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(Poll) How much does it cost to produce an MMO?
mmonooblet
Member Posts: 336
So, what do you think?
Comments
For clarification, do you mean:
1) Next-Gen: Evolved graphics with extensive use of shaders, high poly models, mesh-hiding characters, and full motion capture quality animation in a dense seamless and largely interactive world. Aion, AOC or SW:TOR for examples
2) Next-Gen: Dumbed down F2P themepark targeting casuals to ultra-casuals into a large but only moderately artwork driven MMORPG. No example needed.
Sorry but the point of this is?
Randomly guessing the cost of something that is completely and utterly vague such as an MMO is a bit of a waste. You have simple browser based MMOs to F2P to people trying to re-invent the genre and are building their own graphics engines. The main cost is in man power and the cost of getting good programmers, designers, artists and the tools for them to work with.
Also, the cost to produce a game frequently has little to do with its ultimate price, quality or success.
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.
I'd love to see a link that supports your number for Aion, because it is so ridiculously out there it's funny.
The last I read was TOR might have about a 150 million budget, hell, I read it here, and feel free to check that for linkage for some of the most expensive games made as well:
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/4115/Scott-Jennings-Great-Expectations-SWTOR.html
And here EA explains how SWTOR is the largest budget production they have ever done.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/swtor-is-eas-largest-ever-project
So I'd guess that 150 million would be the ultra top end.
My guess with 50 mil.
I thought "next gen" is all about game play features. It doesn't cost any more to develop a game like that, than a typical WoW clone, and I think you could do one of those for 50 mil.
But if you're idea of "next gen" is like, 3d or Modern Warfare 3 with real time FPS combat, or moving the character with your brain instead of a mouse, or something, I guess the sky is the limit.
This high cost might be from advertisment and voice overs. Should we include this into the development of the game? I don't think so.
Very few games have come close to 100million If tor took 150million. It will be the most costly develope game of all. Also Tor was made on hero engine. It might of been included in that price but it also another product.
I think it around 75 to 100million for ToR. Yet you only need aorund 50million for a decent next gen mmo.
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
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.
If you are Cryptic Studios? About $537.29!
The high-cost associated with Voice-Over work is 100% an associated cost of the games developement. It's such a lynch-pin feature BW has been promoting as a huge feature of the game. I'm trying to find the article now, but I think they even said the VO is the majority of where the costs is driven up from.
Now, the marketing/advertisement costs, that's more debatable, where I could see a 70/30 split with the 70 being just PR and the 30 being imposed cost to development of the game.
As for Hero Engine, the development cost of the engine has nothing to do with TOR, but the licensing costs for that engine and the costs to license out its development tools for each respective member of the team is a definite part of the games development cost.
High-quality MMO's will cost a grip to make. I'm sure TOR is not going to be a common occurance in upfront costs, but saying an MMO from a AAA publisher will run about 40-80mil in dev costs is believable.
As for Aion, keep in mind its development costs will probably be listed in Korean Won, and not US dollars. A 50mil US game would be 59,719,999,062 Won. Plus, they were working off a licensed engine (CryEngine 1) which probably mitigated some costs.
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.
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.
People say 60 million for WoW. They would've had a lot of in house stuff already since warcraft was an already established franchise.
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On mmorpgmaker.com, there are some hobbiests who do it on the cheap.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Exactly, $150 million is in the "are you insane?" level of funding for almost any real world project. Compare it to this list on Wikipedia of most expensive films ever made.
It's telling that there have been so few movies made with a budget over $150 million that the list has fewer than 50 movies on it.
To be a truly next gen quality MMORPG, like SWTOR, FFXIV, GW2, Copernicus etc. these games are equal to the big budget Hollywood movies. So I chose 100,000,000 as a nice even number. Especially since Curt Schilling was offered 75mil to move to Rhode Island on top of the about 50mil he said he had already plunked down on the games.
I truly don't know though. Would love to, as I may some day, if I win the lottery own the next big MMO company.
That's my dream, anyway.
Umm this was already published the startup cost of a MMO is $40 Million. SOE Turbine and Microsoft all said this
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
10 Years ago Star Wars Galaxies clocked in at $25 million to make. at the time it was HUGE news, it was the most expensive MMO to date and considered a HUGE investment by SOE. A few years later, EQ2 launched, at a whopping cost of about $30 million, considered big but, well, SOE had done similar projects before right? Hah! No one understood at the time that the blizzard juggernaut had just dumped $80 million in World of Warcraft, and it showed. From marketing, to polish, to game quality. Blizzard, set the stage for giant cost = big revenue. 750,000 copies of WoW sold in under 3 weeks. Priced at $60 a box, Blizzard made half their investment back in box sales alone (okay, that's a bit of a stretch, I know they don't see all the moeny from the box price). Even if not quite the case, when you account for total sales that year, to hell with revenue from subs, box sales made their money back.
not all projects have known costs. We know that Cheyenne Mountain raised over $50 million dollars, we also know they spent over $25 million on their aborted Stargate Worlds attempt. The other $25 million.. well, that's for the lawyers to find out. We also have on reasonable authority that Realtime Worlds put over $100 million in APB. So we know it's possible to spend outrageous sums of money and end up with nothing much to show. Spending money is the easy part, launching a quality game takes talent. We also know that SWTOR is a $200 million effort, EA has said as much though not necessarily how that money actually breaks down.
The numbers aren't hard to work out. Some of these projects are teams of 120 people or more. Stargate Worlds had a team of over 75 folks. Biowares team is rumored to be over 300. Assume lowest common denominator in salaries, somewhere around $35-40,000 a year for an entry level job and do the math. 12 million a year in salaires if everyone was paid that at Bioware. However, many many developers, producers, executives and other lucky negotiators make over $100,000 a year. Some significantly more than that. if you flipped that problem on it's head it's suddenly $30million a year in salaries. Over a 5 year project, (unless oyu're cryptic, you aren't building these in 2 years) you're looking at anywhere from $60 million to $150 million in salaries alone. You still need a $5-15 million dollar marketing effort, you still need to outlay a few million in hardware costs for the operating facilities, you still need a cusomter service contract, and lets not forget the cost of top notch voice talent or the licensing fees for various IP's or technology.
So yes, a $200 million dollar MMO is possible. A $50 million one is also just as likely. Some companies, like Cryptic, obviously specialize at short time to deliver projects which obviously helps control cost, and many would argue affects quality as well.
The question shouldn't be what are these games costing? The question should be how come they can throw all this money at it and fail? Irresponsibility, lack of vision, zero creative direciton and mis-managed corporate finances only begins to scratch the surface. You can build an MMO at whatever price target you're shooting for, the question shouldn't behow much money, but whether or not if you can make a reasonably competitive game with the resources y ou have available. These are HUGE projects, and the industry is learning that just "wanting" to make something cool doesn't make it happen. You have to know what you are doing first.
Any game Can ramp up there development cost by adding voice overs. This doesnt really change the gameplay as much. So should we consider the cost if they added high paying actors for voice over aswell. This is where it gets iffy.
As for the other 2 I can agree it should but just taken to consideration of why ToR so high around 150 million by rumor. I bet if remove of all three it would of taken around 50million.
Edit: Remember this debate what makes a good next gen mmo. So do re really need voice overs and an old IP game for a good next gen? I think we can come to agreement that we dont need them. Sono. So we shouldn't count it towards a price for development.
--
"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
Where did you get the 80 million figure? I've always heard 60 million. Not that it's a big deal, but if you had a link, I would like to read that article.
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WoW's biggest source of advertising was word of mouth.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
That's true, I'm not discounting how quickly VO can inflate the project, but for how heavily Bioware is touting that every quest/interaction/etc will be voiced, it's still inside its development costs. VO and tech-licensing costs can't be discounted for TOR, and tech-licensing can't be discounted regardless of project.
Take Autodesk Maya for example, it's roughly 3500 a head to get just the program. Now for a 5-10 artist team, no to bad, but lets say TOR has 60-70 3D-artists between characters, environments, items, etc. Now you're looking at a quarter mil on just one program. Extrapolate that through all the other software and workstation hardware they'd need, it does add up.
And saying something shouldn't be counted towards the development cost on personal preference is a bit shaky ground to me. A lot of people on these boards are asking for more immersive worlds to exist in beyond just gameplay systems. A fully VO'd game can add a lot to that immersiveness.
For the Star Wars IP itself, ya, those licensing costs I would discount as well, but then again, I doubt they're that high because I can see LucasArts just getting a bigger cut of the profits than imposing a huge fee to even start the development.
Personally, I think a true next-gen MMO needs to "sell the world" to the player more than anything. By that, I mean making the player actually care about that world setting. For example, I'm excited for DCUO. It's not because I'm expecting drastically different gameplay than CoH/CO, it's because I really like DC Comics. I still love reading Batman, Green Lantern, etc.
I didn't quit CoH or CO because the gameplay was bad (i liked them both overall), I quit those because I didn't give a damn about any of the characters in the world. But without even buying the game yet, I care about Batman, Supes, Joker, Luthor, Capt. Marvel and Black Adam, and I'm already acclimated to the threat that Brainiac can mean to the world.
In that respect, I completely see the costs needed to get the recognizable DCAU voice actors, the right artists who've done work on the books the games based on, etc. I see all that as good production/developments costs for the game, because those things will help sell the interactive world of DC Comics to me. Kevin Conroy Batman plus Mark Hamill Joker = win, and I'm fine with part of my box-cost dollar going to pay those guys for their VO work.
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.
Great comments, everyone. Thanks to all those who have participated so far!
$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.
A large portion of the money is used for marketing. But I've always wondered what nets a company more profit, advertising before release, with investment funds, or advertising with funds from profits made after the games release.
If you look at most recent blockbuster MMOs, you'll notice they focus heavily an advertising before the game is released, so much so, it almost like they intend the game to be a short term profit grab.
This has always been odd to me, because you would think the smarter way to sustain your game and business, would be to market your game after it is fiscally successful, because that makes logical sense. Your game deserves more attention if it is a successful game.
Yet all they're doing right now is assuming their game will be successful, and throwing too much of their money, which could have been development money, to advertising and marketing on a game that has shown no success because it hasn't been release yet.
Most of the time it is about developers and their skills than just programs. If the developers can think of something extraordinary in every way that will create a next gen mmo than that is a win for me. It can take 25mil to make a next gen game when the developers know how to lower the cost but still create something extraordinary. Ofc more money guarantees you better quality but it doesn't have to be over 150mil to make it next gen, it could be some of the best developers that use their money wisely and create something next gen. I'd say anything over 25mil can create a next gen mmorpg.
EDIT- for me it isn't about graphics that make it next gen... for me it is gameplay, something unique that will make other mmo's copy it and revolutionize the production of other games that will try to make it better.. you get the idea...
Many of you guys are talking about the price of development. The price of production is different, which would seem what this thread is about.
Blizzard has also spent close to a half a billion dollars on WoW total, but most of that is post release.
unless its clarified the price of development could be considered part of the price to produce.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
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