James Sawyer Ford
Member
![SlimySnake](/data/avatars/s/128/128165.jpg?1672933700)
Like no bro, I was dead nuts on
Does anyone know when it comes to Insomniac development, how many headcount are done by overseas people (if any)? Wiki says 400+ people work there. So the most expensive overhead math would be all 400+ being US based employees.Maybe it's time for Sony to move their studios to Malaysia or something, then. Those budgets for Spiderman 2 are crazy IMO, more than most Hollywood blockbusters. And this doesn't even include marketing, so it's probably even more expensive than the MCU films.
I'm wondering if the costs factor in the deal Sony have set up with Disney/Marvel, where they're paying it out over a period of years instead of all at once/upfront? That would at least in part explain the costs. Other people are saying they doubled the studio size, I guess that would be a factor as well.
You mean the amount Sony paid for the license? There's no way this amount doesn't include some portion of that cost being paid out over the course of the game's development. Has to be similar for the other Marvel games Insomniac are making too.
Otherwise these costs really do look rather insane. These companies are gonna use AI so hard to get these costs down like crazy as soon as it becomes viable. Some are gonna go overboard...hopefully Sony aren't one of them.
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 warzo
majority of the talent, artist, programmers designers, actors , stunt actors, voice actors are in california. including mocap facilities, design firms, foley stages, sound stages,marketing teams. it is the entertainment hub in US, the world. it makes sense to have a studio in cali.John from Digital Foundry said a few directs weekly ago that maintain a studio in California is high expensive. I can't understand why Sony keep doing things in California. Keep in mind that John used the quote 'insanily high'.
Is like they love to burn money, I get that, but this is starting to get very suspicious. If you want to reduce costs instead of firing people, why in hell you still doing bussiness in California, one of the US most expensives places to work?
If you believe that miles, a 7 hour dlc cost 156 million and a ps5 port of Spider-Man cost $39 million then i don’t know what to tell you.SlimySnake said I was full of shit about AAA Sony first party costing $250+M
Like no bro, I was dead nuts on
And btw, we discussed this when horizon fw was confirmed to have cost $112 million euros by a Dutch documentary on GG
Naughty dog and ssm are based out of LA just like insomniac. Their games took longer, had new assets and cost less.That was never confirmed
But California is crazy expensive
It doesn’t cost $39 million to port a game to ps5. Not sure why you insist on ignoring this.
show me a game that’s equal to SM2 that cost half the budget.Honestly, the only silver lining to this leak is that this private industry discussion is going to be made public. We are long past the point that we should be carefully analyzing why so much budget is going into new projects and what can be done about heading this off.
The most fascinating part of all the data that came out was Insomniac doing a very well researched fiscal pitch to do "smaller" ($100m is still a lot) projects instead of one big one, and how that can mitigate financial risk. Under these budget levels, why would any dev blow a AAA budget on a new IP, for example. Without a built-in audience, its almost impossible realistically forecast that you're going to do over 7m units of sales, even if you were multiplatform.
There is a very prescient internal note in the financial analysis docs that basically asks themselves, 'We spent $200m more on SM2 than SM1 ($300m vs $100m), but can anyone play that and feel that extra money?'. Paraphrasing, but this is a really self-aware question to ask.
I want to head off any discussion by immediately stating that we should not ever say that devs are being overpaid - relative to how much games bring in, despite how much more it takes to break even, game devs have been the most underpaid area of software development for far too long, they still are not making as much as their contemporaries, and the answer to this situation is not, nor will it ever be, to pay devs less. I think it needs to start with why it takes so much more manpower to make the games that we're making. Yes, Insomniac doubled in size basically going for FY20 to FY21, but those devs were spread around multiple projects, although now we know most of those other projects hit the back burner in order for SM2 to ship this year.
I wish we could get some producers in here who have done PM work for a long time to gain some insight on just what is eating up resources to this absurd degree. When you look at a game like SM2, so much of what it is is built on top of what was already done. The framework for its gameplay, for its open-world, for enemy behaviors, is mainly implemented, just waiting to be iterated on, so why did it take that many more devs an 2/3rds the amount of money in order to ship a sequel.
No they didn’t. Those are realtime cutscenes and they just swapped out the new spiderman character model. You can do that in any naughty dog game.They redid all the cinematics due to character changes and improvements
I wouldn’t be so sure $39M is BS
oh you want the 90’s again, short, paint by numbers, formulaic games that you still spent $50+ on . what a horrible ideaYeah, 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.
They never was 350 people working on Alan Wake 2. they had about 130 people on average working on Alan Wake 2 for 4 years. The salaries are also not the same obviously, we cannot compare on this point a studio in Finland and one like Insomniac which is located in the US in an area known to be quite expansive.If you believe that miles, a 7 hour dlc cost 156 million and a ps5 port of Spider-Man cost $39 million then i don’t know what to tell you.
These numbers just don’t make any sense whatsoever. Even if you put them up Sonys own inflated numbers for hfw and gow which they said cost $200 million. So 50-100 hour games 5 years in development cost $200 million while miles, a 7 hour dlc set in the same city costs $156 million?
Meanwhile remedy with 350 devs takes 4 years to make alan wake 2 for $50 mil euros. The docs state that in the peak year 380 devs worked on sp2 and it cost them $100 million that year. Remedy had around the same number of devs for 4 years and averaged 12.5 million a year.
These numbers make zero sense.
And btw, we discussed this when horizon fw was confirmed to have cost $112 million euros by a Dutch documentary on GG. If we go by that figure, spiderman 2 costing 3x more while being in full dev for 3 years instead of 5 for hfw while using the same damn city is insane.
every studio is looking at it. ai does not write efficient code which is important for games. you still need a good to programmer to review that code and at that point most programmers would much rather write it themselves. Most importantly no programmer is going to put proprietary code in an online AI prompt.Please tell me studiis are investigating how AI can help write code, run simulations (QA testing) and whatever else, because that is the only way I see costs coming down.
Do they pay in advance? I think it's a cut they take from the game profits.You mean the amount Sony paid for the license? There's no way this amount doesn't include some portion of that cost being paid out over the course of the game's development. Has to be similar for the other Marvel games Insomniac are making too.
Otherwise these costs really do look rather insane. These companies are gonna use AI so hard to get these costs down like crazy as soon as it becomes viable. Some are gonna go overboard...hopefully Sony aren't one of them.
If we take the 380 devs = $100 million cost per year figure from their slides, we can determine what it must have cost rockstar to make gta6 since they only work on one game at a time, have 3,000 devs and will have taken 7 years to release gta6.They never was 350 people working on Alan Wake 2. they had about 130 people on average working on Alan Wake 2 for 4 years. The salaries are also not the same obviously, we cannot compare on this point a studio in Finland and one like Insomniac which is located in the US in an area known to be quite expansive.
The thing that is rather surprising is that Insomniac does almost no outsourcing and does almost everything internally even though it is a good way to reduce costs.
No facts but salaries in Finland and US are probably lightyears apart.Meanwhile remedy with 350 devs takes 4 years to make alan wake 2 for $50 mil euros. The docs state that in the peak year 380 devs worked on sp2 and it cost them $100 million that year. Remedy had around the same number of devs for 4 years and averaged 12.5 million a year.
These numbers make zero sense.
horizon FW did not cost $112 mill to make(double it) your numbers are way off. you can’t make that type of game $112 mill.If you believe that miles, a 7 hour dlc cost 156 million and a ps5 port of Spider-Man cost $39 million then i don’t know what to tell you.
These numbers just don’t make any sense whatsoever. Even if you put them up Sonys own inflated numbers for hfw and gow which they said cost $200 million. So 50-100 hour games 5 years in development cost $200 million while miles, a 7 hour dlc set in the same city costs $156 million?
Meanwhile remedy with 350 devs takes 4 years to make alan wake 2 for $50 mil euros. The docs state that in the peak year 380 devs worked on sp2 and it cost them $100 million that year. Remedy had around the same number of devs for 4 years and averaged 12.5 million a year.
These numbers make zero sense.
And btw, we discussed this when horizon fw was confirmed to have cost $112 million euros by a Dutch documentary on GG. If we go by that figure, spiderman 2 costing 3x more while being in full dev for 3 years instead of 5 for hfw while using the same damn city is insane.
They make money the second they sell to the retailers. Basically shipping the game is a sale to them. That’s when they get their money. Not when you buy it from Walmart. Walmart pays $56 instead of $70. And marvel takes a further 20% off every shipped copy. Sony keeps track of who they ship it to.When it comes to royalty cuts (at least contracts I've seen in the past), it's based on the supplier's shipments dollars or as a fixed amount per unit shipped out.
No supplier or Marvel will be able to track 100% of retail sales, so an accurate total retail dollars for a royalty calculation would never be known. Tracking any big retailer sales is easy as they'd have the data in terms of units or dollars. But any sales to mom and pop stores or wholesalers shipping to random game stores would not really be known. Nor would the final retail prices.
I'm just going on what I know. But if the Sony/Marvel contract specifically states the % cut is based off retail prices totaled up somehow then that's cool.
There was a thread about this. I mentioned that in my post. I didn’t make it up. Even if you go by Sonys inflated $200 million figure, miles costing $156 million doesn’t make sense.horizon FW did not cost $112 mill to make you numbers are way off.
That GTA 6 1.2 billion dollar budget seems super realistic now after this, holy shit. But I'm sure that also includes GTA online and with all the stuff they inherited from the 5M Role Playing mod scene after they bought it they likely sped up development on that front.It's actually more than that as it doesn't include marketing costs. So a $300M dev budget is probably more like $500M with marketing.
the pandemic inflated cost a lot. it’s hard to say without seeing an itemized list. example i know that shooting mocap during that time got insanely expensive because of sag covid rules. you can’t say horizon cost this much to make so miles should cost this much, it means nothing.There was a thread about this. I mentioned that in my post. I didn’t make it up. Even if you go by Sonys inflated $200 million figure, miles costing $156 million doesn’t make sense.
Why this is so hard for you guys is beyond me. A 2 year 7 hour dlc cannot cost $156 million when horizon cost $200 million. Forget the $112 figure.
It does make perfect sense. It's fucking Burbank vs Amsterdam. Also, marketing costs are most assuredly included, and Spider-Man marketing is pretty aggressive.There was a thread about this. I mentioned that in my post. I didn’t make it up. Even if you go by Sonys inflated $200 million figure, miles costing $156 million doesn’t make sense.
Why this is so hard for you guys is beyond me. A 2 year 7 hour dlc cannot cost $156 million when horizon cost $200 million. Forget the $112 figure.
DEI is expensive. Game development has gotten so bloated now. Credits for AAA games takes 30 dang minutes. Time to cut the fat.
They never was 350 people working on Alan Wake 2. they had about 130 people on average working on Alan Wake 2 for 4 years. The salaries are also not the same obviously, we cannot compare on this point a studio in Finland and one like Insomniac which is located in the US in an area known to be quite expansive.
The thing that is rather surprising is that Insomniac does almost no outsourcing and does almost everything internally even though it is a good way to reduce costs.
Just unsustainable and I see a gaming break coming soon, like we did in the Atari days. I can just feel it. Things are getting longer and expensive, customers are getting less things and higher expectations.
245 million dollars, 380 people, 5 years, to make a AAA video game now is just far too unsustainable. Something will give.
I am part of the unsustainability crowd having seen this.
It's pretty weird, considering that the last chart show no more than 250 Insomniac employees working on the title in its 2 peak years, with far less personal for the rest of its production time...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?
In Brazilian Portuguese too! They're really really good6 million on localization costs. Sony games have stupendous dubbing in European Portuguese. It’s at the level of any dubbed high-profile film.
Everything is expensive in these games. Sony is totally in in the AAA blockbuster and it’s not coming back.
7.2 million units to break even though is absolutely nuts.
John from Digital Foundry said a few directs weekly ago that maintain a studio in California is high expensive. I can't understand why Sony keep doing things in California. Keep in mind that John used the quote 'insanily high'.
Is like they love to burn money, I get that, but this is starting to get very suspicious. If you want to reduce costs instead of firing people, why in hell you still doing bussiness in California, one of the US most expensives places to work?
Other Direct Costs, usually it is a collection of smaller costs that you bucket for convenience rather than break out all the detail since each individual item that comprises it would be very small dollars.What is ODC ?
and yet the games sell and they make a profit. not every game needs to be home run. not every game will have 300mill budget. but if i were making SM2, 245 mill investment, easy choice. it is sustainable with the right ip.Just unsustainable and I see a gaming break coming soon, like we did in the Atari days. I can just feel it. Things are getting longer and expensive, customers are getting less things and higher expectations.
245 million dollars, 380 people, 5 years, to make a AAA video game now is just far too unsustainable. Something will give.
I am part of the unsustainability crowd having seen this.
There's a slide in this Thread which said Miles Morales cost a far more reasonable 80 million to develop.There was a thread about this. I mentioned that in my post. I didn’t make it up. Even if you go by Sonys inflated $200 million figure, miles costing $156 million doesn’t make sense.
Why this is so hard for you guys is beyond me. A 2 year 7 hour dlc cannot cost $156 million when horizon cost $200 million. Forget the $112 figure.
In Brazilian Portuguese too! They're really really good
That’s not salary but total compensation which includes insurance, and other office costs. Salaries can be 30-50% less in total.If I calculate right it means that the average salary per core dev is a little above >$200k a year (in 2022, $67M divided per 315 devs). That's quite impressive.
I'll be kind and say Our Daily Coffee and not Our Daily Crack.What is ODC ?
If you believe that miles, a 7 hour dlc cost 156 million and a ps5 port of Spider-Man cost $39 million then i don’t know what to tell you.
These numbers just don’t make any sense whatsoever. Even if you put them up Sonys own inflated numbers for hfw and gow which they said cost $200 million. So 50-100 hour games 5 years in development cost $200 million while miles, a 7 hour dlc set in the same city costs $156 million?
Meanwhile remedy with 350 devs takes 4 years to make alan wake 2 for $50 mil euros. The docs state that in the peak year 380 devs worked on sp2 and it cost them $100 million that year. Remedy had around the same number of devs for 4 years and averaged 12.5 million a year.
These numbers make zero sense.
And btw, we discussed this when horizon fw was confirmed to have cost $112 million euros by a Dutch documentary on GG. If we go by that figure, spiderman 2 costing 3x more while being in full dev for 3 years instead of 5 for hfw while using the same damn city is insane.
380 devs and $100 million salary for that year comes out to $268k a year per dev. That’s whats nonsense.The only thing that matters is headcount, studio location and dev time.
That Remedy number uh, I’m gonna call bs on that. 380 devs, 12.5 million is <33k a year per head, in a country where your avg is 45k? That’s € by the way.
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Sorry but either you’re telling me Remedy is slaving a lot of their workers, or something’s wrong with the math here.