SC2 costs $100 million to make

[Don]

Saw that in an article and Blizzard says they look forward to making $500M to $1B. What I don't get is where they expect this money to come from. SC2 isn't going to sell more than your generic Nintendo blockbuster and I don't see any production cost advanage to Blizzard. It's true digital distribution cuts out the middleman but I think the retailer only makes $10 or less per game, so if you got 5 million copies by retail that's $50M at most. I heard they're going to charge for premium maps but looking at the maps released I'm guessing just about anybody can do a reasonable job at making maps (put choke points, destuctible objects leads somewhere else, put some high ground and done) let alone people who are actually good at doing this kind of thing.

Now I don't think SC2 is going to lose money, but $500M is like WoW territory here which is a subscription based game. Do they really think millions of people will be buying the game for $150 for all 3 campaigns?

[Julius Seeker]

If they sell the main game for 60 bucks, and each expansion for 35. Blizzard/Activision likely will take in a very high percentage of that per unit considering it is a big game and they're a company with many resources (development and publishing are all done internally, with no major royalties, etc..). If they sell 7 million units of the original, and 10 million between the two expansions, that could be around 700 million.

[Eric]

They're gonna sell the expansions at full price, they expect to make it all back via all 3 games.

[Flip]

I think there will be a million micro transactions involved. New portraits to buy, maps that act as mini episodes, maybe even maps needed to play ladder?... I heard they also might sell the ability to make multiple accounts. As of right now, you can only have one account per serial code, so if you get to diamond level with zerg (for example) and want to switch to protoss, you will get pounded by diamond players as you learn the new race. Buying two games to have a zerg and protoss account is stupid just to offrace your main.

Whats the population of South Korea? Everyone will buy a copy, that has to be 20-30 million copies sold there. I think it will be DL only in Asia, too.

[Don]

If you sell 7 million copies at $100 each, the middleman gets like say $10-25 depending on how many games comprise the $100. That already lowers your total revenue to $450-600M and that's assuming it costs nothing to distribute the game and nothing to produce the game. I realize those costs aren't significant but it's not going to be 0 either when you're talking about a game this big.

The only way I see them making this money is if they expect people to buy 3X$50 or 3X60 for the 3 campaigns.

For the transaction model, unless they're going to prevent people from using the editor, generally speaking the fanbase of Blizzard comes up with way better stuff than Blizzard themselves. Why pay for new maps when there are guys who will make better ones for free? I suppose they can just forbid people from doing this stuff but that'd take away a lot of what makes Blizzard game successful in the first place. Maybe they can make it that you need to pay a fee to participate in the ladder, but that seems to be a difficult model to do. Whereas in a MMORPG the subscription model works since everyone is a winner (eventually), clearly there can't be very many winners in a ladder and people aren't going to be too excited to pay a fee to get spanked.

I've no idea how it'll work out in South Korea but I think only the gaming cafes have to purchase a copy and then you just play there? Obviously it'll get a lot of sales there but it can't be something crazy like 10 million. WoW only had like a 1 milion sub in Korea I think and people complained about the price, so even Koreans have limits to what they buy.

[Eric]

They intend to make money off of BNET.

I'm not entirely sure of their plans, but there will be lots of micro transactions going on.

[Zeus]

Retail isn't the only thing they have left anymore. Like Eric said, I remember reading an article on some form of additional fees but not sure what exactly they are.

Besides, have you look at the sales of Starcraft? There's a reason you can still buy it new in Best Buy what, 12 years later? They keep selling forever

[Don]

Anybody can say we have a plan that will make a gazillion dollar but just because it's Starcraft doesn't mean it's guaranteed to work. Microtransactions usually do not work well with games that aren't built from the ground up to support it, and the model would be contrary to what makes Starcraft successful. It can work but I need more than just 'trust us, we are Blizzard.' Now there's no reason why SC2 can't make *only* 100 million but since their head guys came out and said they expect to pull in 500-1000M it can't be just a business as usual thing.

I assume the copies of Starcraft and Diablo 2 you see in Best Buy only exists to account for attrition, i.e. I threw away my copy of SC and some friends talked me into playing again. Sure that's still profit but it's not exactly a huge source of sales since people can only lose CDs so fast. They're also sold at bargain prices of like $20 or less. If you want to make $1B in revenue you got to sell 50 million games!

[Don]

The other major franchise Activision has is obviously Call of Duty which is expected to pull in a similar range. I looked up Call of Duty on Gamefaqs and I counted 9 games+expansions at a quick glance. I'm not sure how many games Halo franchise consist of but I assume it's at least more than 5. Now you can argue most of these games aren't really that different from each other but it's still 9 games. Starcraft 2 is a single game and I don't think they're going to be able to fool any meaningful number of people into buying 3 games for the 3 campaigns. Even if they can, that's still only 3 games versus 9.

[Zeus]

Attrition or not, there's a reason they keep selling (and re-selling) the games. If Starcraft 2 can follow in #1 and Diablo's footsteps, making $500M+ over the course of the game's life shouldn't be too hard

[Eric]

Don, I'm shocked you continue to underestimate Blizzard.

[Zeus]

Don, I'm shocked you continue to underestimate Blizzard.

Have they ever made a game that didn't sell like mad?

[Don]

Starcraft sold 11 million copies. If you assume they all sold for $50 which totally ignores the fact that the price on SC1 went down very quickly, that is $550M in revenue. I don't see how it can possibly come close to $1B or even the $500M figure. I realize the CEO referred to them as opportunity but presumably opportunity means they think it can actually happen, as opposed to just throwing out a randomly huge number. The gold-selling industry, which is believed to be bigger than the entire MMORPG industry, is refered to as a billion dollar industry, and nothing in recent memory comes close to being as profitable as World of Warcraft. Regardless of how good SC2 turned out to be I see no obvious way for them to monetize $500-1000M. I looked up Activision's stats and Call of Duty sold more than $1B in revenue, but that's revenue not profit, and FPS seems easier to tack on extra stuff to sell compared to a RTS.

[Don]

Don, I'm shocked you continue to underestimate Blizzard.

Have they ever made a game that didn't sell like mad?

Sell like mad and ONE BILLION DOLLARS are two very different criterias. You're talking about the net yearly profit of possibly the most profitable gaming industry (selling gold) here.

[Julius Seeker]

Their expectations are up to 1 billion, but as low as 500M. This game will sell a lot better than the original Starcraft did at the starting price.

Making money off of B-Net? Maybe downloadable content sections, or even ads.


100 million dollar budget - the real question is, what did they actually do that they needed such a gigantic budget for the game? That's almost disgusting; a game like WoW might need one that large, but Starcraft is an RTS!!! I am wondering just what they've done.

[SineSwiper]

100 million dollar budget - the real question is, what did they actually do that they needed such a gigantic budget for the game? That's almost disgusting; a game like WoW might need one that large, but Starcraft is an RTS!!! I am wondering just what they've done.

THANK YOU! For once, Seeker is the voice of reason. You guys are arguing about the profit margin and missing this main point.

How the hell does Blizzard spend that much? I mean did they hire Tom Cruise as a voice actor? Shit, even so, he's not going to demand 100 million or even 10 million. Is the whole game like one of those Sega CD games, except with a high budget, multimillion dollar Hollywood backing? Wouldn't we heard of something like that?

Really... I'm serious. Hookers and blow? What the fuck were they doing with that money?

[Don]

I thought the whole talk about expecting 500-1000M was just a coverup for the fact that they somehow wasted 100M on developing a RTS. I believe WoW's entire operating cost is around 200M, and that includes development and maintenance in its entire duration, and it's hard to imagine a more profitable game than WoW. The next biggest budget game was Gran Tourismo 5 at 60 million. I think FF7 was like ~50 million but they had to like buy brand new hardware and everything to develop for PSX.

[Kupek]

Two things you need to keep in mind. One, the most expensive thing in a game is the content - art and music. Not the code itself. So, army of artists making an army of content. It doesn't matter what kind of game you're making, if you decide it's going to have a lot of content, it will be expensive. Historically, Blizzard does not skimp on this.

Two, the most expensive aspect of making a game is the same as it everywhere else: people. Think about how many people it took, working full time, pulling in $50k - $100k a year for several years. A game that is in development for a long time will be expensive because you have to pay many people for many years.

Just work through some basic numbers. Let's assume that Blizzard pays their employees very well, which is a reasonable assumption since they're a dominant force in the industry. Let's also consider the cost to the company beyond just an employee's salary; factor in benefits and such. So let's assume that a "good person," whatever their job, costs Blizzard $100,000 a year. SC2 has been in development, what, five years?

20 good programmers for five years at $100,000 a year each = $10 million
20 good artists for five years at $100,000 a year each = $10 million

We've just spent $20 million on programmers and artists alone. Now consider all of the other kinds of jobs that need to be filled - designers, map makers, Q&A, IT support staff, marketing. My numbers may be off even by a factor of 2, but I think the reasoning is sound. People are expensive. If you're a big game in development for a long time, it's going to be expensive.

[Don]

I don't think Blizzard pays that well since they figure they got plenty of guys willing to work for next to nothing just because it's Blizzard, but SC2 has been in development since 2003 (so 7 years), so that probably cancels out the high estimate for salary. Of course people are expensive (CS is usually the most expensive part for a MMORPG upkeep too) but 100 million is still a ton of money to throw at people, especially since Blizzard is not known to make games that'd require a high amount of raw firepower which is where you need the people for. Their games tend to be average at best when it comes to technological prowess, and there's a very obvious correlation between having something that looks cutting edge and the number of people you need to make it.

Look at a game even like WoW. It's hard to imagine it required a ton of artist or polygon grunt guys because there simply aren't that many models nor are they in high polygon count.

[Zeus]

100 million dollar budget - the real question is, what did they actually do that they needed such a gigantic budget for the game? That's almost disgusting; a game like WoW might need one that large, but Starcraft is an RTS!!! I am wondering just what they've done.

THANK YOU! For once, Seeker is the voice of reason. You guys are arguing about the profit margin and missing this main point.

How the hell does Blizzard spend that much? I mean did they hire Tom Cruise as a voice actor? Shit, even so, he's not going to demand 100 million or even 10 million. Is the whole game like one of those Sega CD games, except with a high budget, multimillion dollar Hollywood backing? Wouldn't we heard of something like that?

Really... I'm serious. Hookers and blow? What the fuck were they doing with that money?

Quality takes time, time = money. And they've been working on the game for what, 8+ years now? It's really not that hard to get the budget up that high when you make games they way they do

[Zeus]

Don, I'm shocked you continue to underestimate Blizzard.

Have they ever made a game that didn't sell like mad?

Sell like mad and ONE BILLION DOLLARS are two very different criterias. You're talking about the net yearly profit of possibly the most profitable gaming industry (selling gold) here.

$1B is 20 million copies at $50 each, yes? Not completely out of the question

[Don]

[quote="Zeus]$1B is 20 million copies at $50 each, yes? Not completely out of the question[/quote]

They're talking about $1 billion in profit, not revenue. If that figure was revenue I'd have no problem with that, but profit is a whole another issue. I doubt even WoW can make $1B profit in an year, and it's hard to imagine a game that's more profitable than WoW right now.

[SineSwiper]

20 good programmers for five years at $100,000 a year each = $10 million
20 good artists for five years at $100,000 a year each = $10 million

Well, that's the other thing. Why has it been in development for 8 years? It was almost reaching DNF-like levels. Good games have came out in 3 years, tops. Surely, they weren't in using all of their resources in all eight of those years. It's like they had a guy or so working on this while they put their efforts on WoW. Then, eventually they poured resources onto SC2. But, that had to have been in only the last few years.

Also, I agree with Don: they don't pay their people that much. Maybe $60-70K tops. Sure, that still means $6-7M for five years, but I doubt most of their resources were working on this for five years. It's a goddamn RTS, not another MMO. RTSs are among the easiest to code and design for, compared to say, RPGs (MMO or otherwise), or sandbox games, or FPSs.

So, again, where's the $100 million coming from? Overpaid chief officers?

[Don]

I think SC2 must have been redesigned at some point since if the game development started at 2003 there's no way it can look remotely recent. Still 7 years of continous development still shouldn't hit this level for a RTS because RTS are inherently not very complicated. This isn't a MMORPG where you need at least 100 guys doing stuff to just crank enough content to be a passable game.

Also I don't think Blizzard has any star programmer/designers, at least there aren't any I know of offhand. If Nintendo said they paid Miyamoto $5 a million an year and had him in a cave for 10 years designing the next Zelda game so it cost $50 million just for one guy at least that's believeable because Miyamoto's name speak for himself.

The lead designer for WoW is best known for leading a guild in EQ and he gave some guy high up in Blizzard free loots while he was playing EQ for his position. Now this guy can actually be a MMORPG supergenius, but if the best credential you have is "I lead a guild in EQ and post on message boards" there's no way you're in any way to bargain for a salary that'd be at all meaningful to a company like Blizzard. It'd literally be like if Blizzard talked any one of us to design their next MMOROPG. Even if we all turn out to be smarter than the all the video game legends combined, there's obviously no way we can have any kind of leverage on salary since none of us have any credentials. And if that's their lead designer for their most profitable game I've a hard time seeing the exitsence of any star developer/programmer that might suck up an insane amount of money to keep him around.

[Anarky]

Well they're getting $100 from me, I just pre-ordered the collectors editions.

[Eric]

I like how Amazon offers release-day delivery on high profile games now.

[Zeus]

[quote="Zeus]$1B is 20 million copies at $50 each, yes? Not completely out of the question

They're talking about $1 billion in profit, not revenue. If that figure was revenue I'd have no problem with that, but profit is a whole another issue. I doubt even WoW can make $1B profit in an year, and it's hard to imagine a game that's more profitable than WoW right now.[/quote][/quote]
No they're not, they're talking revenue. I don't even think there's been a single game to ever make $1B in revenue, they wouldn't be silly enough to talk profit numbers like that.

[Zeus]

I like how Amazon offers release-day delivery on high profile games now.

Hey, EB has games the Thursday or Friday before release on Tuesday. It's always been logistically possible, Amazon was finally able to convince the publishers it can control the distribution channel enough to ensure negligible leaks.

[Anarky]

I like how Amazon offers release-day delivery on high profile games now.

Hey, EB has games the Thursday or Friday before release on Tuesday. It's always been logistically possible, Amazon was finally able to convince the publishers it can control the distribution channel enough to ensure negligible leaks.

I don't think I've ever heard of Amazon breaking street dates.... everyone else on the other hand...

[Don]

From the news it says:

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick described StarCraft II as one of the company’s seven pillars of opportunity, meaning it has the potential to bring in operating profit of between $500 million and $1 billion.

I don't know how the profit is defined exactly but a box that sells for $50 most definitely is not the same as $50 of profit.

[Zeus]

From the news it says:

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick described StarCraft II as one of the company’s seven pillars of opportunity, meaning it has the potential to bring in operating profit of between $500 million and $1 billion.

I don't know how the profit is defined exactly but a box that sells for $50 most definitely is not the game as $50 of profit.

Operating Profit is defined as Sales less Cost of Sales (not expenses) and operating expenses.

My mistake, then. Kotalik is a madman. No chance

[Don]

I looked up Activision Blizzard's quarterly report. They had an operating income of $381M, and MMORPG (this probably means WoW) has a revenue of $306M and expense of $52M, so if you throw out WoW, Activision made $127M this quarter. $1B would be equivalent of the income for the company for 2.5 years not counting WoW. Incidentally WoW made $254M last quarter which is just about twice as the rest of the company put together, and the company would've lost money on some quarters if they don't have WoW, which pulls in a pretty consistent number.

This also means WoW has roughly an income of $1B/year. They should say the strategy is to find a pillar that is not named WoW, since clearly WoW dwarfs the rest of the company.

[SineSwiper]

Also I don't think Blizzard has any star programmer/designers, at least there aren't any I know of offhand. If Nintendo said they paid Miyamoto $5 a million an year and had him in a cave for 10 years designing the next Zelda game so it cost $50 million just for one guy at least that's believeable because Miyamoto's name speak for himself.

That's because the Japanese think of their video game designers like rock stars. It's not like Miyamoto is any better than a good US programmer. He's just more famous.

[Eric]

I read somewhere Miyamoto doesn't really get paid like you'd imagine he would heh.

[Don]

I don't think the Japanese guys get paid much, but at least some of these guys are well known so they actually have this kind of bargaining power if they want to be paid a ton of money. Blizzard games tend to be the result of a process as opposed to having some superstar programmer since you see the guys who left their team usually amounted to nobody significant, so it's really hard to imagine they need to pay a lot of money for any particular member of the team.

[Julius Seeker]

Miyamoto's paycheque equates to about $1.4 million USD. I am not sure about his investments in the company, I would imagine he is one of the larger investors.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/06/mario- ... ing-money/

[Zeus]

I read somewhere Miyamoto doesn't really get paid like you'd imagine he would heh.

It's apparently not like it is in North America where they reward you big time with salaries, bonus, etc. They just promote you and it's your status that's supposed to be your reward. Considering he oversees everything at Nintendo now, I guess that's the best he can do there?

[Eric]

Everyone shush and watch the awesome. =D

[Zeus]

Everyone shush and watch the awesome. =D

Hold on, why the hell is John Marsden the hero of Starcraft 2? :-)

Seriously, though, a storyline? Why would they feel the need to add that?

[Don]

I don't see how that's supposed to be impressive compared to any generic trailer of any game with a decent budget. Blizzard was never known to rely on technological firepower.

[Tessian]

Good lord, that's a lot of cutscene. Beautiful, stunning cutscenes, but still quite a bit. Now I'm excited.

They need to make a movie with that CGI of theirs. Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, I don't care

[Eric]

Everyone shush and watch the awesome. =D

Hold on, why the hell is John Marsden the hero of Starcraft 2? :-)

Seriously, though, a storyline? Why would they feel the need to add that?

Uhhh, SC1 had a storyline, lots of people enjoyed the campaign myself included, I know people buying this mainly for the campaign and don't care about multiplayer. >.> If you don't like the story that's fine, but don't say SC's story sucks.

[Don]

Most of the interesting characters died by the end of Brood Wars. It was your standard space opera thing with betrayal and stuff but Fenix and Tassadar were actually pretty cool so it all somehow works out at the end.

[SineSwiper]

Everyone shush and watch the awesome. =D

If that was a trailer for a movie, it would be a really cheesy movie. And dated. They haven't used techniques like that since the 90's. I was watching for the "In a world" man to pop up (RIP).

[Don]

The trailer is full of assumed greatness where whoever made it up assumed everyone already knew it was great before it even came out. The only person in there that would stand on their own in the trailer was Arcturus Mensk because he had the cool cape and he actually sounded sinister and stuff. Clearly the trailer expects you to go "OMG that's Kerrigan" or "OMG that was Zeratul" and their greatness speaks for themselves, but I just don't see what's so great about a bunch of second-tier characters in terms of story even within the original Starcraft. Pretty much anyone that had an interesting character/personality minus Mensk was killed in the first Starcraft in a standard Naruto "if you need drama just kill off cool guys" style. They even killed that judicator guy whose name I don't remember because it probably drives the story. Raynor really didn't do much in the original Starcraft and he was arguably less important than even the cannon fodder UED guys that died (no idea what their names were but there were two of them).

That trailer would make sense if the hero was say, Solid Snake, whose name does speak for himself. I had trouble figuring out which of the guys in the marine suit was Jim Raynor. It's almost like they needed someone from original Starcraft that was cool as the new hero only to realize anyone that remotely qualified for this was already dead so it had to be Jim Raynor by the process of elimination (Artanis would be way worse, and Zeratul was like always a loser anyway). They should have just resurrected Fenix except he already died twice and this isn't Dragonball, so that wouldn't work too well.

[Flip]

Fenix probably will be reborn, there is a unit called Immortals who are supposedly the crippled veterans who are implanted into dragoon exoskeletons.

[Don]

Fenix probably will be reborn, there is a unit called Immortals who are supposedly the crippled veterans who are implanted into dragoon exoskeletons.

Both Dragoons and Immortals are used to house people who are mortally wounded so they can keep on fighting. The second time Fenix died he was in a Dragoon suit so I'm guessing he's dead for good.

[Shrinweck]

I know during the campaign Raynor has flashbacks where you play as the Protoss. I know Zeratul pops up in one of those from a preview I read.. Fenix probably shows up in one, as well.

Edit: Just watched the trailer... You're telling me we have battleships that can fly in space and cloaking technology but we still can't create LCDs that aren't static-y?

[Don]

Pretty sure the ony Protoss guy in the trailer was Zeratul since they got nobody else interesting left anymore after Tassadar and Fenix died. Besides, Jim Raynor never met Fenix while he was alive, so he couldn't have known what Fenix looked like.

[Eric]

Yes it was Zeratul, and the Battleships weren't cloaked, they were just coming into range of their radar.

Terran technology is very clunky.