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Heavy Rain cost €16.7 million to make and made Sony "more than €100 million"

Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Member
Quantic Dream's Guillaume de Fondaumiere revealed to a Digital Dragons audience in Poland today that PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain cost just €16.7 million to make - even with all those emotional polygons stuffed in.

With Sony's marketing and distribution on top, the total spend looked something like €40 million. But, Fondaumiere said, "Sony earned more than €100 million with this game. It's very profitable."

His point, and he used the commercial successes of Journey to aid it - he doesn't know how much that game cost but he knows it made money - was that, "We should stop thinking that innovation rhymes with unprofitable." Heavy Rain, in other words, was more than a vanity project for Sony.
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Experiences like Heavy Rain also alter the mainstream perception of games - games that were once toys for kids and then shooting galleries for teenagers. In 2004, Fondaumiere met actor Leonardo DiCaprio because he was interested in doing games. But he wouldn't take the plunge. "He made us understand that from an image perspective, this wasn't going to work."

Contrast that with Beyond: Two Souls, which stars acclaimed Hollywood talent Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, and you can see how things have changed. Doors don't slam shut any more.
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...n-to-make-and-made-sony-more-than-100-million
 
A

abic

Banned
To be fair he's probably lowballing the distribution cost to roll it up to 40. It's higher.

But it's definitely a profitable project.
 
N

Napalm_Frank

Member
Can't wait to see how many emotional polygons they can push with PS4. Cage promised it would blow our minds and that is compared to Beyond.

Good to see that some odder titles do well too. Keeps Sony experimenting ya know.
 
K

Katana_Strikes

Member
Excellent and very worthy of the money it made back. Glad it worked really well for Sony as they took a chance on it as an exclusive and had faith in it. I doubt any other publisher would have green lit or pushed the game as much as Sony.

Job's a good 'un!
 
M

Matt_

World's #1 One Direction Fan: Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you~~~
Fairly impressive considering QD aren't exactly a small team
 
Y

Yopis

Member
You guys didn't get the memo? Everything is dying your only allowed to post doom and gloom articles. Helps people act cool with quips in the first ten replies.
 
A

AbandonedTrolley

Member
Diprosalic said:
that's more than 100 million more than they deserve.
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For pushing some boundaries and taking a risk you think they deserve nothing? Wow Heavy Rain was one of my favorite games this generation, for all it's flaws it was something new and different. They were willing to try something off the beaten path of a point and click adventure or a FPS. For that I think they deserve every success and award they received for it.
 
D

dzelly

Member
W2G Quantic!

Beyond: Two Souls will likely be much more expensive because of the industry talent they hired, but it'll still turn a massive profit.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
I wish other 1st party publishers will have noticed and decide to announce some new IPs at E3 and not just more Halo and more Mario.
 
B

Basileus777

Member
AbandonedTrolley said:
For pushing some boundaries and taking a risk you think they deserve nothing? Wow Heavy Rain was one of my favorite games this generation, for all it's flaws it was something new and different. They were willing to try something off the beaten path of a point and click adventure or a FPS. For that I think they deserve every success and award they received for it.
Click to expand...

They didn't push boundaries other than by throwing a lot more money at an adventure game than anyone else has had the opportunity to do. Credit to Sony for funding it I guess.
 
near

near

Gold Member
That is really impressive, I wonder how they kept production expenses so low? It's presentation really did look rich. Not to say that €16.7m isn't cheap, but in comparison to other projects with a similar cinematic experience seem far from expensive to produce.
 
Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Member
You know, I'm curious. I wasn't a member or a lurker of this site before the release of Heavy Rain, and given how sales obsessed NeoGaf always appears to be... were there a multitude of folks screaming "bomba" in every thread related to this game at that time? I remember the pre-release build-up of hype on sites like N4G and GameFAQS, and everyone seemed convinced this game was going to flop big time. I'd imagine the doom and gloom here must have reached insufferable levels at times. Like... Fuse levels!
 
G

george_us

Member
Yopis said:
You guys didn't get the memo? Everything is dying your only allowed to post doom and gloom articles. Helps people act cool with quips in the first ten replies.
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Well marketing and distribution costing more than creating the actual game is a bit worrying.
 
A

abic

Banned
Moral Panic said:
Marketing and Distribution costs more than the game. Wow.
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I find that people usually take marketing/distribution for granted, but the reality is that a good product is not good enough. Getting people to KNOW ABOUT your product is just as important. That's why marketing (consumer advertising) and distribution (making it available to purchase) is absolutely vital to successful games.

It's not surprising it could cost more, in fact, the cheaper a game's dev cost, and the more successful it is, the more multiples the marketing/distribution cost becomes in relation to the dev cost.
 
K

Katana_Strikes

Member
AbandonedTrolley said:
For pushing some boundaries and taking a risk you think they deserve nothing? Wow Heavy Rain was one of my favorite games this generation, for all it's flaws it was something new and different. They were willing to try something off the beaten path of a point and click adventure or a FPS. For that I think they deserve every success and award they received for it.
Click to expand...

Yep, one of my favourite and unique games this generation. I'll remember it in years to come more than I will a lot of games. I'm really glad it existed and I want more like it.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
Basileus777 said:
They didn't push boundaries other than by throwing a lot more money at an adventure game than anyone else has had the opportunity to do. Credit to Sony for funding it I guess.
Click to expand...

If that's all it took to turn this type of profit or to have a successful game, then you wouldn't see all these companies shutting down. Because most of them have big budgets and a lot of marketing.
 
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