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(Poll) How much does it cost to produce an MMO?

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Comments

  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787

    About.........three-fitty

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,780

    Originally posted by Alders

    Originally posted by TheHavok

    You said next gen so im going to assume you mean an MMO that's development is similar to TOR and FF13 in terms of scope, time, and money.

    My guess is over 150,000,000 million.  I heard Aion cost twice that to make.

     

    Actually Aion cost somewhere between 18-20 mil to make. You can tell in the final product with it's lack of solid content. It's really a perfect model for an item shop ftp mmo. NCsoft made bank on box sales alone and tricked us all into thinking it wasn't shallow.

     

    Not sure how accurate these numbers are of course.

    http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml

    Aion is far more solid than any typical ftp asian mmo.

    Shaiya? Archlord? Perfect World? Aika? Rappelz? Soul of the Ultimate Nation. Sword of the new world?

    the level of quality is far above these games.

    Not to mention a huge amount of quests as compared to any of those games.

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  • Entropy14Entropy14 Member UncommonPosts: 675

    Originally posted by Xondar123

    If you are Cryptic Studios? About $537.29!

     Lol I was going to say something along the same line.

     

    Cryptic and other failed F2P rip off companys can probably make games for under 5 million , AAA titles tho after all is said and done can easily cost 50 million and more.

  • AldersAlders Member RarePosts: 2,207

    Originally posted by Sovrath

    Originally posted by Alders


    Originally posted by TheHavok

    You said next gen so im going to assume you mean an MMO that's development is similar to TOR and FF13 in terms of scope, time, and money.

    My guess is over 150,000,000 million.  I heard Aion cost twice that to make.

     

    Actually Aion cost somewhere between 18-20 mil to make. You can tell in the final product with it's lack of solid content. It's really a perfect model for an item shop ftp mmo. NCsoft made bank on box sales alone and tricked us all into thinking it wasn't shallow.

     

    Not sure how accurate these numbers are of course.

    http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml

    Aion is far more solid than any typical ftp asian mmo.

    Shaiya? Archlord? Perfect World? Aika? Rappelz? Sould of the Ultimate Nation.

    the level of quality is far above these games.

    Not to mention a huge amount of quests as compared to any of those games.

     

    I can't argue with it being the most solid, but it is a typical korean mmo with ridiculous RNG which suits it perfectly for RMT.

     

    The quests themselves were pretty useless when i played from beta through Feb. You could get more exp from killing 10 mobs than most quests. It may have changed since then and i stand corrected if so.

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,780

    Originally posted by Alders

    Originally posted by Sovrath


    Originally posted by Alders


    Originally posted by TheHavok

    You said next gen so im going to assume you mean an MMO that's development is similar to TOR and FF13 in terms of scope, time, and money.

    My guess is over 150,000,000 million.  I heard Aion cost twice that to make.

     

    Actually Aion cost somewhere between 18-20 mil to make. You can tell in the final product with it's lack of solid content. It's really a perfect model for an item shop ftp mmo. NCsoft made bank on box sales alone and tricked us all into thinking it wasn't shallow.

     

    Not sure how accurate these numbers are of course.

    http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml

    Aion is far more solid than any typical ftp asian mmo.

    Shaiya? Archlord? Perfect World? Aika? Rappelz? Sould of the Ultimate Nation.

    the level of quality is far above these games.

    Not to mention a huge amount of quests as compared to any of those games.

     

    I can't argue with it being the most solid, but it is a typical korean mmo with ridiculous RNG which suits it perfectly for RMT.

     

    The quests themselves were pretty useless when i played from beta through Feb. You could get more exp from killing 10 mobs than most quests. It may have changed since then and i stand corrected if so.

    It is not a typical korean grinder.

    Have you played a korean grinder?

    How can you possibly compare aion to lineage 2 or Archlord?

    It's more comparable to wow than either of those.

    And yes they upped the quest xp.

    But if you are going to compare Aion to games like Rappelz or Aika then I call shennanigans.

    Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb." 

    Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w


    Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547

    Try the "Special Edition." 'Cause it's "Special." https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64878/?tab=description

    Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo 
  • HaegemonHaegemon Member UncommonPosts: 267

    Originally posted by Alders

    Originally posted by TheHavok

    You said next gen so im going to assume you mean an MMO that's development is similar to TOR and FF13 in terms of scope, time, and money.

    My guess is over 150,000,000 million.  I heard Aion cost twice that to make.

     

    Actually Aion cost somewhere between 18-20 mil to make. You can tell in the final product with it's lack of solid content. It's really a perfect model for an item shop ftp mmo. NCsoft made bank on box sales alone and tricked us all into thinking it wasn't shallow.

     

    Not sure how accurate these numbers are of course.

    http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml

     

    Per the article, the game has a current expense of 50 billion Won. (50,000,000,000) BUT when that is converted, it will only total to 41,862,023.43 USD. So while it's still not being made on the cheap, TERA's definitely no where close to most-expensive ever.

    Lets Push Things Forward

    I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.

    Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.

  • EkibiogamiEkibiogami Member UncommonPosts: 2,154

    Originally posted by Xondar123

    If you are Cryptic Studios? About $537.29!

    I laughed WAY to hard at this. Thanks imageimage

    If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
    —Samuel Adams

  • farginwarfarginwar Member Posts: 134

    This amazing Next-gen MMO could be yours if the Price is Right!

    image

    If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,780

    Originally posted by farginwar

    This amazing Next-gen MMO could be yours if the Price is Right!

     

    The most fearsome boss of all!

    Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb." 

    Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w


    Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547

    Try the "Special Edition." 'Cause it's "Special." https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64878/?tab=description

    Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo 
  • mmonoobletmmonooblet Member Posts: 336

    Originally posted by maplestone

    $0 

    It will be a barebones framework for shared creativity that some mad hobbiest assembles in their basement as a proof of concept and shares for free.    It will get a few people toying with it, setting up their own component-servers, slowly grow as people play with it and add some content then after a couple of years suddenly hit critical mass and sweep the gaming world before anyone even realizes they're taking it seriously.  For years people will argue over whether it's an MMO or whether 100 million players and entire industry building custom content and hosting servers of people proves anything.

    With the release of Ryzom's source code, I think this could be more true than most people realize... and I think it's exactly what the genre needs.

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099

    Originally posted by mmonooblet

    With the release of Ryzom's source code, I think this could be more true than most people realize... and I think it's exactly what the genre needs.

    Poking around, that definitely has potential for engine design - and yes, I do believe it will be a project like that which becomes the next gen MMO.  However, there is whole other level of how you engage the creative side - world bulding, story building - and that's a very different creative process from the programming side with lots of untapped potential.

    However, I actually think Spore was the closest thing to a next-gen commercial RPG that I've seen - yes, it turned out to be a poor game and wasn't aimed at the MMO genre (and had a horrific we-own-everything-you-do licence that is death to true creativity), but I think that the core concept of a massively shared universe of interacting minigames that blurs the line between playing the game and developing content is the key idea that's needed to get MMOs to the next level of their potential.

  • endersshadowendersshadow Member Posts: 296

    Originally posted by Xondar123

    Originally posted by Calind0r

    Cost of developing? 100-200million, Aion, Lineage 2, TERA, Warhammer, etc... all pretty much fall into that bracket.

    Total cost of production? Including distribution, advertising, lincensing and everything else like that over $150 million for any next gen game.

    Fallout 3 costed something like 50 million to develop, all production ended up coming to 150 million or something like that...It's not a MMO but you get the idea.

    This thread is crazy, no one here has any concept of numbers or money.

    MMOs rarely, if ever, cost more than $50 million to produce. Throwing out numbers like $100-$200 million is pretty much just crazy talk.

    Most MMO companies won't release the cost of development for their games, but the industry let out a gasp of surprise when Blizzard revealed that they spend $80 million to develop WoW. It was said to be the most costly MMO in existence before Bioware/EA revealed that SWTOR has a budget of $150 million. SWTOR is, so far, the most expensive MMO ever produced.

    By contrast, the average big budget, special effects laden Hollywood blockbuster costs about $100 million to produce. And that is with much larger crews,  much higher salaries (no one in the MMO biz ever gets paid the same salary as Jim Carrey or Angelina Jolie,) much higher advertising costs (Hollywood movie often go global, MMOs often stick to either North America and Europe, or the continent they are produced on,) and much longer production times (some movies can take up to a decade to get made.)

    The game development industry is famous for generally paying low salaries, and paying your employees will be the largest expense in any budget. MMOs generally have no "talent" to hire (writers, actors, directors, etc. at the Hollywood equivalency,) and most studios can run quite lean because they don't need many executives (or the game's producers also act as the studio's executives.

    Unless this is a poll of MMO industry insiders, then every responce is just a wild, and crazy, guess.

     

    I read up to the point you started comparing mmos to movies. MMOs are not movies.

    Ok, I lied, I kept reading and your post got more ridiculous. Please show me what movie had a production time of 10 years. While your at it, show me a single movie that has made more money than WoW.

     

    And spending a 100 million+ on a mmo is not hard. I have personally talked to guildies who worked for game companies and asked them how the 100 million dollar amount gets thrown around and if thats reasonable.

    They started to break down what it cost for a game engine and went from there. It became evident very quickly, that a high quality MMO in the 100-200 million dollar range is not a stretch.

  • Xondar123Xondar123 Member CommonPosts: 2,543

    Originally posted by Alders

    Originally posted by TheHavok

    You said next gen so im going to assume you mean an MMO that's development is similar to TOR and FF13 in terms of scope, time, and money.

    My guess is over 150,000,000 million.  I heard Aion cost twice that to make.

     

    Actually Aion cost somewhere between 18-20 mil to make. You can tell in the final product with it's lack of solid content. It's really a perfect model for an item shop ftp mmo. NCsoft made bank on box sales alone and tricked us all into thinking it wasn't shallow.

     

    Not sure how accurate these numbers are of course.

    http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml

    50 billion won = $41 million USD. That's less expensive than WoW, and much, much less expensive than SWTOR. The guy who wrote that article needs to fact check.

  • mmonoobletmmonooblet Member Posts: 336

    Originally posted by Xondar123

    Originally posted by Alders


    Originally posted by TheHavok

    You said next gen so im going to assume you mean an MMO that's development is similar to TOR and FF13 in terms of scope, time, and money.

    My guess is over 150,000,000 million.  I heard Aion cost twice that to make.

     

    Actually Aion cost somewhere between 18-20 mil to make. You can tell in the final product with it's lack of solid content. It's really a perfect model for an item shop ftp mmo. NCsoft made bank on box sales alone and tricked us all into thinking it wasn't shallow.

     

    Not sure how accurate these numbers are of course.

    http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-19/tera_will_become_the_most_expensive_mmo_in_the_world.shtml

    50 billion won = $41 million USD. That's less expensive than WoW, and much, much less expensive than SWTOR. The guy who wrote that article needs to fact check.

    But checking facts take so much TIME... and then he might actually have to change his opinion to match the actual facts... much easier to just make up numbers.

  • InterestingInteresting Member UncommonPosts: 973

    With 5 million I make an indie MMO that proffits 20 times that in the first year.

  • GTwanderGTwander Member UncommonPosts: 6,035

    I said over 150 million... because every lame poll deserves a lame answer.

    EDIT: Goddamned Necro...

    Writer / Musician / Game Designer

    Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
    Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture

  • JemcrystalJemcrystal Member UncommonPosts: 1,988
    Originally posted by GTwander

    I said over 150 million... because every lame poll deserves a lame answer.

    EDIT: Goddamned Necro...

    Messa like neco post because messa wasn't here when 1st post on the subject was out and messa don't see need to start new thread.  Yousa troll cause if yousa no liked thread yousa wouldn't post on it, ya?  



  • Swollen_BeefSwollen_Beef Member UncommonPosts: 190

    the Hero engine runs about $75,000 with a 7% revenue share. seems rather cheap imo. cheap to a start up? no, but no where near the order of $150,000,000 some of you think that every mmo henceforth requires. 

    sounds to me most of the cost goes toward labor. 

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