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[TimeKillr]

Let's break it down.

$48,000: Staff Salaries - 8 people for 10 weeks
Makes sense - this is low salaries, people. As someone else mentioned, this is 600$/week per person, pre taxes. This is ridiculously low.

$30,000: Animation and Clean-up Contracting
That is a bit expensive, but it's the costs of outsourcing, not to mention that clean up is pretty costly.

$4,000: Voice recording
That sounds about right. If they go professional recording, they need to pay the voice actors the pre-defined amount from their union (it's this way in Canada - there's 2 separate unions and they have pre-set prices per line). Some people might say this is high, but you gotta factor in calling back old voice actors because they might need extra lines for interactions with the new character.

$2,000: Hit-box Contracting
I wonder who they outsource this to. My guess is they'd probably outsource it to a lone game designer, but even then this is at *least* a one-week job, maybe two. You gotta factor in balance with every other character.

$5,000: Audio Implementation Contracting
Audio programmers don't come cheap, and syncing of audio with a lot of other stuff is a lot of work.

$20,000: QA Testing
This sounds about right, too. QA is expensive, especially if you outsource it, because those QA farms are not cheap. The reason they're that expensive is that if you have in-house QA, you have to pay them during downtime and in the end it costs more than outsourcing a QA farm for 2 months.

$10,000: 1st Party Certification
Yeah, cert is fucking expensive and takes forever, not to mention if they fuck with you, you'll not only have to fix what they decide should be fixed (sometimes it's bullshit) but you have to pay AGAIN to re-cert. I wonder too if this includes ESRB/CERO/whatever certs, as these aren't too cheap either.

$10,500: IndieGoGo and Payment Processing Fees
The hidden costs of crowd-funding!

$20,500: Manufacturing and Shipping Physical Perks
So that people pledge more, you have to pay more. It sucks but it's what it is.

It's entirely reasonable, imo.

 

[JWong]

People without industry experience never think about these cost.
So every time I see a "What's so hard about doing this?" about adding features or content, I just shake my head.

I think their QA numbers are a bit bloated, or they have 5 QA working per week. Other than that, it looks quite right.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

Eight people to do one character plus all sorts of out-sourcing... yeesh. That's ridiculous. It doesn't take eight people to design, model, texture, rig, and animate a 3d model so why does it take all this to do a 2D character?

 

[Alienous]

Wow so many of you think this is inefficient... When I saw the thread title I thought, "eh, seems about right", and when I saw that 10 weeks of work for 8 people who likely have very valuable skillsets was 6,000 per person... I don't know how you guys could think that is too much.

I mean, Capcom desperately avoided making new sprites for like 10 years and then went 3D with the new SF. Doesn't that say something about how expensive this whole process can be? 150k is nothing...

And anybody complaining about that last item clearly hasn't paid attention to any other crowd sourcing effort. Watch Double Fine Adventure. Those perks that convince people to donate large amounts eat up a loooot of the final budget. So the amount of cash you see on a service like this, shave off a healthy chunk of whatever the number is when the fundraising period is over.

Surely while you are paying these people, you would also be working on other content simultaneously. It's like an animation studio working on one episode at a time, it seems inefficient.

 

[Dachande]

That's ridiculous. It doesn't take eight people to design, model, texture, rig, and animate a 3d model so why does it take all this to do a 2D character?

What? Yes, it actually does take 8 people - more than that, actually - to implement a 3D character.

 

[Lathentar]

Eight people to do one character plus all sorts of out-sourcing... yeesh. That's ridiculous. It doesn't take eight people to design, model, texture, rig, and animate a 3d model so why does it take all this to do a 2D character?

That stuck out to me as well. I'd love to hear a breakdown of all the responsibilities. I'd imagine 2 programmers, a designer and an artist to concept and keyframe the character would be all you'd need.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

What? Yes, it actually does take 8 people - more than that, actually - to implement a 3D character.

A character modeller can do the uv/texturing. Animator can do the rigging. Programmer does the rest. That's three people, four if you want to hire a voice actor, five if you need a designer to do the conceptual work. Remember they are also outsourcing.

Since this is a 2D game, you basically just need a designer and animator, which would ideally be the same person, and a programmer. But since the collision is being out-sourced, it doesn't really leave much work for the programmer.
So you hire the artist to work most of the time (animation will take the longest) and bring in the programmer to do just a few weeks of code. With this set-up, you could pay an artist $3,000 a month for three months to do the animation ($9,000) - given that Skull Girls isn't done with pixel art and doesn't require thousands of frames of animation, this should be doable.
Plus a programmer for three weeks to do the programming ($2,300). Bam, I just saved you about $140,000 and you have a new character to add to the line-up.

I don't really get the point of adding a new character, though, it's not as if that will suddenly make the game a huge success. I'd wager this is a way to line their pocketbooks since the game underperformed.

 

[VariantX]

Eight people to do one character plus all sorts of out-sourcing... yeesh. That's ridiculous. It doesn't take eight people to model, texture, rig, and animate a 3d model so why does it take all this to do a 2D character?

Because 2D hand drawn art is expensive and time consuming. These characters have well over 1000+ unique frames of animation, which then need to be touched up, then colored in. Then you have to do hit/hurt boxes for each and every frame on top of that as well. Its just a lot of work no matter how you look at it.

 

[Lathentar]

Because 2D hand drawn art is expensive and time consuming. These characters have well over 1000+ unique frames of animation, which then need to be touched up, then colored in. Then you have to do hit/hurt boxes for each and every frame on top of that as well. Its a lot of work

But according to the breakdown, Animation and Clean-up as well as Hit box work is contracted out. So...

 

[Dachande]

A character modeller can do the uv/texturing. Animator can do the rigging. Programmer does the rest. That's three people, four if you want to hire a voice actor, five if you need a designer to do the conceptual work. Remember they are also outsourcing.

You're assuming that one animator is enough to handle all animations for that character in a reasonable timeframe. You're also assuming that one programmer is enough to implement the character. I'm going to say that this is extremely highly unlikely in 95% of all dev situations.

On top of this, you're also assuming an animator will do the rigging. This isn't necessarily the case, many companies have dedicated riggers because the animators are so busy actually animating.

And you're assuming that the one character modeller will do the UV and texture work, which isn't always true. Plus you've left out the potential for a model sculptor to create an initial high-res model in Zbrush, which many HD 3D games will go for because the resulting in-game model will fare far better for it.

Yes, they're outsourcing - but they're outsourcing the inbetween animations. All the keyframes are done in-house.

EDIT:

Since this is a 2D game, you basically just need a designer and animator, which would ideally be the same person, and a programmer. But since the collision is being out-sourced, it doesn't really leave much work for the programmer.
So you hire the artist to work most of the time (animation will take the longest) and bring in the programmer to do just a few weeks of code. With this set-up, you could pay an artist $3,000 a month for three months to do the animation ($9,000) - given that Skull Girls isn't done with pixel art and doesn't require thousands of frames of animation, this should be doable.
Plus a programmer for three weeks to do the programming ($2,300). Bam, I just saved you about $140,000.

What the fuck is this? The designer and animator the same person? Still sticking with only one programmer needed? One animator 3 months to do thousands of frames of animation? Are you on crack? You don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

[Coldsnap]

videogames expensive to make yo

 

[Uncle Rupee]

You're assuming that one animator is enough to handle all animations for that character in a reasonable timeframe. You're also assuming that one programmer is enough to implement the character. I'm going to say that this is extremely highly unlikely in 95% of all dev situations.

On top of this, you're also assuming an animator will do the rigging. This isn't necessarily the case, many companies have dedicated riggers because the animators are so busy actually animating.

And you're assuming that the one character modeller will do the UV and texture work, which isn't always true. Plus you've left out the potential for a model sculptor to create an initial high-res model in Zbrush, which many HD 3D games will go for because the resulting in-game model will fare far better for it.

Yeah, if we're talking the major dev studios. I'm talking about a 3D character made by a small indie developer. It's a completely different ball park. And yeah, the modeler who does the Zbrush would be able to do the low-res mesh, UVs, and texture work. You think all these little devs making 3D iPhone games have specialists in every category to break down all these jobs? Most likely they have talented staff that can wear multiple hats to keep dev costs down.

What the fuck is this? The designer and animator the same person? Still sticking with only one programmer needed? One animator 3 months to do thousands of frames of animation Are you on crack?

They're not making an entire game from scratch - they're just adding one extra character to the roster. Nor do the SkullGirls characters contain thousands of frames of animation - look at any video of the game. 90 days x 10 frames of animation a day = 900 frames, should cover most of the animation needs (games cut up all actions into bite-sized portions usually less than 1 second long, and it's not like 2D games are animated at film-quality 24 fps).
Hiring one programmer should be enough since they should have a framework in place to make adding characters to the game very easy and not very time-consuming.

 

[Roubjon]

. With this set-up, you could pay an artist $3,000 a month for three months to do the animation ($9,000) - given that Skull Girls isn't done with pixel art and doesn't require thousands of frames of animation, this should be doable.

I don't really get the point of adding a new character, though, it's not as if that will suddenly make the game a huge success. I'd wager this is a way to line their pocketbooks since the game underperformed.

Except, every single frame is hand drawn. So it does require that many frames of animation. Which is why they need to outsource a lot of the animation. Which is why the cost is what it is. I'm not going to pretend like I know tons about this processs, but you are certainly simplifying the process to a ridiculous level.

And I'm pretty sure they are adding another character because they want to. it's their project and they wanted to constantly expand upon it since it's release, but shit happens. And the game didn't really underperform, at least to my knowledge.

 

["God's Beard!"]

They're not making an entire game from scratch - they're just adding one extra character to the roster. Nor do the SkullGirls characters contain thousands of frames of animation - look at any video of the game.
Hiring one programmer should be enough since they should have a framework in place to make adding characters to the game very easy and not very time-consuming.

You're way out of touch here.

 

[Mileena]

Money down the drain for a game nobody cares or will ever care about.

It's just the sad truth. It's a nice, well intended project; I guess; but the general creepy animu because lets be honest, the character design makes it look like the entire game is a side project for one of those creepy hentai books makes it impossible to sell to the general public. The entire game has that mugen project feel

Indie fighting games are always welcome, but this title is so incredibly niche!

This is the truth. Sucks because Mike Z is a 3s player but this game shouldn't exist. It's not good, no one in the FGC really takes it serious. Can it really be making them money?

 

[Hip Hop]

That's $600 a week per person. Does that really sound like a lot to you?

That's sounds golden to me. Right here in Arizona, you'd be ballin'.

 

[darkblade77]

They're not making an entire game from scratch - they're just adding one extra character to the roster. Nor do the SkullGirls characters contain thousands of frames of animation - look at any video of the game.
Hiring one programmer should be enough since they should have a framework in place to make adding characters to the game very easy and not very time-consuming.

Objectively false statements, enough to make me wonder if you've actually watched 'any video of the game'... Playing armchair manager must be fun.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";48241830]You're way out of touch here.[/QUOTE]

For an indie dev? Really? You know they have prefabs for tons of stuff that have already been implemented. Even if you double, triple, or quadruple my estimate you are still nowhere near $150k :/

 

[mclem]

Eight people to do one character plus all sorts of out-sourcing... yeesh. That's ridiculous. It doesn't take eight people to design, model, texture, rig, and animate a 3d model so why does it take all this to do a 2D character?

Movesets, move-specific special-case code, infrastructure and integration into the existing game...

 

[darkblade77]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFW2alyANL4

Here's a video of their art process.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

For an indie dev? Really? You know they have prefabs for tons of stuff that have already been implemented. Even if you double, triple, or quadruple my estimate you are still nowhere near $150k :/

Besides the fact that you're acting like all indie dev studios are identical, you are making a LOT of assumptions about stuff you obviously don't know much about.

 

[Master Milk]

They're not making an entire game from scratch - they're just adding one extra character to the roster. Nor do the SkullGirls characters contain thousands of frames of animation - look at any video of the game. 90 days x 10 frames of animation a day = 900 frames, should cover most of the animation needs (games cut up all actions into bite-sized portions usually less than 1 second long, and it's not like 2D games are animated at film-quality 24 fps).
Hiring one programmer should be enough since they should have a framework in place to make adding characters to the game very easy and not very time-consuming.

lol, the irony is that while you're correct about the bolded, your implication proves you obviously have no idea what you're talking about

 

[Coolwhip]

Yep, that's one way to make videogames very expensive to make.

 

[Chev]

A character modeller can do the uv/texturing. Animator can do the rigging. Programmer does the rest. That's three people, four if you want to hire a voice actor, five if you need a designer to do the conceptual work. Remember they are also outsourcing.

You'll find this is not how it works at many studios for 3D characters. In some cases you'll have different persons for head/body/clothes modeling(or even cases like Naughty dog where they have a butt sculpting specialist), several concept artists, a dedicated rigger, possibly a dedicated modeler for retopo, several animators, an animation script specialist. Game models aren't as simple as they used to be.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

Objectively false statements, enough to make me wonder if you've actually watched 'any video of the game'... Playing armchair manager must be fun.

Bloating the numbers must also be fun.
Do you think Dust: An Elysian Tail had eight people plus outsourcing to create each of its character sprites?

You'll find this is not how it works at many studios for 3D characters. In some cases you'll have different persons for head/body/clothes modeling(or even cases like Naughty dog where they have a butt sculpting specialist), several concept artists, a dedicated rigger, possibly a dedicated modeler for retopo, several animators, an animation script specialist. Game models aren't as simple as they used to be.

No shit, I'm talking about a small dev similar in size to the one that made Skullgirls.

lol, the irony is that while you're correct about the bolded, your implication proves you obviously have no idea what you're talking about

Read that back to yourself and ask if it makes sense.

 

[Zoe]

As far as the wages go, while it says 8 people for 10 weeks, that doesn't necessarily mean that all 8 people will be dedicating 100% of their time towards this project for 10 full weeks.

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

More information like this needs to be released and then maybe we would have less people just throwing out the "reduce the budget" line when talking about games that failed.

 

[darkblade77]

Bloating the numbers must also be fun.
Do you think Dust: An Elysian Tail had eight people plus outsourcing to create each of its character sprites?

Dust took years to make, featured one character, and said character made pretty heavy use of rigging. And those aren't strikes against the game, it looks great and animates well.

This is about making a character who isn't using any procedural tech to animate in the space of a few months.

You talk about bloating the numbers, but your numbers don't even line up with reality so far. How about some evidence that traditional 2D animation of this level of detail can be that cheap to produce, instead of what is at best some napkin math that only makes sense to you?

 

[Hi i'm Caleb]

You are implying, and it sounds like a lot because it is. Maybe Kotaku will hire you.

 

[diffusionx]

More information like this needs to be released and then maybe we would have less people just throwing out the "reduce the budget" line when talking about games that failed.

This goes beyond games. Most people are just clueless about budgeting and financing, and more info wouldn't change that. The federal government makes its budget publicly available and people don't have a single clue about it based on political debates and talking points.

I've seen other threads where people say that a $75,000 salary in the Bay Area is ludicrously lavish.

 

[TheExodu5]

Wow, those salaries are really low. Sad.

 

[SovanJedi]

Yes, everything there sounds pretty reasonable, actually quite cheap. There's a shit-ton of work that goes into 2D animation AND fighting game characters - don't underestimate the manpower that's required to make this happen.

 

[DiscoShark]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFW2alyANL4

Here's a video of their art process.

To expand on this point, here's a set of videos taken from SG at AOD2013 talking specifically with the animators of the game about the art process and what goes into making each character. It gets more relevant in the second half but definitely check out Parts 6(second half) to Part 9 where it goes into everything from sound design to the development of Squigly herself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShC1o2SwkkI&list=PLyv08xUBuVkKMtgq47JwntBt87QSwqZzo

May be enlightening to some who underestimate the amount of work that goes into making a character and whether these prices are justified.

Spoiler

Thanks Sloth

 

[Risette]

Read that back to yourself and ask if it makes sense.

Skullgirls is animated in the same way animated films/TV that aren't American big budget spectacle are (anime, foreign shorts, etc), ie not a full 24 at all times but alternating multiples of 60 (since the game runs at 60Hz.) Everything is drawn by hand. You have no idea what you're talking about, especially how difficult animation is regardless of framerate.

Because I don't want to leave the post on such a bad note, here's some of Bahi JD's Skullgirls unfinished/rough animations:

 

[Takuan]

I can appreciate the amount of dedication these guys have to their project, but anyone with a lick of business sense would simply have pulled the plug a while ago. It's not a viable business model.

 

[Kai Dracon]

During primary production of a full game, where say you have 20 characters - does efficiency related to economy of scale kick in? In other words, is making a single DLC character likely to be more expensive than 2 characters created at the same time during primary game development?

I can appreciate the amount of dedication these guys have to their project, but anyone with a lick of business sense would simply have pulled the plug a while ago. It's not a viable business model.

I'm under the impression that Skullgirls is pretty much being made for the community without expectation it would probably blow up into a significant hit. The PC version/DLC characters seem to fall more under the category of "finishing up the game" to a respectable degree for the fans.

I imagine if the team goes to work on a new idea after this there will be different considerations with this experience under the belt.

 

[darkblade77]

I can appreciate the amount of dedication these guys have to their project, but anyone with a lick of business sense would simply have pulled the plug a while ago. It's not a viable business model.

The plug wasn't pulled because the studio underperformed. Game actually sold well. The publisher is on record as wanting to fund more entries in the series.

The reason these guys are out of work has nothing to do with the game they made, but rather that the publisher and its funds are tied up in legal hell.

 

[Master Milk]

I can appreciate the amount of dedication these guys have to their project, but anyone with a lick of business sense would simply have pulled the plug a while ago. It's not a viable business model.

Anyone with a lick of business sense wouldn't be making video games, they'd be in banking.

The only real problem with the game's finances come from their publisher getting sued which cut off their salaries. If they had been able to continue working on the game like they'd originally planned, they wouldn't have had to seek crowdfunding, the roster would likely be at 11 or 12 by now, and the PC version could possibly be out already as well. In short, there's nothing really wrong with their business model.

 

[Xiaoki]

not only that, but the animation is straight up newgrounds flash awful. like contact is made from a fist, the character jumps to some weird face, and there is an awkward delay and slowdown throughout the entire game for these animations.

Skullgirls has the best animation for a 2-D fighting game.

The character with the lowest number of frames for Skullgirls is double the highest for KoF13 and is a bit higher than the highest for SF3.

Skullgirls may have a questionable art style or game play but in terms of animation it is unlikely to ever be beat.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Skullgirls has the best animation for a 2-D fighting game.

The character with the lowest number of frames for Skullgirls is double the highest for KoF13 and is a bit higher than the highest for SF3.

Skullgirls may have a questionable art style or game play but in terms of animation it is unlikely to ever be beat.

To be fair to criticism of the game's animation, there's more to animation than framecount.

Insulting it and calling it "flash" is hyperbole, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed by the style of animation. It has a huge number of frames, but it doesn't snap and flow as well as say, 3rd Strike's animation and characters sometimes look cluttered. Difficult to read.

Same reason why Arc System Works' animation is often criticized even when one of their characters has a decent number of animation frames.

 

[JordanN]

5k for a voice acting session? Shit, just grab Julie from the reception desk and have her grunt into the Mic for 20 minutes .

This is something I always want to do if I make a game. Get some practice and voice the characters yourself.

 

[Quackula]

This is something I always want to do if I make a game. Get some practice and voice the characters yourselves.

Could always do what WD did and hire local stage actors.

 

[danmaku]

To be fair to criticism of the game's animation, there's more to animation than framecount.

Insulting it and calling it "flash" is hyperbole, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed by the style of animation. It has a huge number of frames, but it doesn't snap and flow as well as say, 3rd Strike's animation and characters sometimes look cluttered. Difficult to read.

Same reason why Arc System Works' animation is often criticized even when one of their characters has a decent number of animation frames.

That's because of the art style. The moves in SF3 are more "realistic" movements (punches and kicks, basically), in Skullgirls and in ArcSys games even the simplest moves has very bizarre animations, with lots of things going on, and the result looks harder to read. When you push LP, Ryu simply throws a punch. A Skullgirls character will usually do a piroette, then stretch her arm and and umbrella will come out, open and hit the opponent.

 

[Zoe]

This is something I always want to do if I make a game. Get some practice and voice the characters yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyNjSAv_OuY

 

[Delusibeta]

In this thread: people failing to realise you can only ever have two out of Good, Cheap and Fast.

 

[JordanN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyNjSAv_OuY

Eh, I'm not sure what this is suppose to mean. That unenthusiastic voice actors will sound different?

 

[Zoe]

Eh, I'm not sure what this suppose to mean. That unenthusiastic voice actors will sound different?

That's an example of a company (or rather, their family) voicing a game themselves.

 

[joe2187]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFW2alyANL4

Here's a video of their art process.

This video really needs to be put into the OP for some perspective.

I did some digging and learned alot about some of the budgets for other animated projects.

An episode of SpongeBob Squarepants is about 500K
An Episode of Avatar the last air bender is near 1 Mil
Ponyo the movie was reportedly cost 470K.....PER MINUTE for a 101 minute movie
A current CG Animated show cost nearly 400K to 1.2 Mil an episode
A family guy episode is more than 1 mil an episode
A typical anime show in japan would cost around 175k to 300K per episode (depending on the quality of animation)

 

[Zoe]

Huh, two posts got deleted?

 

[GoddyofAus]

10 grand for first party certification? That is just obscene.