away from enemies and avoid combat whenever possible, and it still felt like an easy game. Maybe it's because the enemies in Dead Space 1 had no element of mystery to them, and maybe it's because the item and ammo economy felt so broken I had to literally throw away supplies to keep my item bank from filling up. At some point I'm gonna go back in on the highest difficulty, possibly in 4K.
Oh, and I personally would have preferred for Dead Space 1 to be less linear and let me explore the Ishimura more freely like in System Shock 2 and later Prey.
Dead Space 2 felt like a much better action game and a slightly better horror game. I appreciated some of the atmospheric and scripting tricks it pulled and the controls felt a lot better (on PS3). Zealot difficulty (which I started on) was bullshit though. Now, on that difficulty there was a feeling of constantly running out of ammo and stuff, but I eventually recognized that the game was always giving me one more clip whenever I needed it, and at that point the illusion felt broken. Oh, and the final boss was bullshit. The monster encounter right before the final boss should have been the finale, as it felt like a great combination of all the game's different features.
Anyway...
Dead Space 1 did A LOT of shit I'd wanted game developers to do for a long time. I appreciated how it intelligently modernized Resident Evil's mechanics and then combined them with an homage to System Shock 2. Visceral created an immersive 3rd person shooter in a very modern but also classic way. I recognized the story and progression as something very carefully designed. I just... didn't really feel anything while playing the actual game. I recognized all Dead Space's good points on an intellectual level but not an intuitive one. It didn't feel scary at all (and I played it on a home theater system with the lights turned off) and I pretty much breezed through the game. Then I played it on hard and intentionally tried to run away from enemies and avoid combat whenever possible, and it still felt like an easy game. Maybe it's because the enemies in Dead Space 1 had no element of mystery to them, and maybe it's because the item and ammo economy felt so broken I had to literally throw away supplies to keep my item bank from filling up. At some point I'm gonna go back in on the highest difficulty, possibly in 4K.
Oh, and I personally would have preferred for Dead Space 1 to be less linear and let me explore the Ishimura more freely like in System Shock 2 and later Prey.
Dead Space 2 felt like a much better action game and a slightly better horror game. I appreciated some of the atmospheric and scripting tricks it pulled and the controls felt a lot better (on PS3). Zealot difficulty (which I started on) was bullshit though. Now, on that difficulty there was a feeling of constantly running out of ammo and stuff, but I eventually recognized that the game was always giving me one more clip whenever I needed it, and at that point the illusion felt broken. Oh, and the final boss was bullshit. The monster encounter right before the final boss should have been the finale, as it felt like a great combination of all the game's different features.
Anyway...
Alex_Mexico
Member
Holy shit I just remembered DS2 had a shitty multiplayer mode! I wonder how much they could've saved had they abstained from adding that tacked on Mode. It couldn't have been cheap to make.
Just one of those things that LITERALLY no one asked for. Same goes for the MP in the first Tomb Raider reboot. Feels like someone from higher up forced them to waste money on it because CoD was doing gangbusters with its mp mode.
Not that much when you realize they spent 120 mil on the game.
CadetMahoney
Member
on 360 the multiplayer was god-awful. choppy framerates, laggy af and the online paywall of course.
I think that's why I didn't even think about DS3 at all when it released.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Given that you already have the option of gifting them an extra $30+ for a cheesy statue or a 15 page artbook, I wouldn't say that the $60 price tag is what's hurting them.
Seems more like the model is patently unsustainable. There have been a lot of big budget games that barely cracked their expectations ceiling or failed to hit them.
Tomb Raider barely limped past the goal.
Deus Ex HR didn't make it
Prey didn't make it.
Stuff like this is why games as a service and multiplayer are getting a greater focus. Gamers start providing more of the content themselves via online interactions and they have more cause to keep playing and therefore spending in the game.
Agent Gibbs
Member
I'd be shocked if it didn't make a profit, its this lofty milestone of "expectations" that seems to be the problem (I assume a managerial ratio of Profit made compared to resources used and duration)
if all copies sold at full retail we are talking $240 million
If we take a conservative view they averaged out at $30 a piece due to sales that's still $120million
To only make close to $60million we are talking an average retail price per unit of $15 and I'd be shocked if it averaged out anywhere near to that
The only way it makes sense is if we assume around $60million profit (assume the average $30 price $120mill made) was made that over two/three years work was not seen as enough when they compared it to Mobile games profits
This industry and many others in their pursuit of ever increasing profits are disgusting! we have energy firms making record profits but still raising prices because they want to see an increase on profit year on year, we have the movie industry on a similar vein large turn over film makes a profit but doesn't make enough profit for the greedy and the Games industry is modelled off of the Movie industry
surely it makes sense to make games that make a consistent profit, where you have a loyal consumer base who make said purchases and the company as a whole has a steady long term growth and then if one product sells gangbusters great bank the money and keep performing (this seems like Nintendo's model when I write it) rather than this EA style churn out game make profit, but not enough gut/kill studio, alienate consumer base but retain them buy buying every company to expand (using said profits constantly on expansion)! which will surely at some point see its collapse as the company becomes so large it is unable to weather the storm and any loss
if all copies sold at full retail we are talking $240 million
If we take a conservative view they averaged out at $30 a piece due to sales that's still $120million
To only make close to $60million we are talking an average retail price per unit of $15 and I'd be shocked if it averaged out anywhere near to that
The only way it makes sense is if we assume around $60million profit (assume the average $30 price $120mill made) was made that over two/three years work was not seen as enough when they compared it to Mobile games profits
This industry and many others in their pursuit of ever increasing profits are disgusting! we have energy firms making record profits but still raising prices because they want to see an increase on profit year on year, we have the movie industry on a similar vein large turn over film makes a profit but doesn't make enough profit for the greedy and the Games industry is modelled off of the Movie industry
surely it makes sense to make games that make a consistent profit, where you have a loyal consumer base who make said purchases and the company as a whole has a steady long term growth and then if one product sells gangbusters great bank the money and keep performing (this seems like Nintendo's model when I write it) rather than this EA style churn out game make profit, but not enough gut/kill studio, alienate consumer base but retain them buy buying every company to expand (using said profits constantly on expansion)! which will surely at some point see its collapse as the company becomes so large it is unable to weather the storm and any loss