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Capcom spent $20 million marketing Lost Planet

B

black_13

Banned
So it cost's more than the game budget itself to market a game succesfully?!

And does publishing a demo on Live cost a lot of money or what?
 
J

jetjevons

Bish loves my games!
I think the point is game publishers are finally taking marketing seriously.

Move studios routinely spend more money marketing a movie than making it.
 
G

Geezer

Broken water pistol loaded with piss
Wollan said:
God. That's probably what it cost to make. Was it worth it? Have the game sold past 1 million yet?
Click to expand...

That is indeed what it cost to make. $20m development, $20m advertising is crazy! How many copies would it have to sell to break even?

I'm pretty sure Capcom announced they'd shipped over 1 million copies before US street date.
 
A

Arsenal

Member
I would think that a lot of the cost involved in creating demos would be included in the dev costs of the game. Not all of course, but 20 mil for what they are saying means either:

1. They are fudging their dev cost numbers into marketing
2. LP viral marketers on GAF are overpaid!
 
9

909er

Member
Geezer said:
That is indeed what it cost to make. $20m development, $20m advertising is crazy! How many copies would it have to sell to break even?

I'm pretty sure Capcom announced they'd shipped over 1 million copies before US street date.
Click to expand...

Well, if it cost $40 million total to make and market the thing, and it shipped 1.04 million copies (which is sold for them) at $45ish a copy to retail, that's be $6.8 million profit already.

Of course, the numbers are out of my ass.
 
G

gimz

Member
how much did they pay the Korean actor for using his face licence as the main character in the game?
 
G

greatestjediever

Member
Link316 said:
I wonder how much of the bill MS is gonna pay for?
Click to expand...

drevilnx0.jpg


"One...million...dollars?!!"

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. I just couldn't help it.
 
J

jetjevons

Bish loves my games!
Game publishers have to step up to the plate in terms of marketing if they want to create new brands in this day and age.

Lost Planet, Gears of War, Dead Rising. All successful new IP that had massive marketing campaigns that included prolific TV advertising.

Activision and EA figured it out. THQ do a lot of TV advertising but that's normally for licensed brands (was their TV for Saints Row? I can't remember).
 
goldenpp72

goldenpp72

Member
so the lost planet budget for marketing was as much as halo 2s developement budget.

I believe it, considering ive never seen a tv ad for LP.
 
S

Skilotonn

xbot xbot xbot xbot xbot
The good thing for them is that once they sell that mil that they shipped, it'll already had made profit...

Looking at Dead Rising + it has 2 demos and I see it happening...

Oh, and I see the TV commercial lots of times up here in Europe...
 
R

ram

Member
now its cool to spend more money for marketing than developing a game? huh - i guess it works for ea, so...
 
D

DJ Sl4m

Member
There's really no need for such a marketing push when developers release a demo on marketplace.

Also Konami was full of shit, just like I suspected with their BS 500,00 sales needed to break even on the 2 next gen consoles. Only a tard would believe such BS.
 
P

painey

Member
from the TV spot it says "graphics representative of game" but they clearly arent even close. The GoW ad says this but it does look exactly like in game but the lost planet ad looks like a crappy FMV video.. dodgy.
 
G

GashPrex

NeoGaf-Gold™ Member
so what did the 20 million do? if it wasn't for TV marketing...

How can a grassroots cost 20 million? isn't that an oxymoron? did the 2 demo's cost 20 million? This doesn't add up
 
T

Timbuktu

Member
I do see Lost Planet marketed quite heavily, but 1:1 development-marketing costs aren't that ridiculous especially if you consider how much it cost to make a film like Little Miss Sunshine and how much it takes to market it into an Oscar spot.
 
B

Barnolde

Banned
painey said:
from the TV spot it says "graphics representative of game" but they clearly arent even close. The GoW ad says this but it does look exactly like in game but the lost planet ad looks like a crappy FMV video.. dodgy.
Click to expand...

Dead Rising had an in-game commercial and it looked great. Lost Planet looks awesome, but the commercial is all CG, no in-game, wtf.
 
S

segarr

Member
Barnolde said:
Dead Rising had an in-game commercial and it looked great. Lost Planet looks awesome, but the commercial is all CG, no in-game, wtf.
Click to expand...
That Dead Rising commercial is still the best one this gen
 
P

Pachinko

Member
Wasn't their a huge TV ad compaign for this ? I recall ads a couple weeks before a little after the games release on fox, I'm thinking the PR guy is maybe stupid becuase those TV ads probally cost them a shitload of dollars. There was also magazine ads all over but I can't think of much if any online ads.

Also isn't it only about 30-40% of the initial retail value that goes back to the publisher. So that'd be like 25 dollars per game sold at full price. So if lost planet cost capcom 40 million to create and market they'd have to sell a couple million of them... that can't be right.

does anyone know how much money a publisher actually gets from a game that is sold retail? I'm talking if you ignore development costs , how much income does it generate?
 
G

Grecco

Member
Nobody has seen the bunch of LP commercials? Or the countless print adds? What Grassroots campaign.. :lol
 
R

RamzaIsCool

The Amiga Brotherhood
20 million my ass, they need to sell an aditional 1 mln units to just cover the marketing costs.....this number isn't right.
 
S

segarr

Member
Pachinko said:
Wasn't their a huge TV ad compaign for this ? I recall ads a couple weeks before a little after the games release on fox, I'm thinking the PR guy is maybe stupid becuase those TV ads probally cost them a shitload of dollars. There was also magazine ads all over but I can't think of much if any online ads.

Also isn't it only about 30-40% of the initial retail value that goes back to the publisher. So that'd be like 25 dollars per game sold at full price. So if lost planet cost capcom 40 million to create and market they'd have to sell a couple million of them... that can't be right.

does anyone know how much money a publisher actually gets from a game that is sold retail? I'm talking if you ignore development costs , how much income does it generate?
Click to expand...
Well Teamxbox was completely engulfed in a Lost Planet theme for at least two weeks. It got the OXM cover and the back cover of EGM.
 
S

soco

Member
GashPrex said:
so what did the 20 million do? if it wasn't for TV marketing...

How can a grassroots cost 20 million? isn't that an oxymoron? did the 2 demo's cost 20 million? This doesn't add up
Click to expand...

yup. it's marketting speak. he's counting the cost of development of the game for the two demos or some such shit :)
 
W

WasabiKing

Member
jetjevons said:
I think the point is game publishers are finally taking marketing seriously.
Click to expand...
I think they've always taken it seriously, it's just a major risk any time you have to promote a game, or any product or service for that matter.

I just don't know where the money went. Hate be all "anecdotal" on everyone, but the only time I've seen a Lost Planet commercial was on late on Adult Swim, while Tivo-ing along. I've been told it was on NFL playoffs, but again, I never noticed it. Online & print advertising should not be too much, as any heavy hitter can grind away at ad rates.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
WasabiKing said:
I think they've always taken it seriously, it's just a major risk any time you have to promote a game, or any product or service for that matter.

I just don't know where the money went. Hate be all "anecdotal" on everyone, but the only time I've seen a Lost Planet commercial was on late on Adult Swim, while Tivo-ing along. I've been told it was on NFL playoffs, but again, I never noticed it. Online & print advertising should not be too much, as any heavy hitter can grind away at ad rates.
Click to expand...
The wording in the original article is future-tense, so they may not have spent all $20m.

Forbes said:
Capcom has spent $20 million developing the game and will spend another $20 million promoting it.
Click to expand...
It could be they plan to keep running ads/marketing over time.
 
K

Kiriku

SWEDISH PERFECTION
Wow, that's a lot of marketing money...I guess? I mean, we rarely see costs for marketing being made official like this. Sounds like a lot though.

In any case, I wonder how many copies Capcom would have to sell of this game to make a profit? Although it's just hypothetical, I'm thinking it would have been fortunate for Capcom had they been able to release the game for PS3 and 360 simultaneously. At least for sales in Japan. A PS3 version down the road wouldn't exactly surprise me, but even assuming they decide to go through with that, I assume the marketing budget for the 360 version would be long gone once the PS3 version actually hits.
 
J

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Uh, considering I work in online marketing (and I do some adver gaming, gaming advertizing, etc), theres no way an online campaign alone would cost $20mil. That's crap unless loading two demos costs tons of money (they may be including the cost of making the demos) and they are factoring in print ads and they mean globally.
 
N

neojubei

Will drop pants for Sony.
watch capcom spend a fraction of that lost planet marketing budget on DMC4 and call it a flop if it does not sell.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
MomoPufflet said:
How much did the Gears of War marketing cost?
Click to expand...
I don't know if we ever got a total on it. Epic said it cost less than $10m to develop (the engine cost is not included there since it has its own revenue stream).
 
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