Gears Of War 2 cost only $12 million to make.

Stolen from gaf.

http://graphics.cs.williams.edu/archive/SweeneyHPG2009/TimHPG2009.pdf

I bring this up because a couple of months ago, a Ubisoft suit talked about next gen games costing an average of $60 million to make. He also mentioned how a current gen PS3 or a 360 game averages somewhere between $20-30 million. Now, here's what I dont understand. If a huge blockbuster game like GOW2 with amazing production values cost only $12 million, how can the average of an industry that puts out rehash after rehash every year be in the $20-$30 million range?

Now granted they dont have to pay the liscensing fee for UE3, but considering UE2 cost $750K when it first came out I doubt it's more than a million.

On a side note, there are currently 150 games in development that use UE3. :shock: In comparirson, UE2 was used in only 50 games last gen.

That slide seems to indicate a time before the project was started. There may have been cost overruns/delays that the slide may not account for.

While the licenseing cost for UE3 is about 1 million, that does not factor in the cost of training employees to use it nor to develop new and specific tools for it. Those two things are very, very expensive in employee salaries when you've got 20 or 30 or more people needing to spend many months learning and developing new tools tailored to the game they are making. Everyone in EPIC is intimately familiar with the UE3.

That and many of GeoW 1's assets are reused. Creating new content from scratch is much more expensive than creative it with old assets. Thats probably one big reasons it only took 2 years to make.

Still, from Ubitsoft's perspective, its still closer to 60 million. As a publisher they have to worry about marketing/advertising (usually costs around the same as it takes to develop the game), customer service, manufacturing/packaging, and all the legal paperwork with lawyers and many other things like that. Epic only has to worry about making the game, nothing beyond that.

ONLY 12 mil?

wtf? Since when 12 mil is small budget?

Not to mention a game that uses most of the tools that was already made in Gears of War 1? Costing 12 mil to make?

why does it have a photo of Gears of war one?

ONLY 12 mil?

wtf? Since when 12 mil is small budget?

Not to mention a game that uses most of the tools that was already made in Gears of War 1? Costing 12 mil to make?

TriangleHard

Since GTA4 reportedly cost around $100 million. Since MGS4 needed to sell 1 million copies to recoup its budget. (which would put it somewhere around $50 million. Retailers are sold copies of a new game at $48 a pop, at least in the U.S) And since Uncharted 1 & 2, AC, KZ2 all cost around $20 million to make.

Like talked about in the other thread, there are quit a few games that have budgets over $20 million, but they account for a very small percentage of games released every year.

While the licenseing cost for UE3 is about 1 million, that does not factor in the cost of training employees to use it nor to develop new and specific tools for it. Those two things are very, very expensive in employee salaries when you've got 20 or 30 or more people needing to spend many months learning and developing new tools tailored to the game they are making. Everyone in EPIC is intimately familiar with the UE3.

That and many of GeoW 1's assets are reused. Creating new content from scratch is much more expensive than creative it with old assets. Thats probably one big reasons it only took 2 years to make.

Still, from Ubitsoft's perspective, its still closer to 60 million. As a publisher they have to worry about marketing/advertising (usually costs around the same as it takes to develop the game), customer service, manufacturing/packaging, and all the legal paperwork with lawyers and many other things like that. Epic only has to worry about making the game, nothing beyond that.

XaosII

You bring up a lot of valid points, but isnt that how it works in every industry? The parent company always has to take care of the operational costs. That's why each project/game is assigned a development budget. We aren't talking about how Ubisoft runs its coorporate offices, they have close to fifty games coming out every year, I'm sure they get royalties from each of the games they publish. We're talking about development budgets of a video game similar to a production budget of hollywood movie.

And I doubt the marketing budgets match the development budget. Assassin's Creed 1 cost over $20 million too make and had a marketing budget of over $1 million. AFAIR, it had tons and tons of tv spots and online advertising so $1 million seems to be the high end of what these marketing budgets usually are.

EDIT: Not everyone spends $40 million on marketing budgets like MS did with Halo 3. lol, they actually spent more on the marketing budget($40) than the production budget ($35 million.) I'll try to find more marketing budgets, if you have some, I'd be very interested to see them.

why does it have a photo of Gears of war one?

qwertyoip

lol, Epic!

IIRC Gears 1 only cost 10 million, so 12 for Gears 2 makes sense.

Still, its worth noting that while Gears 2 was easy on the eyes, the netcode in the multiplayer was pretty horrible (while flaws in the netcode out the gate aren't uncommon, Gears 2's netcode was so bad it took several months for a fix to appear, which is highly unusual).

IIRC Gears 1 only cost 10 million, so 12 for Gears 2 makes sense.

Still, its worth noting that while Gears 2 was easy on the eyes, the netcode in the multiplayer was pretty horrible (while flaws in the netcode out the gate aren't uncommon, Gears 2's netcode was so bad it took several months for a fix to appear, which is highly unusual).

CarnageHeart

Yeah, they do have only 15 programmers (Im guessing they handle the netcode and online stuff) so they were obviously stretching themeslves a bit too thin by including the online multiplayer.

I'm always a bit skeptical of devs taking on these online coop and competitive modes. Good thing Naughty Dog doubled their workforce from 70 guys on Uncharted 1 to 140 for Uncharted 2. They have seperate teams for Single player, coop AND competitive mutiplayer. Not to mention their seperate "ICE" team is responsible for upgrading the graphics engines and the Edge tools.

ONLY 12 mil?

wtf? Since when 12 mil is small budget?

Not to mention a game that uses most of the tools that was already made in Gears of War 1? Costing 12 mil to make?

TriangleHard

That's cheap.

that could mean either they were smart with the resources they have, or they were too stingy. don't get me wrong, geow 2 is a superb game, but many things can be improved, such as art style, storyline, length of campaign, multiplayer, and tech. art style, though improved in geow 2, is still not good enough. storyline is not too bad, but can be better. length of campaign is satisfying, but i wished it's a bit longer. multiplayer is where i suspect they were stingy at, not enough developers on it, not enough bug testers, which could have led to problematic multiplayer at the launch of the game. tech wise, ue3 is starting to look old compared to many proprietary and licensed engine from other game developers, such as cryengine 3, dunia, frosbite and more.