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Final Fantasy XV Broke Even with Development Costs on Day One
- Thread starter DarkLordMalik
- Start date
As much as I'm dissatisfied with the game, I'm glad they made a profit, because perhaps they can put that into adding more and more content as time goes on.
Nice
Nice
texhnolyze
Banned
That's a lot of money. So the sales from day 2 onwards are to to cover the advertisements.
Congrats, SE.
Congrats, SE.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
How much crow is this game going to serve on GAF?
6+million units is blockbuster territory. The amount of console games that still do those numbers these days are on the decline and the heights that 'some other titles reach' are heights that very, very few games reach in the first place. A game not selling in the same territory as COD, BF, Overwatch, GTAV etc doesn't mean it's not a blockbuster.
6+million units is blockbuster territory. The amount of console games that still do those numbers these days are on the decline and the heights that 'some other titles reach' are heights that very, very few games reach in the first place. A game not selling in the same territory as COD, BF, Overwatch, GTAV etc doesn't mean it's not a blockbuster.
TheSpoiler
Member
That's included in the cost fam.
texhnolyze
Banned
Wow, really?
Right, just remember that the game indeed sold a lot and made the best selling PS4 game in 2016.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
When you see game budget figures, that always includes the marketing budget. In fact, a lot of the time, at least with AAA games, the marketing spend takes up a larger portion of the overall budget than the actual game dev costs do. People talk about ballooning game dev costs, a lot of that is down to advertising. It's a big business.
Jimmyfenix
Member
Very nice.
Disagree Guy
Member
Uncharted 4 was the highest selling ps4 game wasn't it?
Had no significant costs at all. About 2 people worked on that project during the 7 years
True
XV was the best selling PS4 game in amazon tho
With the spotlight back on them, i hope SE uses the money earned and the lessons learned with this game, to ride the wave and release a FFXVI soon, just this time make it complete from day one.
They are in a really good position now, i really hope they don't blow it.
But how they treated the latest showing of FFVIIR tho...
They are in a really good position now, i really hope they don't blow it.
But how they treated the latest showing of FFVIIR tho...
What's so expensive about Versus' 1 year of full-development in '11 for PS3 (~25% done when it was rebooted as FFXV according to Tabata) and, prior to that, 4 years of pre-production with only less than a handful of CG artists working on it that it makes this unbelievable to you?
They must be discounting when the project was Versus XIII, I would be very surprised if this is true.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
Well, I'm going to assume/hope that's not true, 'cause fuck all this ad revenue they're throwing out just so a game can sell 5+ million and be called a "minor success".
Anyways, yeah I totes believe this game paid for itself. Realistically it was being developed from 2012-2016, that's a pretty standard dev cycle.
SinCityAssassin
Member
It's not the fact that it probably made back money by NOW, but it certainly didn't sell that much on Day One.
BossDarkseid
Member
No one ever said that? Unless you mean a gaffer said it.
Tabata said that was the team's lifetime sales goal for the title.
SolidSnakex
Member
People taking Tabata's comment out of context. He said that he set a personal goal of 10m units, but some took that to mean that the it'd need to sell that much just to break even.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Well, I'm going to assume/hope that's not true, 'cause fuck all this ad revenue they're throwing out just so a game can sell 5+ million and be called a "minor success".
Haha it's true, unfortunately. The amount of money it costs to get trailers made, showcase games at events over a year, sometimes two year period, TV ads, web ads and other stuff like invite only press events is just insane. Sometimes more expensive than the actual game development budget.
I mean i read it on here that the game had to sell 10 millions to cover the long development costs.
If nobody of the development team never said that i guess it's part of the usual "lol, FFXV is a failure" crap...
MetalliCabombination
Member
The same people who are trying to spin this into something bad. 10m was always a self goal, if it were something needed to break even, tabata wouldnt have been allowed to blurt out the game's estimated budget in a presscon just like that.
And for the record, break even on day 1 doesnt even necessarily mean exactly 5-6mn copies were needed to cover it. All we know is that it was covered within those 5-6m. Could be all 6 , could be 2. who knows. Im glad it didnt sink them.
personally, i was left a tad disappointed with the game. a fun 8/10 game though.
CosmicGroinPull
Member
Nice. Can we have more content for FFVIIR? I'll pay full price for each chapter.
hydrophilic attack
Member
They must be discounting when the project was Versus XIII, I would be very surprised if this is true.
my understanding is that there was basically no versus team
everyone was working on xiii, then xiv, then arr and versus didn't really get any resources until the project was revamped into xv
before then it was mostly nomura sitting in a room talking to himself, which can't have been too expensive
NinjaCoachZ
Member
NPD had FFXV above Uncharted 4, but they don't track bundles. Counting bundles, UC4 probably did better, but FFXV outsold UC4's solo release.
SporeCrawler
Member
Thats probably what tabata means
They must be discounting when the project was Versus XIII, I would be very surprised if this is true.
FFVsXIII didn't cost dozens of millions to develop up to the point of the game changing into FFXV. It either wasn't in active development at all at times or the team was really small for years after its announcement between 2006-early 2011. It wasn't until mid 2011 when they started to ramp up FFVsXIII's development (prior to that much of the time was spent on figuring out the details of the project, prototyping, creating a vertical slice etc., which doesn't require a team of hundreds) and even then the problems with FFXIV caused delays in Versus XIII's production or in their ability to move forward with its development with as big of a team they'd have needed. By the time it became FFXV, I'm not sure if it had been much more than six months in full development, which is the costly part of game development.
TalentAlwaysWins
Banned
Talent Always Wins.
Death Penalty
Member
Good I guess, but more because I value Final Fantasy as a series than because I wanted XV to succeed. How such a thoroughly mediocre game is performing so well is beyond me, but at least this will give the series a good opportunity to grow past the mess that was XV's development and final product.
Wasn't most of the development for Versus just for those trailers? I think I recall Nomura even saying certain areas were just made the week before trailer release.
That said, seems a lot of resources were wasted on trailers for XV too... seeing as almost nothing from them turned up in the game.
Here's betting literally nothing from the FF7 reboot trailer turns up in the final game.
Fantastic marketing considering what it actually is and how empty it can get.
Stead Fast
Banned
Good to see they at least hit the ground running, if not sprinting like you'd expect from the series in past generations. Here's hoping the push to develop XVI isn't bogged down nearly as much as this was. In the long run, the stigma of being a game consistently being held back, leaving only some niche spinoffs and XIII's controversal legacy didn't help this game's reputation by and large. It sold well, and deservedly so, but not blockbusters.
PhilipDoesMatter
Member
Well although I don't believe them, this certainly show how strong the Final Fantasy franchise is. It has even make a very average game sell a lot.
Go on Square, learn from the mistakes and make a perfect game already.
Go on Square, learn from the mistakes and make a perfect game already.
Dirtyshubb
Member
"But, but 10 years of development means it will never be profitable!"
Great news for the team, and once again shows that many people have no clue when it comes to resource management and how that changes budget.
If you were to believe some people the most expensive games ever made would be FF15 and TLG even though some sane people would point out that it wasnt fully in development for most of those years and as such wouldnt be draining resources.
Great news for the team, and once again shows that many people have no clue when it comes to resource management and how that changes budget.
If you were to believe some people the most expensive games ever made would be FF15 and TLG even though some sane people would point out that it wasnt fully in development for most of those years and as such wouldnt be draining resources.
Because it's pretty far from a "thoroughly mediocre game", it's pretty much the definition of a diamond in the rough. While it does indulge in some sins of open world games and feels rushed, it does enough things differently and well to set it apart from Ubisoft-y open world games & MMOs to offer people a different kind of experience that a lot of people enjoy despite those flaws.
protomouse
Member
That is, of course, excluding marketing costs (such as the CGI movie tie-in), as well as opportunity cost.
If I were in charge, I'd be second-guessing HD development at this point. Mobile is far more lucrative.
If I were in charge, I'd be second-guessing HD development at this point. Mobile is far more lucrative.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
Although i'm not sure if you're just guessing at this, that would make much more sense, considering how long ago it was announced.
Glad to see the game being successful, i enjoyed it very much despite its flaws.
jetsetnickradio
Member
Sort of. They produce a shitload of shows, usually 2 or more shows per season, so their quality isn't always the greatest. But they've produced a lot of great shows over the years and also some pretty big budget ones. So it might be more appropriate to call them a "spread thin" studio... lol
Id agree with this. To me there are 2 types of mediocre games. One is your typical rehashed FPS/TPS/Whatever genre that is competant but unimaginative. That certainly doesnt describe FFXV. The other is a highly ambitious game that falls short of its goals.
To me FFXV is a game with two seperate identities that dispite the teams best efforts failed find a coherent way to bring those two very different visions together. VersusXIII's Yakuza Romeo and Juliet vs Tabata's Buddy Road trip.
Yet that doesnt bother me because the level of ambition in this game is high and it has a bunch of great moments.