Any ideas on the costs of game development and its sched?

[Cheesus Crust]

I'm writing a paper that requires me to know more about how games are developed such as the costs involved in developing the game and the game's development cycle.

I posted this here knowing that there are plenty of you out here that know infinitely more than I do, that and the fact that my own attempts at looking for articles is leading me nowhere.

Can you guys pls. post links for articles regarding development costs and the development cycle for games like DOTA 2, League of Legends or Warframe? You know the sort of free to play but with microtransactions sort of thing? I can get articles on their succes but have no idea on how long and how much money it costs to make this sort of thing.

 

[Keoul]

A lot of this information will be hidden for the obvious reason of "company secrets". This kind of information that you require is under no circumstances important for the public to know, so why on earth would they tell you? Like kman123 said, unless it's a big game at most you'll find out is probably the start of development, it'll take a lot of digging to find what you need.

Also this is not homework help! it's gaming discussion for people to talk about games! not how to help you finish your assignment!

 

[Cheesus Crust]

A lot of this information will be hidden for the obvious reason of "company secrets". This kind of information that you require is under no circumstances important for the public to know, so why on earth would they tell you? Like kman123 said, unless it's a big game at most you'll find out is probably the start of development, it'll take a lot of digging to find what you need.

Also this is not homework help! it's gaming discussion for people to talk about games! not how to help you finish your assignment!

I'm supposed to write on a feasibility of a project and I want at least to get an idea of how much it costs or what a development cycle is like it's not just about the budget.

And sorry for asking this kind of question because I've asked before and there were people who were nice enough to actually give a constructive answer. I love games but that doesn't mean I know a lot about what goes on behind the scenes which is why I asked. In fact, you're the first person I know who punctuated the closing sentences of their post with an ! when I post this sort of thing.

Sorry if I ruined your day and if people like me ruin your Escapist forum experience. And if you seriously think that this something I shouldn't be doing, don't yell at me go tell a moderator or something.

 

[Cheesus Crust]

You might have to look at your uni/college/school database for that sort of stuff. Usually games hide their budget, unless it's some remarkably big game like GTA IV or LA Noire or something.

Sadly I don't have access to it right now, but it doesn't have to be exact just a gauge of the expenses that goes into making games. I imagine that Free to play games are a bit cheaper but since the only numbers I'm getting are for AAA titles guess I'll just go with that.

 

[Keoul]

snip

It's fine as long as you don't make a habit of it. We have enough people asking for homework help as is, not to mention I believe this is in the wrong section...
I'll tell you as much as I'm bothered to find out about the games you listed.

Warframe
-Announced in 2012, Heavily based off Dark Sector which began in 2008 by the same company, most likely Dark sector evolved into Warframe.
-Cost unknown
-Cycle unknown

DoTa 2
-Fist announcement October 5 2009
-Unknown
-Unknown

League Of Legends
-"Fan-made" began in 2005
-unknown
-unknown

They don't really share the information you require.

 

[Zantos]

Specifics are hard to come by, which I find odd because finding the budget for films is incredibly easy. Still, Extra Credits estimated that a AAA title costs $60-100 million to develop. If you're after insider stuff they're your best bet. They're on Penny Arcade TV, you might need to use some common sense to figure out which episodes are applicable to the info you need.

 

[Cheesus Crust]

snip

It's fine as long as you don't make a habit of it. We have enough people asking for homework help as is, not to mention I believe this is in the wrong section...
I'll tell you as much as I'm bothered to find out about the games you listed.

Warframe
-Announced in 2012, Heavily based off Dark Sector which began in 2008 by the same company, most likely Dark sector evolved into Warframe.
-Cost unknown
-Cycle unknown

DoTa 2
-Fist announcement October 5 2009
-Unknown
-Unknown

League Of Legends
-"Fan-made" began in 2005
-unknown
-unknown

They don't really share the information you require.

It isn't a habit, this is probably the third time I've done this ever. The only reason why I'm here is because I failed in getting what I need from Google and thought that the crowd here would be more well versed in this considering how some people here post stuff that blow my mind away in terms of insider information and current industry trends. The sort of people who would post a thread based off of an article they read in some dark corner of the net or something, which BTW is the reason why I posted it here since it had something to do with the gaming industry, which I thought was better than using Google and getting hits from Ask.com or Yahoo Answers, most of which are useless so I didn't bother. If this was supposed to go to the advice category then I'll probably be notified by someone anyway and I'll learn if what I did was right or wrong.

I just wanted to compare free-to-play games and AAA titles, I imagine the former can be cheaper to develop since most games of its kind are all about playability and minimizing system requirements. I just wanted numbers so I could properly compare the two and an idea one the cycle just so I can give the project a schedule. Anyway, I'll just try and slog through more stuff on the net for whatever I can get.

PS Yeah I play Warframe a lot and yes it is a sort of "spiritual" succesor to Dark Sector as far as what the Devs have said about it.

 

[Savagezion]

A lot of this information will be hidden for the obvious reason of "company secrets". This kind of information that you require is under no circumstances important for the public to know, so why on earth would they tell you? Like kman123 said, unless it's a big game at most you'll find out is probably the start of development, it'll take a lot of digging to find what you need.

Also this is not homework help! it's gaming discussion for people to talk about games! not how to help you finish your assignment!

Actually, gaming is the only industry that does hide this stuff. Every other industry is happy to tell you how much they spent because they want to see a return on investment. Hollywood is known to inflate budgets to help them cry poor. But gaming has yet to reveal this information, probably strategically. It is easier to cry poor when nobody can see your books.

You can look up individual games and seek out their development costs but articles aren't written about it really. I remember a while back seeing something say that Modern Warfare 3 cost $200 million to make. (Surely no inflation going on there) Best I can do is wish you luck. I have tried finding this info on quite a few games and it can be grueling to impossible just seeking the budget of 1 game, let alone a large random sample.

 

[crunklex]

I read somewhere that The Old Republic costed around $150m. I think a lot of huge games like GTA IV and CoD generally have huge budgets around this but not much information is given out about this compared to film and television.

If the cost of AAA games are around that though, they would be around the same cost of blockbuster movies. The Dark Knight costed around $180 million if i'm correct and Iron Man 2 costed about $170 million. Note that those figures were significantly easier to find than any budgets for games I was trying to find.

 

[BrotherRool]

I read somewhere that The Old Republic costed around $150m. I think a lot of huge games like GTA IV and CoD generally have huge budgets around this but not much information is given out about this compared to film and television.

If the cost of AAA games are around that though, they would be around the same cost of blockbuster movies. The Dark Knight costed around $180 million if i'm correct and Iron Man 2 costed about $170 million. Note that those figures were significantly easier to find than any budgets for games I was trying to find.

The Old Republic was a huge exception to the rule. This list is a little out of date, but these are the numbers we used to be throwing around for games
http://digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-game-budgets-ever/

GTA IV was the most expensive game ever when announced, and that was only $100 million. MGS4 was $60 million, Halo 3 $55 million, LA Noire and APB were $50 million. CoD 4 was $40-50 million

But I imagine those numbers have gone up significantly even in the time since those games were released. Halo 4 for example was $100 million
http://blog.knowyourmoney.co.uk/index.php/2008/08/10-most-expensive-video-game-budgets-ever/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_games


Interestingly FFVII is one of the most expensive all time games despite being 15 years old.

The Ubisoft guy said in 2009 that it was 20-30 million to make a PS3/360 game and he expected that number to go up to 60 million.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article may be helpful
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml


It estimates the cost of
Tera $40 million
Aion $22 million
C9 [http://feature.mmosite.com/c9/] $13 million
Berkanix [http://feature.mmosite.com/berkanix/] $9 million
Archage $9 million
Bladesoul $9 million

 

[DoPo]

Erm...can you try contacting the devs directly? I'd imagine you won't get answers for AAA games, but smaller companies may be willing to share and/or even give insight into what the costs might be for different games. Try Runic or the LoL team, as an example of smaller game devs.

 

[ThriKreen]

You might also be able to work out based on average developer salaries (~$65-75k/year) to say, 50-100 person teams. Pad a bit for benefits and equipment to work out a yearly budget. Then multiply by however many years in development, usually at least 2, with sports games usually being in the one year for obvious reasons.

Of course it does vary widely, depending if you're working in a place with a high cost of living (San Francisco, NY) or somewhere with a much lower one (Champaign, IL for Volition).

 

[someonehairy-ish]

If you want to talk about the actual development cycle and process you could talk about the whole process of going from pre-production to alpha to beta to the full release, which is (in the abstract) probably quite similar for most developers.

Or you could try looking up dev diary type things on youtube or whatever. +some companies post those kinds of things on their sites, or lump them in with special editions and the like. Blizzard often have chats with the devs on the sites for their various games, and I distinctly remember one detailing the development process for WoW classic which you could probably find with a bit of searching.

 

[Costia]

You could also look at kickstarter games and their budgets. Though not all of the games there will ever be finished.

 

[Something Amyss]

Still, Extra Credits estimated that a AAA title costs $60-100 million to develop.

With how little research they do on topics, I wouldn't treat them as reliable.

Yeah, I know, "insider information." Which seems to lead to the same asspulls as every other Tom Dick and Harry.

 

[DoPo]

Still, Extra Credits estimated that a AAA title costs $60-100 million to develop.

With how little research they do on topics, I wouldn't treat them as reliable.

Yeah, I know, "insider information." Which seems to lead to the same asspulls as every other Tom Dick and Harry.

Dunno, may not be too far off if we're using some of ThriKreen's numbers.

You might also be able to work out based on average developer salaries (~$65-75k/year) to say, 50-100 person teams. Pad a bit for benefits and equipment to work out a yearly budget. Then multiply by however many years in development, usually at least 2, with sports games usually being in the one year for obvious reasons.

50 people at average salary (70K) would mean ~50 million for a year (I'm just rounding up to the nearest 10 million) and ~90 for two. At 100 people it'd be ~90 million for a year and ~170 for two. It's an extreme oversimplification but it does sort of fall inside EC's guess. Maybe some cheaper AAA games.


However, if anything, I'd guess AAA games would tend to be more than that, again, using the numbers above, it seems that 60-100 million would be cheap-ish - we haven't really factored in promotional materials and hype and stuff as well as paying off reviewers and the drugs and hookers every day. So it might easily turn to be twice that.

Then again, just a guess.


EDIT: Durr, me can't math. 50 people for a year are ~4 million (rounding up again), ~8 (adding another million instead of rounding) for two years, 100 people are ~8 million for a year and ~15 mil for two. I dunno, maybe in that case 60 is sort of hard-ish to reach but still a possibility, perhaps.

 

[TrevHead]

Dunno if this has already been mentioned but Kickstarter might be an good avenue to finding the info you want considering devs are treating the public as investors. Just keep in mind that a studio and a indie team will have different costs.

Skullgirls is one game that itemised their costs for additional DLC characters.

 

[bug_of_war]

I think all we know for sure is that the average triple A games takes anywhere from 2-4 years to make. Ubisoft has said each Assassin's Creed game takes roughly 3 years to complete so there's a starting point for development time. But then you have games like Prototype which supposedly took 8 year to make, and that's just a B grade game... so yeah, there's a lot of fluctuation.