The Last of Us (Part) 2 [PS4]

[Strange]

TLoU2's first 4 million sales weren't any indication of the game's reception. There were no pre-release reviews ocming out, so they're an indication of the original's reception. BTW, I very much doubt that 4 million sales are very far from being enough to make the game break even, let alone please investors and top management.

Considering how these 4 million sales are at full price (first week) and each sells for at least ~40 bucks revenue for Sony, that's 160 million USD in revenue.
Development for this should be ~5 years with a ~100 or so staff, so that's a 320,000USD budget per person/year.
considering that the average pay shouldn't be anywhere above 100K USD per year
I'd say they're pretty healthy if salary only accounts for 30% of their costs in the tech sector.


If they have problems breaking even with 4 Million sales, we'd see a lot more AAA studios going down.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Considering how these 4 million sales are at full price (first week) and each sells for at least ~40 bucks revenue for Sony, that's 160 million USD in revenue.
Development for this should be ~5 years with a ~100 or so staff, so that's a 320,000USD budget per person/year.
considering that the average pay shouldn't be anywhere above 100K USD per year
I'd say they're pretty healthy if salary only accounts for 30% of their costs in the tech sector.


If they have problems breaking even with 4 Million sales, we'd see a lot more AAA studios going down.

Naughty Dog has 459 employees and I doubt they only had 100 of those working on TLoU2.
Also, you think Human Resources is everything they have to pay for? Development kits, high performance PCs for asset design, programming and compiling and all logistics appear out of thin air?
And voice and/or motion capture actors, music licensing, software licensing, renting a studio plus all the apparatus for motion capture, filming teams and a million other subcontracted jobs come for free?

 

[Strange]

Naughty Dog has 459 employees and I doubt they only had 100 of those working on TLoU2.
Also, you think Human Resources is everything they have to pay for? Development kits, high performance PCs for asset design, programming and compiling and all logistics appear out of thin air?
And voice and/or motion capture actors, music licensing, software licensing, renting a studio plus all the apparatus for motion capture, filming teams and a million other subcontracted jobs come for free?

1. Naughty dog did not only release 1 game in these 5 years. Games is not their sole source of revenue.

2. If you don't understand that ~30% costs are related to human resources is considered low in the tech sector then we're not even on the same page in discussing this.
I'm actually quite accurate in the website you posted. I overestimated some stuff but due to underestimation in other areas I ended up actually fine.

Estimated Revenue & Financials

• Naughty Dog's estimated annual revenue is currently $92.7M per year.
• Naughty Dog's estimated revenue per employee is $202,000

If Naughty dog can get by with this number, and assuming that an average employee takes about 70,000 per year
that's precisely 35% of the revenue going into employee pay.

Please DO see the other side of the coin, which is that the other 65% of the revenue goes to profit, voice and/or motion capture actors, music licensing, software licensing, renting a studio plus all the apparatus for motion capture, filming teams and a million other subcontracted jobs.
considered their annual revenue per year is 93 million, that's 60 Million they can dish out.


Let me throw the question back to you. How many copies sold do you think allows them to make a profit?
Lets NOT forget that launch volumes are sold at full retail price, and the "legs" are mostly sold at a discount and may not contribute as much as the launch volumes.

The website states that their estimated annual revenue is 93 Million. Assuming that ND takes $30 per game sold to distributors, then 4 million sold is 120 Million in revenue.

 

[Strange]

He's wrong because Part 1 completion rate is 40% and Part 2 is 30% right now after just under 2 weeks.

just to make an update on this
TLOS1, as of 2020/07/08


TLOS2, as of 2020/07/08

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Doesn't matter in a thread about how many units a game will sell.

I guess it depends what you're trying to measure. If a game changes significantly and sells 3m at launch then another 3m after changes but as as result, it's still only appealing to 3m. Does that matter? I don't know. Does it make sense to use sales as the comparator between single-player/story-driven games and GAAS because for the latter the monetization is related to ongoing income and for may GAAs, the "sale" is a free download. The economics are different but that's a different discussion.

I don't ever recall a single title getting a notable change to keep sales active. Probably hard to quantify.

As you say I think this is tricky because it's difficult to quantify the motivation for the changes. I'm certain that some changes are just fan service but from a ruthless business position, if you've already sold the game and somebody doesn't like it, it doesn't really matter. A part of the decision to make changes has to be about future sales. Many games, particularly AA and AAA, have long legs sales-wise so addressing review feedback and criticism will help - not that reviews often revisit updated games.

I mentioned Mass Effect 3 as one example because BioWare went back to revisit the ending, and changed a bunch of ways in which your actions and decisions over the course of Mass Effect 3, and the trilogy at large, would steer that ending. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is another game that has significant work don't to it post release. There was host of rebalancing issues, new levelling systems to make it easier or harder depending on your preference, and a whole exploration mode.

In Dishonoured 2 they revamped the powers post-launch, in The Evil Within 2 they added in a first person mode and additional story content. In Final Fantasy XV they changed greats chunks of gameplay including core mechanics like driving, added in bunches more cross-over events - playing is now is very different experience to playing it at launch, it's a richer, more cohesive story.

I'm a big re-player of games I like but I bet a lot of this stuff just passes people by.

 

[London Geezer]

TLoU2's first 4 million sales weren't any indication of the game's reception. There were no pre-release reviews ocming out, so they're an indication of the original's reception. BTW, I very much doubt that 4 million sales are very far from being enough to make the game break even, let alone please investors and top management.

Actually, reviews embargo for TLOUS was much, much earlier than for most other games, especially AAA games. We had reviews out a full week before the game release, so Sony was pretty confident that "critics" would love the game enough not to hinder sales.

 

[BRiT]

Shouldn't a good portion of this discussion be in the following thread? https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/how-much-will-the-last-of-us-part-2-sell.61381/

 

[Daozang]

This has nothing to do with Kelly Marie Tran the actor, who is completely blameless to the fuck-up she was made to act on.
Though I'm pretty sure lots of people are willing to discredit the millions of critics by going through the faster, easier and intellectually dishonest path of claiming they're all critical of the character bEcAuSe sExIsM rAcIsM.

Accuse the other person of being evil instead of discussing their points. It's so much easier to win the argument that way, and as a plus they gain fake internet points within their circlejerk.

Kelly Marie Tran got a lot of harassment because of a character she played in a work of fiction.
The actor that played Abby received tons of it as well.
So what about the circlejerk that deflects death threats with opinions?
I will be civil and refrain from expressing what I give, or more precisely, don't give, about said opinions, on a work of fiction.
Honestly, all I care about, is my own opinion on such matters.
Death threats on the other hand...

Accuse the other person of being evil instead of discussing their points. It's so much easier to win the argument that way, and as a plus they gain fake internet points within their circlejerk.
Same thing is happening with TLoU2. Somehow all the points about characters acting out-of-character, devs trying to force likeability into an unlikeable character, the confusion of flashbacks-within-flashbacks, messed-up order of events, etc. is trying to be buried under the pretense that all critics mUsT bE sExIsT HoMoPhObIc. The same critics who praised the Left Behind DLC whose plot points included Ellie coming out as gay, because fuck logic.

See there is no argument to win, because there is no clear cut, objective truth to fiction.
And the more divisive a work of fiction is, the less clear cut the objective value of that work becomes.
In that case, there usually are enough reasons, to either love it, or hate it.
So all I see is opinion, with a sprinkle of death threats on top.
And a huge appetite for labels.

I can surely understand that some people didn't like the game, almost as much, as I can relate to those that did.
I fail though, to grasp the reasoning behind the behavior of some of the "critics" of this game, except maybe by attributing some of it to reasons other than the actual game (or any work of fiction for that matter) itself.

P.S.
The Last Jedi was the best film of the new trilogy.
And the Rise of Skywalker sucked.

 

[Daozang]

So, I finished the game, after 37 hours, (I'm getting ooooooold)...
All I have to say, is that Naughty Dog's storytelling was effective at least on me.
I went the whole journey, and by the end, my feelings were almost reversed and the main drive, the purpose that drove the plot forward, completely exhausted.
Now, I will jump into spoiler territory, because I need to understand the nuance behind the critique of those that didn't like it.
I can certainly see why some might not, I just cannot see some of the flaws described.

 

[Strange]

So, I finished the game, after 37 hours, (I'm getting ooooooold)...
All I have to say, is that Naughty Dog's storytelling was effective at least on me.
I went the whole journey, and by the end, my feelings were almost reversed and the main drive, the purpose that drove the plot forward, completely exhausted.
Now, I will jump into spoiler territory, because I need to understand the nuance behind the critique of those that didn't like it.
I can certainly see why some might not, I just cannot see some of the flaws described.

Completers have been talking about emotional exhaustion and it's something that you have to feel for yourself to understand, and it's something that can't be stressed enough but at the same time it's not something you can really describe.
Not the cup of tea for everyone but I enjoyed it.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

I'm still playing, so I've read none of this thread. But I feel compelled to say "really, a fucking boat level?" Boooooored.

 

[Daozang]

Completers have been talking about emotional exhaustion and it's something that you have to feel for yourself to understand, and it's something that can't be stressed enough but at the same time it's not something you can really describe.
Not the cup of tea for everyone but I enjoyed it.

I think I can describe it, but I'd have to delve into spoiler territory...
I am talking about emotional exhaustion, although not entirely that.
Mostly about the exhaustion of that single emotion that drives the story.
By the end of it, I've used it up. It was depleted.
That is why, the storytelling was spot on at least in my case.

 

[chris1515]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284544387616104448

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284544453709934592

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I read this on Twitter this morning. While I appreciate the effort that goes into details like this, I do think that spending engineering time on details that really don't make any difference to the game (subjective on my part) is possibly part of the reason Naughty Dog only shipped two new games this generation compared to four on PS3.

Between this and the video listing all the other details that if not pointed out, 99% of people would never have noticed, I idly wonder whether it is really worth spending time on this stuff compared to focussing that engineering effort on getting the game out quicker

 

[chris1515]

I read this on Twitter this morning. While I appreciate the effort that goes into details like this, I do think that spending engineering time on details that really don't make any difference to the game (subjective on my part) is possibly part of the reason Naughty Dog only shipped two new games this generation compared to four on PS3.

Between this and the video listing all the other details that if not pointed out, 99% of people would never have noticed, I idly wonder whether it is really worth spending time on this stuff compared to focussing that engineering effort on getting the game out quicker

This is what motivate them. A thread about it

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284814866423971841

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284815176391372800

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284815807940308993

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284816100161728512

It is funny because in an interview between Hermen Hulst and Neil Druckmann, the second one told he played HZD and how he was impressed by the vegetation in an open world and how ND team need to improve it.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This is what motivate them. A thread about it

I understand but equally I've been in charge of many projects and you can't spend engineering time on every mini-pet project unless it's going add to tangible value. Literally everything, even an hour of an engineer's time, costs money. If this is something that this chap squeezed in between sprints on other systems, cool. Better this than idle. But when I saw the details video it so reminded me of the horse testicles in Red Dead Redemption 2.

It is funny because in an interview between Hermen Hulst and Neil Druckmann, the second one told he played HZD and how he was impressed by the vegetation in an open world and how ND need to improve it.

And given there is a lot of overgrown vegetation in The Last of Us Part II, it made sense that spend time on this - it's in almost every location you visit.

 

[Xbat]

Between this and the video listing all the other details that if not pointed out, 99% of people would never have noticed, I idly wonder whether it is really worth spending time on this stuff compared to focussing that engineering effort on getting the game out quicker

In my opinion it's these little things that all add up and set Naughty Dog games apart from most others. Also without the devs being given some leeway it would stifle innovation.

So in other words I notice and it's the reason I would buy any Naughty Dog game.

It's also why I consider games an art form.

 

[ultragpu]

This is what motivate them. A thread about it


It is funny because in an interview between Hermen Hulst and Neil Druckmann, the second one told he played HZD and how he was impressed by the vegetation in an open world and how ND team need to improve it.

And now they've seen Forbidden West's insane amount of foliage, it's that time of the day all over again. I wonder if ND would ever move onto a competently different art style, straight up photorealism?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

And now they've seen Forbidden West's insane amount of foliage, it's that time of the day all over again. I wonder if ND would ever move onto a competently different art style, straight up photorealism?

Naughty Dog was once the foliage kings with the original Uncharted. This is a baton handed from one development team to another.

 

[ultragpu]

Naughty Dog was once the foliage kings with the original Uncharted. This is a baton handed from one development team to another.

This is very true. Everybody wants that foliage crown these days.