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[mckmas8808]

Now that I look at the chart again.......it's presented in a way that states everyone at Insomniac is making Spiderman 2. Like, how is it true that Spiderman 2 took up the full Insomniac budget for those years, while they were also making Wolverine?

 

[lh032]

Now that I look at the chart again.......it's presented in a way that states everyone at Insomniac is making Spiderman 2. Like, how is it true that Spiderman 2 took up the full Insomniac budget for those years, while they were also making Wolverine?

thats what i meant earlier, thats a huge headcount cost just for spiderman 2, its crazy.

 

[simpatico]

Now that I look at the chart again.......it's presented in a way that states everyone at Insomniac is making Spiderman 2. Like, how is it true that Spiderman 2 took up the full Insomniac budget for those years, while they were also making Wolverine?

True. They had a team of geniuses designing that health pack crafting system in the Wolverine game. No one is accounting for that.

 

[Monkfish877]

Maybe Insomniac are really inefficient? Horizon forbidden west cost $212 million dollars to make, and it looks far more of a next gen game than spider man 2 looks and it's a $100 million dollars cheaper. I don't know how Sony/Insomniac justifies that budget. ( I'm not an expert on video game budgets or anything).

 

[touchfuzzy]

It's fine when you make a good game that's almost guaranteed to be a sales success, but all a publisher has to do is bet on the wrong horse once and it's lights out, literally.

*looks at Rocksteady*

 

[mckmas8808]

We could look at the margins and see how much profit per dollar spent. It's crazy to think about, but some business care about ROI.

They do care about ROI, I agree. And here Insomniac shows that Spiderman: MM made back a HUGE profit! Plus the are projecting Venom to make them a good ROI too.

Would you say a 242% ROI is over the moon great?

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

What is ODC ?

I believe it's outsourced game dev.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Wow. Looks like more Insomniac leaked slides coming out each day. Those hackers must be spilling the beans bit by bit.

Over $250M just on people and those charts dont even include marketing costs.

 

[THE DUCK]

Crazy considering a lot of the work was done from the first game. Still they will probably make money. They did also use it to move hardware, so how do you measure that?

 

[simpatico]

They do care about ROI, I agree. And here Insomniac shows that Spiderman: MM made back a HUGE profit! Plus the are projecting Venom to make them a good ROI too.

Would you say a 242% ROI is over the moon great?

Isn't the nature of this conversation Insomniac needing to become a licensed game factory to remain afloat because they're so bloated? (Insomniac is not the only one either, you can find the same bloat at all the AAA studios) If they were more efficient they could make creative games like they use to. We know the Spiderman games are successful.

 

[T-Cake]

I'd be like "fuck localization! speak english everybody!"

 

[ungalo]

Those setpieces must cost a lot.

Ghost of Tsushima has a beautiful world, but other than that it feels frozen. Cutscenes and staging/scripts are very minimalistic, dialogs have fixed shots, lots of ellipse, fade to black...i can definitely see why the gap is so huge.

 

[StealthGoblin]

They really to stop buying candles.

But seriously, what happened here?

That is called full production. When a majority of the workforce went to SM2.

 

[poppabk]

They do care about ROI, I agree. And here Insomniac shows that Spiderman: MM made back a HUGE profit! Plus the are projecting Venom to make them a good ROI too.

Would you say a 242% ROI is over the moon great?

According to the PC port thread - no its shit and they should shut Insomniac down!

 

[ulantan]

I can't wait for everyone to be like firing employees is good to keep costs down lol

 

[mckmas8808]

Isn't the nature of this conversation Insomniac needing to become a licensed game factory to remain afloat because they're so bloated? (Insomniac is not the only one either, you can find the same bloat at all the AAA studios) If they were more efficient they could make creative games like they use to. We know the Spiderman games are successful.

NO!!!! We do not know this at all. As a matter of fact, their headcount only went this high due to the success of Spiderman 1.

 

[SlimySnake]

380 devs and still couldnt set the game in a brand new city or update the manhattan assets to look next gen?

If I was Jimbo, i would ask why Insomniac is spending literally $71 million in one year while sucker punch shipped the whole game for $60 million. Alan Wake 2 was in dev for over 4 years and cost $50 million euros. less than $70 million after exchange rates.

Edit: 10-14 million in bonuses lol Ted price cleaning up.

 

[Thirty7ven]

We could look at the margins and see how much profit per dollar spent. It's crazy to think about, but some business care about ROI.

But Insomniac isn’t independent, and they are part of PlayStation. You can’t measure roi just on the project itself but on PlayStation. You are missing data.

 

[Portugeezer]

Maybe Insomniac are really inefficient? Horizon forbidden west cost $212 million dollars to make, and it looks far more of a next gen game than spider man 2 looks and it's a $100 million dollars cheaper. I don't know how Sony/Insomniac justifies that budget. ( I'm not an expert on video game budgets or anything).

They justify it by it being spiderman I guess. Hard to justify it otherwise.

 

[mckmas8808]

I'd be like "fuck localization! speak english everybody!"

This is EXACTLY what Microsoft does. Speak to many of our European brothers and sisters here. They don't do localization well and well...............................look how that turned out for them.

 

[Banjo64]

Looks like an unsustainable model to me. If the same applies across all of Sony’s games they are risking a lot in the event that 1 or 2 games bomb hard.

 

[JaksGhost]

Maybe Insomniac are really inefficient? Horizon forbidden west cost $212 million dollars to make, and it looks far more of a next gen game than spider man 2 looks and it's a $100 million dollars cheaper. I don't know how Sony/Insomniac justifies that budget. ( I'm not an expert on video game budgets or anything).

Where the studios are based also needs to be taken into account. A game developer in California is going to cost more than one based in The Netherlands or Japan. I believe the annual base pay difference is 2-3x more for California based developers for both Nintendo and Sony.

 

[mckmas8808]

But Insomniac isn’t independent, and they are part of PlayStation. You can’t measure roi just on the project itself but on PlayStation. You are missing data.

But even if you do measure the ROI on each project, they still profit BIG TIME! These charts show that.

 

[Magic Carpet]

gg

I'd be like "fuck localization! speak english everybody!"

This is EXACTLY what Microsoft does. Speak to many of our European brothers and sisters here. They don't do localization well and well...............................look how that turned out for them.

I watched the Psychonauts 2 documentary, It was stinging that they should have put more money into localizations and languages.
Microsoft very much needs to massively improve on this.

 

[Crispy Gamer]

Analyst: Tomb Raider must sell 5-10 million to profit​

Seems normal to me and this was 10 years ago so thankfully we aren't up to 15-20 million copies just to be profitable that's approaching GTA 6 territory

 

[ReBurn]

But Insomniac isn’t independent, and they are part of PlayStation. You can’t measure roi just on the project itself but on PlayStation. You are missing data.

ROI would be measured per project as well as company wide. Sony likely doesn't green light $100m+ projects without having an expectation of how much that project will return.

 

[theHFIC]

We can start with California offices and the shit they throw money away on in the building. Atomic Heart probably got developed on their snack budget. Get some humble cubicles in Kansas City and get back to me.

Step 2: fire everyone who doesn't actively code

You realize STALKER 2 is being developed in a bombed out warzone?

Ok you've successfully name dropped two mid-tier AA Euro-jank shooters. When will you start going into AAA games that the masses have an actual interest in playing?

 

[simpatico]

Ok you've successfully name dropped two mid-tier AA Euro-jank shooters. When will you start going into AAA games that the masses have an actual interest in playing?

Once I get a list of AAA studios that aren't in dire straights right now. Pick you fav and google: "*your fav studio* layoffs"

Those are just examples of games with 80% AAA aesthetics that are made with fiscally responsible budgets. Why does that last 20% cause the budget to more than quadruple?

 

[FoxMcChief]

Exactly what I was going to post.

You can’t tell me money isn’t being wasted. I refuse to believe it.

The entertainment industry (games included) is one big sham. It’s either pure theft from the higher ups or mismanagement. Or most likely both.

There was a thread a month or two back where a game studio manger asked his team to do a simple task. They came back with an insanely bloated time frame. He challenged their bullshit because he knows how long it should really take. I think the problem is management is managing people and don’t know exactly how their subordinates do their jobs.

 

[ClosBSAS]

Ya...70 dollar games are here to stay and thats probably not enough either

 

[BennyBlanco]

Gotta give Marvel a juicy cut as well. Plus they paid for the services of Sweet Baby Inc.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Gotta give Marvel a juicy cut as well. Plus they paid for the services of Sweet Baby Inc.

 

[ReBurn]

The entertainment industry (games included) is one big sham. It’s either pure theft from the higher ups or mismanagement. Or most likely both.

It's often more nuanced than that. There's always going to be waste, no matter how good a company is at planning and tracking. Sometimes it's not worth the effort to dig in and optimize some parts of the process. Some waste in one area can manifest in gains in other areas and it may not be worth it to rock the boat.

For instance I work in at a company where some of the insurance products sold have an obviously high fraudulent claim rate, but the products overall are 90+ percent profit. The company could take action to fight the fraud and make the products even more profitable, but it would divert resources away from areas where the risk is higher and the losses could be greater. Hiring to fight the specific problem would cost more than it would be worth and having existing staff do more work would make their jobs more stressful. It could also make claims more difficult for honest customers and push them away. So it's worth it to de-prioritize a couple million bucks in waste for the sake of customer and employee retention and lowering risk in other areas.

 

[Pagusas]

I guess its good that at least the far biggest cost is people's salaries. Good to see money going to studio salaries.

 

[Del_X]

But it helps move hardware! That they then use to milk you via exorbitant PS+ subs and microtransaction-laden GaaS…

 

[Fake]

How Sony Studios love to burn money Jesus Christ. Will end up into >1b territory next year.

 

[Terenty]

Deus Ex 1 was made by 20 people. The game still shits on pretty much everything coming out today.

Can we go back to this kinda development please?

 

[Katajx]

I’m sorry, but that is ridiculous. Many games are lucky to reach those lifetime sales, but they have to hit that to even turn a profit. Imagine that at $60, instead of $70.

This must be what Shawn Layden was referencing when he talked about the costs of AAA being worrying.

 

[DaciaJC]

I guess its good that at least the far biggest cost is people's salaries. Good to see money going to studio salaries.

Wouldn't that be the case for any normal-sized (and larger) studio, though? What else would represent the bulk of costs if not for paying the people who are making the game?

 

[SF Kosmo]

It doesn't have to be this way. These studios burn money on the stupidest shit.

I dunno it seems to be mostly spent on headcount according to this breakdown. Ghost of Tsushima was a last gen game. The first Spider-Man cost what, $80m?

The calendar breakdown is telling you. When people complain about the state of the Wolverine stuff that was leaked, consider that it's 3 years out and 80% of the man hours in SM2 were in the last 3 years.

 

[intbal]

Even though it was walked back and the consensus seemed to emerge that it was nowhere near that total, I'm beginning to think that Halo Infinite's budget really was $500 million.
Corporations are really good at hiding actual costs.

 

[Spyxos]

Sooner or later they will have to cut budgets. None of this is sustainable. No wonder Sony wanted to go so strongly in the direction of Gaas.

 

[clarky]

They should hire the folks that made Godzilla Minus One for only $14M.

Or the guy that made my dinner last night for £50.

 

[clarky]

Anyone care to chip in why Spiderman2 cost x3 more than 1? As far as im aware until last year wages where fairly static. Dev tools largely the same.

My guess is when the industry folded to the blue hairs and banned hard work ("crunch") + working from home, cost have gone through the roof........who would have thought?

 

[Punished Miku]

We can start with California offices and the shit they throw money away on in the building. Atomic Heart probably got developed on their snack budget. Get some humble cubicles in Kansas City and get back to me.

Step 2: fire everyone who doesn't actively code

You realize STALKER 2 is being developed in a bombed out warzone?

Please stay away from Kansas City. Its actually nice.

 

[SlimySnake]

Step 2: fire everyone who doesn't actively code

90% of video game developers dont code. The programming teams are only in charge of maintaining the engine while the level designers build the levels using tools authored by those programmers. The artists who nowadays make up virtually half of the studio dont have to know how to code.

Without those guys you are not getting a video game. Just an engine like Unity or UE5.

 

[Ribi]

310mil scam, vaporware, not a real game, imagine spending this much to make a game, mismanagement.

 

[Crayon]

Seen it brought up a few times. I don't think Godzilla costing 15m or less has actually been corroborated anywhere. It was surely still dirt cheap by hollywood standards.

 

[Bernardougf]

With this continued trend of games having to be 40 hours with tons of shit side content there is no amount of money enough for this games .... I would much prefer a continued released of new games with new ideas and a shorter content (15-20 hours) then waiting 4 5 years for each release ... instead we get this filler fest bloated games chasing stupid side missions for cute costumes

 

[Hypereides]

It doesn't have to be this way. These studios burn money on the stupidest shit.

Yeah, the problem is the c-suite folks don't see it that way. Their thought process is as non-imaginative as it can get. Its gotten detrimental to the creative process throughout the industry.

I would honestly, like to see actual nerds with a business sense and flair for creative ideas retake the CEO seats in the industry and push these current top people to CFO positions where they belong.