Support NeoGAF

[969]

It was impressive to me, with tons of great assets that for making battlechasers-style world.

Amen. I'd take ds2's visuals over those of crysis and BFs' any day of the week.

 

[Shion]

More than Uncharted 2. I cannot believe it. How in fucks name did it they blow so much cash on what, imo, was for all intents and purposes, a mid-tier title.

Uncharted is a relatively short, corridor-structured, game.

The scope of Darksiders II was much larger.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Your math is way off.

The cost of employing someone doesn't stop at their salary. You have to pay taxes, insurance, buy equipment and software, keep the lights and ac on... You can more than double the cost of the base pre tax salary per person to calculate how much a games development cost. A team of 100 people will have a burn rate of 20 million plus per year easily with an average salary less than 90,000 dollars per person.

It's almost never advantageous for a developer or publisher to be honest publicly about the real cost of developing a game. Often times when you hear a developer or publisher talking about their production budget they are talking about that 12 month period before ship where the game project is officially in "production", not including the months and years of development on the game that lead to production. $50 million is pretty conservative I think for DS2, and on the low end of AAA development. When people talk about Destiny... That game easily cost well over 250 million dollars in total development. Bungie probably spent about that in just the last two years just keeping their doors open and developers in seats.

Quoting to help offset the "I read somewhere it doesn't work like that", "It can't have cost that much, it wasn't that good", "I bet that was all marketing" and "it was all fat cat manager salaries" posts.

AAA game development costs a lot of money.
Those costs double - at least - with each new hardware generation.

 

[iNvid02]

if the budget was controlled a bit more tightly it could have been successful for them -_-

all i remember from DS2 is loving the art and feeling sad when the PC port had like no graphics options at launch.

 

[binhoker]

Jesus, I was battered by tedium about 13 million dollars in.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

Uncharted is a relatively short, corridor-structured, game.

The scope of Darksiders II was much larger.

As many here probably have too, I've played both games, and even with the larger scope, Darksiders 2 costing $30 million more to make than a game with much higher production values still makes no sense to me. This project was very clearly mismanaged.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I'm sure there was no wasteful spending.

 

[Acorn]

Total cost -- development (pre and post-release), marketing and distribution -- was almost $79m:

The bracketed figure means THQ lost $0.5m despite the game generating $78.2m.

Edit: The data above is from THQ's bankruptcy filing, by the way.

Why does it show a profit for South Park(unreleased by thq) and 1666 (unreleased)?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Quoting to help offset the "I read somewhere it doesn't work like that", "It can't have cost that much, it wasn't that good", "I bet that was all marketing" and "it was all fat cat manager salaries" posts.

AAA game development costs a lot of money.
Those costs double - at least - with each new hardware generation.

Fat cat management was definitely part of the problem for THQ regardless of what AAA games cost to develop. They all left with nice severance packages.

 

[Currygan]

Jesus, I was battered by tedium about 13 million dollars in.

ahahaha, best reply +

 

[ramparter]

Perma-drop the price, maybe 10$, on all online stores, nothing to lose something to gain.

 

[lupinko]

personally, I thought the combat in DS2 was just fine. Thanks Tragic

Well what else do you expect from one of the OGs of Street Fighter and the guy who is pretty much the foundation of the Western Guilty Gear (and by association donjon/animu fighter) community?

 

[Celine]

Why does it show a profit for South Park(unreleased by thq) and 1666 (unreleased)?

Those are projected sales.

 

[Nirolak]

If that's just development then the game cost on par with the industry's flagship gazillion staff military shooters.

 

[Totobeni]

50 million yet the game was a step backward from the original and story felt like a filler (it goes nowhere and didn't advance the story) and the game felt way less epic than the original and because of that the scope/scale was really pointless as the game didn't benefit from it with the lame quests they throw their. it's just insane how much wrong they have done to the sequel.

 

[10k]

The cost of 50 mil with the feel of 20 mil.

20-30 mil is more then enough for a Darksiders like title. Hopefully Nordic can deliver.

 

[Magnus]

God of War 3 cost $44 mil, apparently.

 

[DMiz]

Why does it show a profit for South Park(unreleased by thq) and 1666 (unreleased)?

I'd like to know this, too.

Does anybody have some reference figures for other recognizable titles' development costs? It seems like an awfully large amount of money, but when numbers get THAT big I have a bit of trouble framing things.

 

[Sakujou]

dude,.... ludicrous....

 

[Fonds]

So... Destiny cost 500 mil.

I think content wise DS2 easily has the upper hand here.

 

[sono]

It is a brilliant game. I like Destiny a lot but Darksiders 2 is better so for me the 50 was >300!

 

[∀ Narayan]

I'm speechless. Having dropped the game midway; from what I could see, I assumed the game had a much lower budget.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

$50m isn't that much in AAA development anymore...

 

[Addnan]

How does that compare to other games? I'll take this over Destiny at 500m...

 

[erpg]

25 million for amazing art and 25 million for Jesper Kyd's soundtrack. Makes sense to me.

 

[Corpsepyre]

God of War 3 cost $44 mil, apparently.

If there was one game where it showed, that was it.

 

[Rolf NB]

So, what? How much of that did they spend on the first world and realize they still had the entire rest of the game to make?

Forgelands overworld feels totally rushed. Dungeons are ok, but those fields, ugh.
Kingdom of the dead seems to be the most complete, polished of the worlds. Final one is solid too, but it barely counts because it's so small, ignoring the (amazeballs) dungeon.

 

[ShinMaruku]

And also sell only 30% of D2.

And still make profit. That's why less Japanese studios have gone under.

 

[DeadManWalking]

Well they did that awesome looking CG to promote the game.

 

[IDKAboutThat]

Man, video games need to git gud at budgeting.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

Absolutely ridiculous

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

I'm not at all surprised by that budget, but then, I don't regularly look into how much it costs to make AAA games. Darksiders 2 feels like a high-budget game though, which is maybe a mistake given that there's little following there. I love the Darksiders games to death and really want more of them, but I also know I'm maybe in the minority there.

Im fairly certain I was th only person who liked the turret section.... blowing the shit out of everything

I enjoyed the turret sections in both games. They mixed up the gameplay just well enough for me to go, "Cool I get to shoot things!" while not overstaying their welcome for feeling clunky.

 

[IrishNinja]

Hey now, let's not oversell it. Maybe we could have got 3 in that timespan with that money

you're right; i'm totally not considering spunk-proof gateway chromium Red Monika covers, those can't be cheap

 

[Samir Sedlar]

Sure the 50$million is way too much, but at the same time I don't think this is development money only, I think THQ had a -somewhat- strong marketing for the game.

Now my issue with this is actually Nordic, when I look at Darksiders I see high production values, sure not 50$million, but still, Can Nordic afford to make any sort of Darksiders game ?, Their past titles are not really encouraging, Their low budget won't do the franchise any good.

 

[Trojan]

Jeebus Crikes...this is the problem with AAA games. That is just not sustainable.

 

[zsidane]

ITT: More people who don't understand how much money it costs to make next gen AAA titles.

I would love to hear more about not only how much it costs to make a AAA nextgen title, but also the cost structure.

 

[forrest]

Loved me some Darksiders 2. I think the marketing, that full CG teaser/commercial thing etc. probably ate up a large sum of that budget. I remember this title getting pushed pretty hard.

 

[velociraptor]

It was impressive to me, with tons of great assets that for making battlechasers-style world.

Plus, game had metric shitton of bossess in varying sizes, tons of dungeons, unique locations and phenomenal "statue-work".

I just had to quote this so everyone could see this on the new page. This really is one of the most beautiful games I have played.

Also, the music was epic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yIwPovQKxQ

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Give it to platinum and they will make a better game with probably 30% of that budget.

I love Platinum as much as anyone, but that doesn't mean they can make any game under the sun.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Were there ever any good mods for this (and the first game)?

 

[Triggerhappytel]

too much for a game that didnt use top of the line tech or anything new. marketting maybe, but not the game. crysis 3 was 60 right? but that makes sense being the grpahical powerhouse it is

Are you saying Crysis 3 cost $60 million to develop?! Holy shit; how is that possible -- isn't it about 5 hours long?! There's no way that made its budget back if that's accurate, probably with half as much again for marketing.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Well, Darksiders 2 looked great and it was huge... it took me a lot of time to finish all quests and to find all collectibles. But yeah, 50 millions is still a lot of money. I'm wondering what Nordic Games will do... releasing Darksiders 3 as a game with less content wouldn't look good in the eyes of the fans. Maybe some sort of a spin-off instead of an official sequel?

 

[KKRT00]

Are you saying Crysis 3 cost $60 million to develop?! Holy shit; how is that possible -- isn't it about 5 hours long?! There's no way that made its budget back if that's accurate, probably with half as much again for marketing.

9h and this cost included marketing. Oh and it had multiplayer. 100 people worked on it through 23 months.

 

[DKo5]

I'm surprised GAFers still don't actually know how much games cost to develop these days.

And for those pointing and saying "this is the problem!!!" - do you really think if everyone decided to spend less on development that customers would accept it in the slightest? Every single person here would outrage if development budgets got cut in half, as the games would definitely show it. Shiny things aren't cheap

 

[BlackClouds]

I'd buy it for a dollar in a Steam sale.

 

[dcassell]

I was in LA before the game's release, and THQ went nuts on marketing there at least. Every bus, billboard and blimp (!) Had a poster for darksiders 2

 

[RPGCrazied]

Did they run out of funding? I liked it somewhat, even the Earth level, but end game felt unfinished, and holy hell at that ending.

 

[MadNinjaZero]

This sounds like a reasonable, if a little high, figure for a game of its scope and audience. I haven't had experience working on a combat game but I have known of shooters to cost more than that excluding marketing.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

Beautiful game. An okay OST with a great piece here and there. Absolutely awful storytelling, with an absolutely awful plot. 50m? Blimey, what a waste.

 

[Biker19]

Well, Darksiders 2 looked great and it was huge... it took me a lot of time to finish all quests and to find all collectibles. But yeah, 50 millions is still a lot of money. I'm wondering what Nordic Games will do... releasing Darksiders 3 as a game with less content wouldn't look good in the eyes of the fans. Maybe some sort of a spin-off instead of an official sequel?

I'm hoping we'll see a Darksiders Collection for PS4 & Xbox One.