Destiny the most expensive game ever?

Apparantly it has cost 500 million to develop

Link

During the conference, Kotick mentioned on behalf of Activision that the studio hopes for Destinyto be its next big franchise, with the studio having had many over the years like Call of Dutyand Skylanders. Kotick mentioned:

“If you’re making a $500 million bet you can’t take that chance with someone else’s IP. The stakes for us are getting bigger.”

at $500 million destiny will need to sale more than 8.5 million copies at $60 to brake even, game development cost are becoming insane. anyone know what percentage of each $60 the developer and publisher earns?

@locus-solus:

You're not figuring in the "collectors editions". Those usually come at twice the price and while they don't sell nearly as well as the regular edition, it will still help in the long run.

If this game is as epic as they say it is, I don't think they'll have any problems making decent profit on it.

You're forgetting about DLC. They only need 4 million people to buy the game plus four $15 map packs to hit $500 million...and knowing how heavily they'll advertise this game/buy reviews, this one is more likely to sell 14-24 million copies than 4.

They are coming out on multiple consoles, i think they can do it

Sooooo.... I guess with that much cash on theline we can rule out all forms of Innovation ?

Well they don't get the full $60 of every copy sold. Some of that money goes towards retailers or digital distributors like Microsoft and Sony. Not to mention that not everybody buys Day 1 at $60.

That said, if there's any sort of DLC(which there will be) or microtransactions, they can make up for it in other ways as well.

I'd say its a ridiculous amount of money, but perhaps not a totally ridiculous gamble. The game just has to have serious legs, though. This is not a game that can rely on first week sales alone. So it has to survive the reviews and then word of mouth. Basically, being a new IP, it needs to be a damn great game. Which it well could be. Although just a few fundamental problems could cause this to go from a great game and tons of sales, to just a good game and quickly deflating hype(and sales).

For that price tag they can not play it safe like the gimmicky indie games. They are going to need to get non-FPS player to want the game and to do that you need buzz and the amount it has now is not enough. Player need to tell stories about it with a smile and you can not do that if it is the same thing as the rest of the game.

If it fails, there could be a backlash which keeps other from putting that much into a game and we get stuck with little innovation.

Seemingly. I'm actually anxious for the beta cause this game looks incredibly ordinary and I want to see if the game plays better than it looks. It looks like a non cell-shaded Borderlands game, just on a larger scale. Maybe the hype is from Bungie? Idk.

I also LOL hard at Activision acting like this is a gamble. They are a terrible company that puts out shit games and rake it money. If if Destiny isn't profitable the series will be with the next two games.

Bungies using their Halo credit to help sell this, but it doesn't even look good or fun to play from what i've seen. its a shooter so i doubt i'll try it, it requires a lot to convince me on wasting time on a shooter these days.

Thats way more than I expected. :o

@Lulu_Lulu: is it even possible for there to be many More innovations for the fps genre, only thing that sets FPS's apart are story, environments, and characters, the core gameplay mechanics of each FPS are pretty much the same, yet I still live the genre.

Call of Destiny here we come!!!

@Ariabed

True... The genre has peaked... All they can do now is splice it with other genres to give it the illusion of evolution.

Insane and i will laugh so much when it fails miserably which i almost only can with a budget like that.

I am planning on getting it, i don't know if it will be at launch though

It will be a great day when these publishers realize that spending 250 million on advertising is a dumb idea. I'd wager that the actual game won't cost half of this 500M. It honestly makes me not want to play the game, just to do my part in helping them not profit, I'm not a fan of corporate advertising.

Screw activision, they need to be brought down to the real world from their high horse.

I like Destiny, but i don't like Activision, that's why i don't support any Blizzard games or any other games they make. But i am on board with Destiny though

People give them hate for spending that money on advertising and whatnot, but a business is a business. You have to spend to earn.

And regardless, they are spending a wad on development too.

Blizzard is still a separate entity though, they are just owned by the same people. Don't punish Blizzard or yourself by not playing some great games. It's enough to not play/purchase Activision's shit games.

But they are still owned by Activision and i haven't liked anything from Blizzard for years now anyways.

I thought that $500 was spread over all the Destiny games they are making, not just the first one. Am I confused?

I am pretty sure that Activision and Blizzard are partnered up. One does not own the other. That why they are sometimes referred to as Activision Blizzard. Studios like High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer games are completely owned by Activision.

Video game advertising is pretty important for all games or we wouldn't have the games we have today. But Destiny advertisement is more important than ever and I support their idea to spend 250 million dollars on ads. The only people that know about Destiny are the people that follow gaming news on a day-today bases (overall). With the amount of money activision is dropping on Destiny they have to get more out there and to meet up to money standards. And the way to do that is by plastering ads everywhere. Its which the way it is.

That's a lot of money but it should be expensive because of the good standards it will give in the game.

No, it's like bioware, they still have autonomy, but they are owned by EA

No, its nothing like Bioware.

Firstly Blizzard have never been an independent studio, it is owned by Vivendi and it was back in 07 when Activision merged with Vivendi Games and a merger is not a purchase, so its nothing like Bioware or EA,

Which is also why its a Blizzard and Activision decision to seek their independence from Vivendi and not just Activision. And if i remember correct the deal went through so Activision-Blizzard is now a separate company