The business of game development *spawn

[Ghostz]

Only for restructuring.
PS2, PSP and DS are low selling so yes, dropping them could maybe be a valid proposition. But if you're advocating platform exclusivity as the most profitable path for a publisher, why didn't you answer Ostepop by suggesting EA should become a Wii-only developer? Why are you including XB360 and PS3 in their projects, and not suggesting FIFA and Madden would make a load more money if they were platform exclusive?

This makes little sense to me. It costs on average $20 million to make a title for a platform. It cost...$1 million to port it. Thus for a game each on PS3 and XB360, a publisher would either have to spend $40 million for two exclusives, or $21 million for one title ported. What little I've seen of financials and publisher behaviour, that extra $1 million to port is generating a lot better ROI than putting it part-way towards a platform exclusive. Of course are there are cases where the effort isn't deemed worth it, so you won't see every title ported always and you'll be able to find examples of exclusivity, but that's far from the norm especially these days.

First of all, assuming porting costs are only 1 million dollars which I don't believe, whose only spending 21 million dollars for multi-target software that's selling 5 million units?

The biggest multi-platform titles are spending far more than 20 million dollars, for it to be worth, you have to. Lets be honest. Assassins Creed, Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto, isn't working for everybody. If you were to ask me if I thought Bioshock 2 was profitable, my answer would be a resounding no.

I used EA as an example of this: reducing the number of platforms it supports, being that they are already a multi-target developer and publisher. At the micro-level they will reduce the capital investment of multi-target software. It's inevitable.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

You are assuming that you can't amass more revenue by doing 2 games at 60 dollars over one platform, then 1 game that's multi-target

No. Your just failing to see that since porting the game will allways be cheap, there is no economical reasoning that implies that you should not port your sucessfull games.

If your 2 games sell well, there is nothing stopping you from investing a fraction of the dev cost to port it, and sell it on other platforms aswell. And generate insane high ROI on those projects if looked as standalone.

This is where your logic flaws. If you can create successfull games for one platform, there is no reason to believe they would not be successfull on other platforms, except in certain cases. Since porting costs are a fraction of development costs, you can "allways" increase your ROI by porting it over to new platforms.

Your numbers don't add up: Insomniac is a more profitable company, then the company that's putting out Final Fantasy every 4 or 5 years.

Aside from the fact that i dont really understand your obsession of talking about anectodal evidence that are unrelated to the topic at hand:
I dont understand why your trying to talk about insomniac vs square-enix (FF makes). S-E makes a tons of games, not just FF. They released 34 games in 2009 . And they had net profits of 89$ million from april-dec 2009. Insomniac released 1 game in 2009, and made a lot less than that. (Not that i understand why you are comparing profitability for these companies. Similarly, like your statement about EA's y-o-y figures was equally absurd).

If you want to keep going this absurd route of arguing :

Spoiler

Who is the most profitable developer in the world right now? Infinity Ward.What do they make? 1 title every 2 years that is multiplatform. (PC,X360,PS3)

Why is it multiplatform? Because multiplatform is what maximizes profits for infinty ward. If there was any reason to believe otherwise, as rational profit maximisers they would go single platform. Just look at the trends. "Everybody" who is not getting paid off, is going multiplatform.

Your example fails to take into account there's more spending in multi-format titles, more lead time in development. For the cost of GTA or MW; assuming you had 5 different Bungie's or Insomniac's, you could get 5 titles done with the same resources as a single format. This is much more efficient.

Do you know how cheap MW was to make? Do you know how ridiculously low cost it is to actually port a game? Do you know how one ports a game?

Basically, create the game for one platform. Then set a bunch of coders to rewrite the code to make it run on another. You do not have to spend time on developing the art etc, all assets are already created from the originial game. Its just programming work, and programming is cheap, its just hiring a bunch of coders that get paid less than 100k a year. You dont even need many of them. 20 coders will do fine.

Your timing argument makes no sense whatsoever from a financial perspective, as any game that is under development that has expected postitive NPV, will get financing and thus the company can hire more people to get the job within same timeframe.

 

[obonicus]

A lot of this was discussed in the thread about Kotick's thread to 'stop supporting Sony', I think.

 

[Ghostz]

No. Your just failing to see that since porting the game will allways be cheap, there is no economical reasoning that implies that you should not port your sucessfull game.

If your 2 games sell well, there is nothing stopping you from investing a fraction of the dev cost to port it, and sell it on other platforms aswell.



Aside from the fact that i dont really understand your obsession of talking about anectodal evidence:
I dont understand why your trying to talk about insomniac vs square-enix (FF makes). S-E makes a tons of games, not just FF. They released 34 games in 2009 . And they had net profits of 89$ million from april-dec 2009. Insomniac released 1 game in 2009, and made a lot less than that. (Not that i understand why you are comparing profitability for these companies. Similarly, like your statement about EA's y-o-y figures was equally absurd).

Who is the most profitable developer in the world right now? Infinity Ward.What do they make? 1 title every 2 years that is multiplatform. (PC,X360,PS3)

Why is it multiplatform? Because multiplatform is what maximizes profits for infinty ward. If there was any reason to believe otherwise, as rational profit maximisers they would go single platform. Just look at the trends. "Everybody" who is not getting paid off, is going multiplatform.



Do you know how cheap MW was to make? Do you know how ridiculously low cost it is to actually port a game? Do you know how one ports a game?

Basically, create the game for one platform. Then set a bunch of coders to rewrite the code to make it run on another. You do not have to spend time on developing the art etc. Its just programming work, and programming is cheap, its just hiring a bunch of coders that get paid less than 100k a year. You dont even need many of them.

Your timing argument makes no sense whatsoever from a financial perspective, as any game that is under development that has expected postitive NPV, will get financing and thus the company can hire more people to get the job within same timeframe.

I am talking Final Fantasy specifically. Not Square Enix's total product life cycle. You keep twisting my argument to fit a strawman.

Assuming Final Fantasy achieve its series average of about 7 million units, it took 4 years of development. In that 4 years, Insomniac has released 4 titles with the average of 2 million units and along with DLC. Simple mathematics. Who's more profitable?

If my 2 games sell well, I wouldn't be wasting time porting it to other platforms. I already have a fixed budget and it doesn't include multi-target system. I would move on to my next project, DLC maybe a full expansion into the sequel.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

First of all, assuming porting costs are only 1 million dollars which I don't believe, whose only spending 21 million dollars for multi-target software that's selling 5 million units?

1. Why do on earth are you talking about selling 5 million units?

2. MW1 probably costed around 20 million. Call of Duty 2 which sold around 5 million copies on the X360, costed no more than 2-3 million to port from the PC.

The biggest multi-platform titles are spending far more than 20 million dollars, for it to be worth, you have to.

No. The biggest multiplatform titles are spending far more than 20 million, because BIG TITLES HAVE BIG BUDGETS.You know? To make cool games and shit?

KZ2 & GoW3 both cost 50 million. MW2 dev costs did not exeed that figure. You dont need to spend some astronomical figure because your game is multiplatform. 90% of all console games are multiplatform, and on average they cost 20 million.

Porting costs are probably 1-2 million on average for most titles that are created by competent developers that keep in mind platform differences when creating the code.

The rest of your post is nonsense. GTA didn't cost 100 million because it was multiplatform. It cost 100million because they developed the game for 4 years with a huge number of people working on it. Multiplatform had nothing to do with it.

I used EA as an example of this: reducing the number of platforms it supports, being that they are already a multi-target developer and publisher.

This example does not prove anything. EA will ofcourse reduce the number of platform it supports, because certain platforms are DYING and demand is closing down to zero. As soon as there is another gaming platform that opens up with attractive demand, they will start developing for that aswell.

 

[London Geezer]

Assuming Final Fantasy achieve its series average of about 7 million units, it took 4 years of development. In that 4 years, Insomniac has released 4 titles with the average of 2 million units. Simple mathematics. Who's more profitable?

Are you implying that that FF13 was 4 years in development is correlated to - or even caused by - the fact that it's multi-platform? Because it's clear that it is not, to a large extent. It might have delayed it a little bit, but the bulk of development (and costs) of a game like FF13 is the monumental set pieces, the art, the design - all of which only need to be done once, thank God.
They did not spend much time and effort on the port to the 360, as evidenced by the final product.
Maybe I just don't understand your reasoning.

EDIT: or what he said...

GTA didn't cost 100 million because it was multiplatform. It cost 100million because they developed the game for 4 years with a huge number of people working on it. Multiplatform had nothing to do with it.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

congrats on ignoring or not understanding anything people try to reply to you.
Try replying to what people write to you, instead of going on in the same flawed argument without countering what people reply to you. That is you know, a proper discussion. Just repeating your same flawed argument without taking into acount what other people are saying, is a waste of mine time and yours.

Assuming Final Fantasy achieve its series average of about 7 million units, it took 4 years of development. In that 4 years, Insomniac has released 4 titles with the average of 2 million units. Simple mathematics. Who's more profitable?

You have no idea without knowing dev budget. And FF series dont take 4 years to develop because its multiplatform.

Further. If you had actually READ what people say to you:

Infinity ward releases 1 game ever 2 years, on PC,X360,PS3. On average they sell 6+ million copies. Their dev budgets are not bigger than insomniac's... (I still dont understand what the point of you mentioning S-E or Insomniac is).

You have ignored 3 times now, the basic argument that porting is very cheap (this is KNOWN UNDISPUTABLE FACT. ASK ANY DEV HERE), and that if your game is successfull on one platform, you can port it for cheap costs and sell it to another market. Making more money!!?!?!?!?

Now try to read my post again, understand it, come up with a meaningful reply. Otherwise its not worth my time.

Its quite easy to see, that if you actually understood how porting is done, you would realize why multiplatform is king for profits. And you would have understood this if youd actually read what other people where saying, instead of replying with some absurd completely unrelated crap

 

[Ghostz]

1. Why do on earth are you talking about selling 5 million units?

2. MW1 probably costed around 20 million. Call of Duty 2 which sold around 5 million copies on the X360, costed no more than 2-5 million to port from the PC.




No. The biggest multiplatform titles are spending far more than 20 million, because BIG TITLES HAVE BIG BUDGETS.You know? To make cool games and shit?

KZ2 & GoW3 both cost 50 million. MW2 dev costs did not exeed that figure. You dont need to spend some astronomical figure because your game is multiplatform. 90% of all console games are multiplatform, and on average they cost 20 million.

Porting costs are probably 1-2 million on average for most titles that are created by competent developers that keep in mind platform differences when creating the code.

The rest of your post is nonsense. GTA didn't cost 100 million because it was multiplatform. It cost 100million because they developed the game for 4 years with a huge number of people working on it. Multiplatform had nothing to do with it.




This example does not prove anything. EA will ofcourse reduce the number of platform it supports, because certain platforms are DYING and demand is closing down to zero. As soon as there is another gaming platform that opens up with attractive demand, they will start developing for that aswell.

I don't know how accurate this but according to this source MW 2 took 40-60 million to produce

 

[Ghostz]

congrats on ignoring or not understanding anything people try to reply to you.
Try replying to what people write to you, instead of going on in the same flawed argument without countering what people reply to you. That is you know, a proper discussion. Just repeating your same flawed argument without taking into acount what other people are saying, is a waste of mine time and yours.




You have no idea without knowing dev budget. And FF series dont take 4 years to develop because its multiplatform.

Further. If you had actually READ what people say to you:

Infinity ward releases 1 game ever 2 years, on PC,X360,PS3. On average they sell 6+ million copies. Their dev budgets are not bigger than insomniac's... (I still dont understand what the point of you mentioning S-E or Insomniac is).

You have ignored 3 times now, the basic argument that porting is very cheap (this is KNOWN UNDISPUTABLE FACT. ASK ANY DEV HERE), and that if your game is successfull on one platform, you can port it for cheap costs and sell it to another market. Making more money!!?!?!?!?

Now try to read my post again, understand it, come up with a meaningful reply. Otherwise its not worth my time.

I've "countered" everything that was said, I just ignore the things you keep fitting a Strawman onto it. Also, I want to point out that your continued hostility and insulting innuendos doesn't help your case one bit.

Yes, I keep providing "anecdotal evidence" that proves my point and that's all there is ( it's not like you aren't doing the same ). You have yet to prove otherwise that in the case of Inomanic they could be more profitable had they acted more like Square Enix developing FF13.

 

[obonicus]

Not really disagreeing, but I suspect Insomniac is unusually frugal when it comes to game budgets. But then Insomniac isn't a terrific example, since they've put out a game a year. As much as people argue that their games can use more polish (especially graphically), it's not like they're buggy messes. So they're atypical. I'm not sure what a better example would be. Maybe Bungie?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I've "countered" everything that was said, I just ignore the things you keep fitting a Strawman onto it.

No, you have compeltely ignored 95% of what i said.

One final attempt: Answer this, and not by talking about some irrelevant bullshit.

1. PORTS ARE RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP. (Again, just 20 coders doing programming. Any dev here will confirm, or you can google. This is already explained plenty of times in this thread).
2. your game is sucessfull on one platform, and you believe it would be successfull on another platform.


My reason for porting is this: I can create the port for a fraction of the cost, sell it in another strong market, and increase sales, profit and ROI.
(i can even outsource the coding job, so it will not take any development time from other titles).

Give me one good reason not to port the game?

 

[dobwal]

Yes.

No. Expectations are based on future growth of the overall value of a company. Profit while an indicator of health, by itself is just as worthless an indicator as revenue. Market value is simply not an symptom of just profit growth.

If ROLF INC made 10 million profit every year for the last ten years but overall revenue grew from 1 billion to 20 billion over those 10 years, the share price of ROLF INC would have increased. It would be hard to go from spending 900 million a year to 19.9 billion a year with no company growth and/or no continual reinvestment.

 

[assen]

Look at it this way: if you support two consoles instead of one, your art magically becomes twice cheaper.

 

[Ghostz]

Are you implying that that FF13 was 4 years in development is correlated to - or even caused by - the fact that it's multi-platform? Because it's clear that it is not, to a large extent. It might have delayed it a little bit, but the bulk of development (and costs) of a game like FF13 is the monumental set pieces, the art, the design - all of which only need to be done once, thank God.
They did not spend much time and effort on the port to the 360, as evidenced by the final product.
Maybe I just don't understand your reasoning.

EDIT: or what he said...

That's the problem, people assumes what people think they are implying. No, I've said over and over again: Multi-format titles such as MW2, GTA spend a hell of a lot more money addressing multiple markets. Again, people don't account for all the associated cost, production, marketing, royalties is all a multiplier.

 

[Ghostz]

Give me one good reason not to port the game?

Fixed budget, capital restraints. How many times have I mentioned that or did it just go over your head?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Yes, I keep providing "anecdotal evidence" that proves my point and that's all there is ( it's not like you aren't doing the same ).

i gave a couple of valid, solid theories as to why multiplatform is more profitable. You compeltely ignored them, and then i posted some anecdotal evidence (which you completely ignored again).

You have yet to prove otherwise that in the case of Inomanic they could be more profitable had they acted more like Square Enix developing FF13.

I have done so numerous times. Insomniac would port all their games for a fraction of dev cost, sell to X360 market. If the titles where successfull on PS3, no reason for them not to be successfull on X360. I increase sales, increase ROI, increase profits, decrease average cost per platform.

Again, people don't account for all the associated cost, production, marketing, royalties is all a multiplier.

Again, you are failing to understand the benefits of going multiplatform. Royalities are not multiplied. They are constant %. Doesn't change if you have several platforms. You pay royalities to different people, but still just a %. Production costs? Do you know how much it costs to print discs these days? Irrelevant. Dev Costs goes down per platform basis. MArketing goes down per platform basis (same marketing campaign, 2 platforms).

Fixed budget, capital restraints. How many times have I mentioned that or did it just go over your head?

Hehe, that is no valid reason.

I have already created a successful game, so there is no problem with capital. Fixed budgets? Not a single rational firm has completely fixed budgets.

Further: The project of porting the game has expected postitive NPV. As such, your reasoning breaks basic financial theory, because if the marked expects postitive npv, the project will get financing.

 

[Ghostz]

i gave a couple of valid, solid theories as to why multiplatform is more profitable. You compeltely ignored them, and then i posted some anecdotal evidence (which completely ignored).



ROFL. Okay: Insomniac would port all their games for a fraction of dev cost, sell to X360 market. If the titles where successfull on PS3, no reason for them not to be successfull on X360.

As an example: how successful was the releases of the original Bioshock and Lost Planet after a year or two leeway from the 360 release?

Hehe, that is no valid reason.

I have already created a successful game, so there is no problem with capital. Fixed budgets? Not a single rational firm has completely fixed budgets.

Further: The project of porting the game has expected postitive NPV. As such, your reasoning breaks basic financial theory, because if the marked expects postitive npv, the project will get financing.

If you working from your own capital your budget is likely fixed. Some of us like having a savings. Just ask Infinity Ward, their heads got ousted because their publisher was paying for all of its development. Not a scenario most developers would want to be in. Sure, CoD has made them 100s of millions of dollars at the cost of their studio.

Again, you are failing to understand the benefits of going multiplatform. Royalities are not multiplied. They are constant %. Doesn't change if you have several platforms. You pay royalities to different people, but still just a %. Production costs? Do you know how much it costs to print discs these days? Irrelevant. Dev Costs goes down per platform basis. MArketing goes down per platform basis (same marketing campaign, 2 platforms).

I see no benefit to going multi-target unless you are at least doing Assassins Creed like numbers. Then again, look as Assassins Creed and GTA, Ubisoft and 2k spent a lot of money making sure they were successes.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

As an example: how successful was the releases of the original Bioshock and Lost Planet after a year or two leeway from the 360 release?

Well, if they where going multiplat to begin with they would have ported prior to releasing the game, an avoided that problem.

As a reference, Bioshock PS3 and Lost planet both sold aprox 500k titles, more than enough to cover porting costs.

Oblivion, which was ported by 20 coders sold well over 1 million a year after its release on X360.

If you working from your own capital your budget is likely fixed.

You can allways get more financing for positive NPV projects. Anybody with a basic understanding of finance should realize this.

If your firm is rational, capital budget will be expanded if its expected to lead to higher NPV.

 

[Ghostz]

Well, if they where smart, they would have ported prior to releasing the game, an avoided that problem.

As a reference, Bioshock PS3 and Lost planet both sold aprox 500k titles, more than enough to cover porting costs.

Oblivion, which was ported by 20 coders sold well over 1 million a year after its release on X360.

If you are just porting to cover the cost of porting you are wasting manpower, you aren't maximizing your talent. Weren't you the one that kept harping on about "revenue" is irrelevant to profitability? That one hell of an obtuse function. You spend more money, only to gain relatively nothing.

If your firm is rational, capital budget will be expanded if its expected to lead to higher NPV. Even you should realize this.

If my firm is rational, I would have accumulated: first, a revenue stream, then a savings. If I have 2 or 3 projects in the works and I am looking at the Wii, there isn't going to be anymore capital investment unless I want to give up the ownership of my properties.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

If you are just porting to cover the cost of porting you are wasting manpower, you aren't maximizing your talent. Weren't you the one that kept harping on about "revenue" is irrelevant to profitability? That one hell of an obtuse function. You spend more money, only to gain relatively nothing.

LOL What???
All the 3 titles covered MORE than porting cost = profit.

Its quite clear that Oblivion PS3, which costed 2 million to port (if these 20 coders where given 100k salaries), netted quite a nice profit from the 1+ million sales. Lets say you get 20$ per title you sell, thats still 18 million profit and ROI is 900%.

Similarly, Bioshock and Lost planet ports also netted profits.

If my firm is rational, I would have accumulated: first, a revenue stream, then a savings. If I have 2 or 3 projects in the works and I am looking at the Wii, there isn't going to be anymore capital investment unless I want to give up the ownership of my properties.

Uhm. Again, your lack of finance understanding is shining through. you dont have to give up ownership of your properties. EVER HEARD OF DEBT FINANCING?? You would simply loan some cash, do the port and pay back.

I think we are done here.