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Making much money yet?

SoupsSoups Registered User regular
edited May 2008 in Penny Arcade Games
Little question for the guys behind the scenes.

Have you made a considerable profit from the release yet? About how many copies have you sold, and how many would you need to sell/have sold to make it worth the work? For some reason I'm strangely interested.

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Soups on

Posts

  • TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta Ghostbuster Atlanta, GARegistered User regular
    edited May 2008
    If they don't at least break even on this venture I am going to cry.

    TankHammer on
  • Oz K. FodrotskiOz K. Fodrotski Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    If they don't at least break even on this venture I am going to cry.

    Oz K. Fodrotski on
  • Triple BTriple B Bastard of the North MARegistered User regular
    edited May 2008

    Triple B on
    Steam/XBL/PSN: FiveAgainst1
  • ASimPersonASimPerson Cold... ... and hard.Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Triple B wrote: »

    I dunno. Despite people bitching about the price point in one of the other threads, I don't think their margins are very high.

    ASimPerson on
  • XaquinXaquin Right behind you!Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    I hope it turns out well.

    I've recommended it to a few people, and advertised it on a couple forums.

    Xaquin on
  • TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta Ghostbuster Atlanta, GARegistered User regular
    edited May 2008
    ASimPerson wrote: »

    I dunno. Despite people bitching about the price point in one of the other threads, I don't think their margins are very high.

    Seriously. Those bitching about the price are assholes. Game developers are already treated like slaves in the industry. They need to feed their families guys!

    I lived with game designers for 2 years, there is a LOT of work put into it and I don't think enough people appreciate the effort that goes into making even the simplest of games.

    Hell, I worked a few months for a startup game company. They were poor as a motherfucker.
    They're broke now. Bankrupt.
    It's a harsh world.

    TankHammer on
  • ZhirzzhZhirzzh Registered User regular
    edited May 2008

    Seriously. Those bitching about the price are assholes. Game developers are already treated like slaves in the industry. They need to feed their families guys!

    I lived with game designers for 2 years, there is a LOT of work put into it and I don't think enough people appreciate the effort that goes into making even the simplest of games.

    Hell, I worked a few months for a startup game company. They were poor as a motherfucker.
    They're broke now. Bankrupt.
    It's a harsh world.

    I agree. 20$ is a nothing price for a game.

    Zhirzzh on
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  • NATIKNATIK DenmarkRegistered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Zhirzzh wrote: »
    I agree. 20$ is a nothing price for a game.

    Now it may be because I am not american, but really $20 is nothing, you can hardly buy anything with that money. A new game around here usually cost $70-80 for a PC game and $100-120 for a console game (and yes I am talking about american dollars) so I am perfectly content to pay $20 for this game, for an episode it has a great length and the pricing is awesome.

    NATIK on
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  • ImpersonatorImpersonator Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    NATIK wrote: »

    Now it may be because I am not american, but really $20 is nothing, you can hardly buy anything with that money. A new game around here usually cost $70-80 for a PC game and $100-120 for a console game (and yes I am talking about american dollars) so I am perfectly content to pay $20 for this game, for an episode it has a great length and the pricing is awesome.

    And I still complain about the prices here in Portugal..o_O

    Usually, pc games are 50€ and console games (x360 and ps3) 70€ :|

    Impersonator on
  • TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta Ghostbuster Atlanta, GARegistered User regular
    edited May 2008

    And I still complain about the prices here in Portugal..o_O

    Usually, pc games are 50€ and console games (x360 and ps3) 70€ :|

    Three cheers for digital distribution then I guess eh guys?

    Fuck man, I am NEVER moving to Denmark EVER.

    TankHammer on
  • Dublo7Dublo7 Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Have they even mentioned its release on the front page?

    Dublo7 on
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  • SoupsSoups Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Dublo7 wrote: »
    Have they even mentioned its release on the front page?

    They did today. I'm pretty sure they're making it a point to not shove the game down our throats.

    Soups on
    DitchTheJock.png
  • Senor MushroomSenor Mushroom Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Soups wrote: »
    Little question for the guys behind the scenes.

    Have you made a considerable profit from the release yet? About how many copies have you sold, and how many would you need to sell/have sold to make it worth the work? For some reason I'm strangely interested.

    I more hope that hothead does well with it. They have a lot more financial risk involved I'd garauntee.

    I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love Gabe and Tycho to do well and all (they are the mouths of our kind) but hothead doing well would prove financial viability to larger scale indy projects like this and we'd see a lot more developers taking chances on concepts like this, and we'd probably see a lot of innovation in the industry.

    Senor Mushroom on
    "Video Games hurt children? Thats what they said about rock and roll."
  • squirlysquirly Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    On average we pay $120AUD (Which converts to $115.21USD) for new games for the X360/PS3/Wii. Well, I think a fair few new games are around $100AUD but that's still $96.01USD.

    And that's with a strong Australian dollar.

    squirly on
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  • PhawxPhawx Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Well on Xbox Live Leaderboards there are 16885 people recorded. There are probably a bit more than that but lets say 18,000.

    18,000 x 20 = 360,000 x 35% = $126,000

    I am going off of the rumor that devs are now taking only 35% of gross sales as profits with that whole N+ deal that happened.

    So from the Xbox side of things they made $126,000. They should be making considerably more for their playgreenhouse.com channel. I have no figures to go by from that, but I do hope enough people purchased so that they could at least break even.

    But they also have Eps 2, 3 and 4 left.

    Phawx on
  • apotheosapotheos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited May 2008
    I think asking a business how much money they just made is like asking a lady her age or asking a chef for the recipie. That is poor taste, sir. Poor taste.

    apotheos on


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  • PhawxPhawx Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    I do believe he has only the best intentions from his question. He also may have different standards than you do:

    http://www.theledger.com/article/20080505/NEWS/805050315/1349/LIFE09

    Phawx on
  • halkunhalkun Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    PA doesn't even mention how much they make as a company per year, however word around the water cooler is the "Low-to-mid seven digits"

    halkun on
  • SoupsSoups Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    apotheos wrote: »
    I think asking a business how much money they just made is like asking a lady her age or asking a chef for the recipie. That is poor taste, sir. Poor taste.

    I don't really care about the exact figures or anything. I just wanna make sure Hothead gets a sufficient amount for their work.

    Soups on
    DitchTheJock.png
  • CaszCasz Registered User new member
    edited May 2008

    Three cheers for digital distribution then I guess eh guys?

    Fuck man, I am NEVER moving to Denmark EVER.

    While not always the case, digital distribution still has localized pricing.
    CoD4 off steam is 49.99USD but when buying in Australia it translates to around 85USD.
    Digital distribution takes a bit off the in-store RRP but isn't big enough yet to make much of a difference.

    Casz on
  • r0ckarongr0ckarong Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Found this just a minute ago: http://vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=1209

    Apparently yesterday's official figures listed a little over 16,5K purchases. And like Phawx said, that's excluding all the PC/Mac/Linux sales. And for three days of sales that is quite astonishing.

    r0ckarong on
    Those who say they have nothing to hide, have not been asked the proper questions yet.

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  • MadcowMadcow Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Apparently yesterday's official figures listed a little over 16,5K purchases.
    Well that is 16500 x 19.95 = 329175$ right there. If I am not mistaken

    Madcow on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Remember that Microsoft takes a cut.

    The development costs for episode one were a tad over a million dollars. Episode two looks to be half that. http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/04/11/video-games-serials-tech-personal-cx_mji_0411serials.html

    There are also the initial setup costs for Greenhouse.

    devoir on
  • SoupsSoups Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Over a million dollars? That's nuts! Does that include each employee's wages for actual time spent working? I can't imagine the actual resources cost that much.

    Soups on
    DitchTheJock.png
  • HH VladHH Vlad Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Soups wrote: »
    Over a million dollars? That's nuts! Does that include each employee's wages for actual time spent working? I can't imagine the actual resources cost that much.

    Making games is extremely expensive. The majority of costs is straight salary for all the talent that works on a game title. Just take a look at the credits! Making an indie game does not mean you are not paying pros to do their job. It means you can put fruit fuckers into the game :)

    A lot of people like the music in the game. It costs a lot per minute of original scored music not to mention audio direction, sound design, mixing and audio QA work. Some people may not like the style of some aspects but I challenge anyone to say we did not go pro all the way with the audio in this game. And audio was the least expensive aspect of production.

    Speaking of QA, QA costs alone for non-audio aspects of the game including internal resources, the company we worked with externally and the company we worked with to go through the XBLA process is well over $200,000. Even then, look at all the issues, bugs etc. We shipped on 4 platforms--not an easy task I assure you. That is why I find it relatively frustrating when I hear people say "adding Linux or Mac" was simple because they are using Torque ;) I can say with certainty that Robert's estimate of the cost of production was . . . conservative. I should know given Hothead bore the brunt and I signed the checks. Also, he did not account for any PA costs and non-direct costs such as G&T's considerable amount of time that went into the game. Going into exact figures really does not accomplish much but we took this game seriously--we put our hearts and souls into it along with a lot of cash. We love the support and look forward to paying everyone back, continue paying salaries and making more fun games.

    HH Vlad on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Vlad, what's your stance on releasing numbers of sales from Greenhouse? The lack of information from digital distributors is something that has come up a number of times on the 1up podcasts. I'm not sure of your view on those guys in general, but I can see where some of them are coming from when they try to discuss the future of PC gaming when so much of the information about digital distribution is kept hush.

    Of course I can understand your want for privacy and not to have too much scrutiny of your internal business practices, but I imagine between yourselves and Telltale, good numbers would get a lot of other developers and publishers look into the viability of their own properties as episodic games. Who knows, you might even get interested parties in a similar vein to Ron Gilbert or PA, or at the very least interested in distributing on Greenhouse.

    devoir on
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