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[jarrod]

I think you mean ST4 on DC (or the original ST on PS2) because ST5 did pretty poorly...

　▼　Sakura Taisen: Atsuki Chishio Ni  	      	03.02.27  	PS2  	235,622
　▼　Sakura Taisen Monogatari 	  	  	04.03.18 	PS2 	73,091
　▼　Sakura Taisen V Episode 0 	      	 	04.09.22 	PS2 	61,879
　▼　Sakura Taisen 3  	  	  	  	05.02.24  	PS2  	51,563
　▼　Sakura Taisen 5: Saraba Itoshiki Hito Yo 	05.07.07 	PS2 	145,647

Ack, I was thinking the remake. By the time ST5 finally rolled out, unimpressively at that, I think a lot of the fanbase had given up. :/

 

[NeonZ]

Actually, I guess SRT must've been the reigning champ, but license derivitaive IPs sort of have an unfair advantage.

There are the OG games though, which use no licenses and, even though they didn't match in sales the big licensed ones (like SRW Alpha 3), they pretty much sold better than any other SRPG last year.

 

[Innotech]

hmm. developers need to quit making SRPGs. they are a waste of money and pointless.

 

[schuelma]

I don't like when we fight.

Panther- I apologize for the lowblows. In all honesty, you just seem so damn bitter and negative lately, which I think sucks since it means Amirox got to you.

I honestly didn't, and still don't, understand what you expected me to debate with you. Obvious what I predicted was just that, a prediction.

 

[schuelma]

Wow. Just wow. God forbid someone wants a discussion and cares enough to debate an issue on a point.

If you don't want your comments to be discussed, perhaps keep them to yourself?

I love debates and discussions, but I honestly didn't see what about my prediction was all that discussion worthy- it was just a little observation that might or might not come true.

 

[PantherLotus]

This. This was the original comment that engendered such a fascinating discussion of the intracacies and deeper meaning of the word "legs" :

I'm starting to agree with others that Mario Kart might just beat out Smash Bros. over its lifetime. Smash has really slowed down and I have a feeling Kart will have uber legs.

all due respect shuelma, but we can't be ruled in sales-age by these things you call 'feelings.' show me a chart of MKW vs. SSB weekly sales and we can call it something better: logic.

It went downhill from there.

 

[gtj1092]

I dunno, when's the last time this team launched a new big budget SRPG series? People are acting like there's no established associations or noted investment here, as if Valkria was some low budget effort from some no name developer. Considering the circumstances, this would be an unqualified bomb were it on PS2, I don't see why fumbling excuses are being continually made for it on PS3 (laying blame at near everything *but* the platform).

Yes, Valkyria's a new IP. But it had things going for it basically no other new IP in it's genre had in recent memory (barring maybe ASH, which at least had a shared established developer pedigree... kinda). This isn't an issue of genre, it's an issue of platform, a platform where basically everything but one game (DMC4) has had a similarly dissapointing performance...



It's following through about as well as D3 did actually (which was ~70k after 2 weeks iirc). I guess we'll avoid price collapse though, thanks to retail foresight.

How do you know the budgets of all these games?

 

[Stumpokapow]

How do you know the budgets of all these games?

yeah how exactly do we know that games with hd assets made by massive teams, marketed with hardware bundles, special editions, and prominent in-store advertising cost more than games with sub-sd assets made by five guys in a garage to make?

 

[PantherLotus]

yeah how exactly do we know that games with hd assets made by massive teams, marketed with hardware bundles, special editions, and prominent in-store advertising cost more than games with sub-sd assets made by five guys in a garage to make?

exactly.

i would like to know, though, if any development costs have really ever been released. that stuff is fun and can start talking real success and get into nice debates on profitability.

 

[Cosmonaut X]

yeah how exactly do we know that games with hd assets made by massive teams, marketed with hardware bundles, special editions, and prominent in-store advertising cost more than games with sub-sd assets made by five guys in a garage to make?

Heh. Reminds me of the (short-lived) jabs about No More Heroes after sales figures for it in Japan and the US came in: "Yeah, but how do we know that a game by Suda51 was actually low-budget?"

 

[Stumpokapow]

i would like to know, though, if any development costs have really ever been released. that stuff is be fun and can start talking real success and get into nice debates on profitability.

Marketing costs are now similar in scope to development costs for most higher scale and those are very very very very very rarely released, so even with development costs you're still not looking at a picture suitable for any fruitful analysis.

If you find a marketing person willing to leak marketing costs, though, fire me off a PM. :lol

 

[PantherLotus]

Marketing costs are now similar in scope to development costs for most higher scale and those are very very very very very rarely released, so even with development costs you're still not looking at a picture suitable for any fruitful analysis.

If you find a marketing person willing to leak marketing costs, though, fire me off a PM. :lol

you and me both buddy.

 

[jarrod]

I don't think I did any of the things you allege here (suggesting a level of correlation beyond "more than 0" or holding it up as dramatically more relevant). I merely contested the assertion that "This isn't an issue of genre".

It's easy to see how charley might've been confused though... selectively arguing half statements out of context can do that sort of thing. :lol

 

[gtj1092]

yeah how exactly do we know that games with hd assets made by massive teams, marketed with hardware bundles, special editions, and prominent in-store advertising cost more than games with sub-sd assets made by five guys in a garage to make?

So those things make the games cost more automatically? Companies don't assign budgets to games anymore? They just let their developers design and program to their hearts content. So dynasty warriors automatically cost more than mario galaxy now according to you because, you know all HD games cost more than all SD games.

 

[Stumpokapow]

So those things make the games cost more automatically? Companies don't assign budgets to games anymore? They just let their developers design and program to their hearts content. So dynasty warriors automatically cost more than mario galaxy now according to you because, you know all HD games cost more than all SD games.

hahahaha the best part is that in the middle of arguing for some reason that it's impossible to know budgets for games at least relatively speaking, you make the implicit assumption that you know the relative budgets for two games in order to prove a point that HD doesn't have to cost more than SD.

NICE!

No, not every HD game costs more than every SD game. The average HD game does cost more than the average SD game. The average game made by a large, A-team costs more than the average game by a garage team. The average game that is marketed with a console bundle and in-store advertising budget costs more than the average game whose marketing is a press release and a developer's blog.

Budgets have risen a large amount generation over generation; an astronomical amount if you take into account marketing budgets. In return, developers have seen generally falling sales (in Japan) which are NOT offset by pricepoint increases. Funny you mention KOEI, though, given that their best-selling PS360 game massively missed its publicly released sales target.

I don't know what else to say if you honestly believe that 100k sales is enough for an A-team HD game with mid-heavy marketing to be profitable.

 

[PantherLotus]

How on earth could we know that FFXIII has a higher budget than Brain Training?

 

[Innotech]

Heh. Reminds me of the (short-lived) jabs about No More Heroes after sales figures for it in Japan and the US came in: "Yeah, but how do we know that a game by Suda51 was actually low-budget?"

probably because its true. Valkyrie had a much larger budget than NMH. Its obvious in every single detail. Not to mention Valkyrie has to work in 720p

 

[Vilix]

How on earth could we know that FFXIII has a higher budget than Brain Training?

The same by knowing that the moon wasn't made of cheese before we went up there.

 

[NeonZ]

hmm. developers need to quit making SRPGs. they are a waste of money and pointless.

I like Fire Emblem and SRW style SRPGs because they allow large casts of playable characters, easily reaching numbers higher than 40, something that is rarely seen in standard RPGs.

Of course, if you're talking just from a sales standpoint, you'd be correct about new series, but old ones are still viable.

 

[birdchili]

ubisoft talked about dev costs per game in a recent investor call:

Leading on from this, an Ubisoft executive gave a breakdown of the company's average development costs per game - not often discussed in public - with a DS title costing between 500,000 to 1,000,000 euros ($785,000-$1.57m), PS3/Xbox 360/PC titles averaging 12 million to 18 million euros ($18.8m-$28.2m) to create for all 3 SKUs, and a Wii game expected to cost 5 million to 6 million euros ($7.8-$9m) to develop.

taken from gamasutra's write-up on the call.

 

[Stumpokapow]

ubisoft talked about dev costs per game in a recent investor call:


taken from gamasutra's write-up on the call.

Based on previously released figures, it's likely these numbers include full Euro and NA localization costs as well as marketing costs, and since it's Ubisoft any studio except their Eastern Europe studio or their Shanghai studio is going to include increased development costs (Japanese programmers make VERY LITTLE compared to programmers in Euro or NA devs).

 

[birdchili]

Based on previously released figures, it's likely these numbers include full Euro and NA localization costs as well as marketing costs, and since it's Ubisoft any studio except their Eastern Europe studio or their Shanghai studio is going to include increased development costs (Japanese programmers make VERY LITTLE compared to programmers in Euro or NA devs).

sure. fair enough. i think the ratios are as interesting as anything. i'm not sure that these costs include marketing, but if they don't i imagine the vast majority of the expense is salaries of devs.

1 hd game (for all 3 platforms) ~= 2-3 Wii games

 

[jarrod]

Based on previously released figures, it's likely these numbers include full Euro and NA localization costs as well as marketing costs, and since it's Ubisoft any studio except their Eastern Europe studio or their Shanghai studio is going to include increased development costs (Japanese programmers make VERY LITTLE compared to programmers in Euro or NA devs).

There's also Digital Kids in Japan (which is now part of Ubi).

 

[John Harker]

you and me both buddy.

pretty sure someones done that already once

 

[XiaNaphryz]

How do you know the budgets of all these games?

The first thing to compare is the credits list. The more people who work on a game, the more money spent on their salaries and benefits. Salaries are almost always the biggest chunk of a game's development budget. You can use average salaries by position to make an estimated cost.

 

[Vinnk]

We of course don`t know the costs for most games. But it is pretty easy to get a general ballpark number.

Take the number of staff * the development time and then add some extra money if some of the staff working on the game is well know.

Add some if there is full voice acting add more if the voice actors are known stars.

Then look at how it was advertised.

Press release and many a poster or 2?

Full TV ad campaign?

In store kiosks?


Note: VC had a TV ad campaign but it is much smaller in scope than Mario Kart Wii. However their in store advertising, (at least at the 6 stores) was equal or greater than Mario Kart. There were large kiosks at 2 of the stores. Postcards and flyers available. Famitsu ads. Stand up displays. Etc. I would consider the advertising high profile.

That's why I don't consider it a success. If it was just a small game by a new Dev team who was only able to send out some small flyers to gameshops to get word out, then 80k would be a total victory. But compared to the amount of effort, I cannot imagine that SEGA is throwing a party.

 

[apujanata]

hmm. developers need to quit making SRPGs. they are a waste of money and pointless.

SRPG defense force, I summon thee.

Seriously, as long as developer made profit on SRPG games, I don't see any reason for them to stop doing that.

Even though FE sales might be low (200K+ in Japan), I believe they still turn a profit (especially when combined with US + Europe sales).

 

[PantherLotus]

i think he was asking for concrete numbers to be fair...

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Here's hoping Valkyria has some legs!

Prepare to have your dreams shattered, because I can't see Valkyria being a long term high seller.

 

[gtj1092]

How on earth could we know that FFXIII has a higher budget than Brain Training?

I don't know; how can we? For all we know the designer of Brain Training could make a million dollars a day now that his games are a license to print money . My only point is I hate when people state things as fact. I don't pretend to know what I don't know. People are just making assumptions pieced together from random statements from developers and publishers and applying it to every games development. Of course the cost of game development increases generation to generation. And every generation we get the same spiel that the cost have gone to high and that small developers are going to go out of business and the industry can't sustain the increased developmental cost.

 

[PantherLotus]

Here's a general rule: every single thing on this forum is an opinion. You'll learn if you haven't already that some of those opinions are informed and some are not. Any debate that we engage in is generally on how those opinions are arrived at (like my earlier comments towards my friend shuelma).

Regardless, it's a bit obtuse to not acknowledge that higher-production-values games cost more to produce.

 

[Vinnk]

i think he was asking for concrete numbers to be fair...

Yeah, I wish we had those.

I guess all we really can get is very general ideas.

Does anyone know of a good site to get inforamtion on the size of various dev. teams? A harder number to get whould be the actual production time, because these aren't given very often.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

I don't know; how can we? For all we know the designer of Brain Training could make a million dollars a day now that his games are a license to print money . My only point is I hate when people state things as fact. I don't pretend to know what I don't know. People are just making assumptions pieced together from random statements from developers and publishers and applying it to every games development. Of course the cost of game development increases generation to generation. And every generation we get the same spiel that the cost have gone to high and that small developers are going to go out of business and the industry can't sustain the increased developmental cost.

How many small developers have gone out of business this year so far?

Costs have certainly gone up. There's no question of it.

 

[Vinnk]

I don't know; how can we? For all we know the designer of Brain Training could make a million dollars a day now that his games are a license to print money .

We know.

It turns out he didn't take a penny of it.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMwDe1ovbiILhtf3JKM2Ez79rGvA

 

[jarrod]

edit-dp!

 

[jarrod]

How many small developers have gone out of business this year so far?

To be fair, not many in Japan. Actually, DS seems to be stimulating more small developers moving or getting back into dedicated game platform R&D (ASK is back!). Actually, so is PSP to a lesser extent (Falcom!).


Granted, you're not seeing much new stuff on the HD twinz... though I guess 5BP's Cave ports sorta qualify

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

To be fair, not many in Japan. Actually, DS seems to be stimulating more small developers moving or getting back into dedicated game platform R&D (ASK is back!). Actually, so is PSP to a lesser extent (Falcom!).


Granted, you're not seeing much new stuff on the HD twinz... though I guess 5BP's Cave ports sorta qualify

Well, I think when we're talking rising costs of game development, it's fair to discuss companies outside of Japan. Small developers are obviously taking a different approach to HD in Japan, in that they are ignoring the shit out of it.

 

[Stumpokapow]

People are just making assumptions pieced together from random statements from developers and publishers and applying it to every games development. Of course the cost of game development increases generation to generation. And every generation we get the same spiel that the cost have gone to high and that small developers are going to go out of business and the industry can't sustain the increased developmental cost.

What sparked this conversation is people saying that Valkyria is not going to be profitable and you having a conniption because "psp and ps3 get a bum rap, wii and ds get it easy". I don't know who you're arguing against now, but your initial point was wrong.

Deca Sporta, for example, is a resounding success. It was made by a B-team at a small company with a short dev cycle and very little advertising or promotion. Valkyria, which will almost certainly sell the same number or fewer copies, was made by an A-team at a large company with a longer dev cycle with high dev assets and substantially more promotion.

If you can't crunch that because you have some ontological opposition to putting two and two together, there's not much room for fruitful discussion. It doesn't help matters that your posting history is not exactly a hall of fame of reasoned sales analysis.

 

[Busaiku]

Prepare to have your dreams shattered, because I can't see Valkyria being a long term high seller.

I dunno, it nearly doubled its 1st day figures, so it could have pretty decent legs.

 

[manueldelalas]

How on earth could we know that FFXIII has a higher budget than Brain Training?

Well, a FF game has no chance ever to outsell a Brain Training game, so obviously the budget for BT is much bigger than that of FFXIII. If it wasn't that way Nintendo would be winning money like bastards.

 

[dead souls]

I dunno, it nearly doubled its 1st day figures, so it could have pretty decent legs.

Yes, but it's on the PS3, so signs point to no.

 

[Arde5643]

If you can't crunch that because you have some ontological opposition to putting two and two together, there's not much room for fruitful discussion. It doesn't help matters that your posting history is not exactly a hall of fame of reasoned sales analysis.

The best way to unite 2 warring buddies is a foolishly foolish seasoned foolish fool.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

The best way to unite 2 warring buddies is a foolishly foolish seasoned foolish fool.

*whip!*

 

[Bebpo]

People have a really, really bad idea of development costs when it comes to Japanese developers in the first place because they often go buy Western dev numbers.

A 20 million dollar US developed game can easily be a 5 million dollar JPN developed game simply on the far lower wages in game development in Japan. A lot of Japanese games are made for diiiiiirt cheap.

/Not saying this applies to Valkyria either way (going by the textures, effects, etc... it seems like it probably costs slightly more than ST5).

 

[Sharp]

We know.

It turns out he didn't take a penny of it.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMwDe1ovbiILhtf3JKM2Ez79rGvA

That article's a bit frightening. He doesn't sound like the sort of man I'd want to meet.

 

[Rocksteady33]

That article's a bit frightening. He doesn't sound like the sort of man I'd want to meet.

I'd be way too fucking nervous when I'd have to say blue. He'd probably shoot you.

 

[JudgeN]

Isn't Valkyria having a worldwide release? Why does it need to profitable in one region already? Unless now we saying its going to bomb hard in US and Europe, which could be the case but it could not be the case.

 

[donny2112]

For them, who are interested in, here´s the japanese All-Time Top30 [Famitsu]:


Rank / System / Title / First week / LTD / Publisher / LTD´s till

#1 includes Yellow.
#2 includes Crystal.

Thanks for the chart.

Here, I made a quick chart tracking the cumulative sales of the top three 2008 releases by week:

Nice chart.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Why is Panther not allowed to post charts?

 

[donny2112]

I'm not 100% sure, as it seems he posted his charts for this week just fine. There was one thread where he posted his "Why Wii won't get 3rd-party exclusives" chart (or one of that set) for the dozenth time, and Amir0x freaked on him threatening bannage if he kept spamming his charts. As far as I know, it wasn't a complete moratorium on his chart output, though.