What takes up the most budget on game developement?

[Flux]

I was wondering what takes up the most budget in making a current generation video game.

 

[Qroach]

I was wondering what takes up the most budget in making a current generation video game.

re-doing work and poor planning.

 

[ERP]

I was wondering what takes up the most budget in making a current generation video game.

People.
But that's obvious.
the real answer is it depends on the design, and on the madnagement, usually however it's content. I claim given a realitic deadline I could still make a high production value game with 5-10 programmers (they would have to be the right people, it would have to be a really tight team and no company would let me proove it), I'm not sure I could say the same for artists.
People are outsourcing a lot of art these days though which can dramatically reduce cost.

Game development is a highly itterative process so as QRoach say a lot of it is just pissed away.

 

[London Geezer]

I'd say salaries is up there.

 

[zed]

of course all games a gonna have diff prog + art ratios

Art/Design: 25%
Programming And Engineering: 20%
Retail: 20%
Console Owner Fee: 11.5%
Marketing: 7%
etc

http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/ps...mes_slide_2.html?boxes=custom&thisSpeed=20000

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

of course all games a gonna have diff prog + art ratios

Art/Design: 25%
Programming And Engineering: 20%
Retail: 20%
Console Owner Fee: 11.5%
Marketing: 7%
etc

Uuuuh... that looks more like a revenue distribution layout, and even then, a lot of those numbers look more than a little optimistic to me. Sounds more like they're taking aggregate figures for the entire industry and taking that as representative for the average game, which is silly because the successes are usually successful by a few orders of magnitude more than the *average* game.

 

[cthellis42]

...putting in all the chrome.

 

[Snyder]

the real answer is it depends on the design, and on the madnagement

Awesome typo.

 

[Deepak]

Awesome typo.

It could well be true I think.

 

[London Geezer]

Don't think it was a typo!

 

[Snyder]

Don't think it was a typo!

True, more like a Freudian slip...

 

[LunchBox]

It's R&D.

Pre-planning takes a big chunk of the budget specially if it's a game that needs to be licenced, from a book or movie or from an IP like dc or marvel.

plus purchasing either middleware tools and engines or trying to build one from scratch.

 

[MrWibble]

It's R&D.

Pre-planning takes a big chunk of the budget specially if it's a game that needs to be licenced, from a book or movie or from an IP like dc or marvel.

plus purchasing either middleware tools and engines or trying to build one from scratch.

If there was any planning going on for most titles, they wouldn't cost so much.

 

[JardeL]

What about exclusivity agreements ?.. Do we have any examples like " MS paid Ubisoft xxx mil bucks for SC5 to be Xbox360 exclusive " ?..

 

[StefanS]

What about exclusivity agreements ?.. Do we have any examples like " MS paid Ubisoft xxx mil bucks for SC5 to be Xbox360 exclusive " ?..

Well, that has nothing to do with development costs, the budget and how the costs are distributed. It only affects the bottom line.

 

[ERP]

What about exclusivity agreements ?.. Do we have any examples like " MS paid Ubisoft xxx mil bucks for SC5 to be Xbox360 exclusive " ?..

When the deal is made with a publisher these deals are more commonly done less overtly, shared marketing arrangements or similar.
Licensing however can be a significant chunk of the cost.