Gears 3's budget was $48-$60 million, Epic explains business shift & MS disagreements

[ethomaz]

Gears 3's budget was $48-$60 million, Epic explains business shift & MS disagreements - NeoGAF

Originally Posted by Polygon
...

"The very first Gears of War game cost $12 million to develop, and it made about $100 million in revenue," he says. "It was very profitable."

But those profits continued to shrink as the cost to make each proceeding game went up and the revenue generally didn't.

"By the end of the cycle, Gears of War 3 cost about four or five times more than the original to make," he says. "The profit was shrinking and shrinking. We calculated that, if we built Gears of War 4, the budget would have been well over $100 million, and if it was a huge success, we could break even. Anything less could put us out of business.

"That's what caused us to move and change business models."

It wasn't just Gears 4 that pushed that change; it was also issues that arose while working on Gears of War: Judgment.

"When we released Gears of War: Judgment, a bunch of community players were complaining about all the multiplayer levels we created. We realized that, you know, there are some problems with this, we should rework it, create a bunch of new content and release multiplayer around a new game just like we did in the project that was the genesis of Unreal Tournament," Sweeney says. "We had all these plans to do this, and so we went to Microsoft and we said, 'Hey, we want to do this.' And they said 'No, you don't want to do that.'

"We weren't asking them for money, but you know as our publisher and proprietor of Xbox, it didn't fit into their business plans and so they said no. That made me realize very clearly the risk of having a publisher or anybody standing between game developers and gamers — and how toxic and destructive that process could be to the health of a game and its community."

...

As these things lined up, the decision to change the company began to grow out of a deep sense of foreboding.

"I would describe it as seeing the writing on the wall," Sweeney says. "There was an increasing realization that the old model wasn't working anymore and that the new model was looking increasingly like the way to go."

Sweeney describes the new model as the one embraced by Valve with its digital distribution and early access games and by Riot Games with League of Legends' take on the ever-evolving games as a service platform.

[darkknightkryta]

I guess Unreal is their next title and they're going to milk it for 10 years?

[ethomaz]

I guess Unreal is their next title and they're going to milk it for 10 years?

Paragon I guess.

[kitler53]

Paragon I guess.

paragon looks good at least.  i probably won't give them a dime but i'll give it a go as free to play.

[DerNebel]

paragon looks good at least.  i probably won't give them a dime but i'll give it a go as free to play.

You know what's crazy? Paragon is getting a $60 retail release next month!?! That game is flying under the radar like crazy.

[Raven]

You know what's crazy? Paragon is getting a $60 retail release next month!?! That game is flying under the radar like crazy.

I'm in early access for it and to be honest, all that game needs is a few more heroes (which are coming) and a couple new maps. They do that and the game would be awesome.

[Legend]

You know what's crazy? Paragon is getting a $60 retail release next month!?! That game is flying under the radar like crazy.

Wha?!?!?

So it's free to try not free to play?

[Raven]

Wha?!?!?

So it's free to try not free to play?

No. No. No. It's F2P with an optional purchase for in-game bonuses.

[Aura7541]

Wha?!?!?

So it's free to try not free to play?

Paragon: Essentials Edition launches June 7 - Gematsu

[Dr. Pezus]

wait, only $100m revenue would be less than 2m sold

[BananaKing]

wait, only $100m revenue would be less than 2m sold

Maybe 100 million in revenue for epic, not MS

[kitler53]

wait, only $100m revenue would be less than 2m sold

retail get's their cut.
ms get's their cut.
not every game sold at the full $60.

[Dr. Pezus]

retail get's their cut.
ms get's their cut.
not every game sold at the full $60.

But I thought he was talking about brutto revenue and not profit.
Maybe he's talking about how much they see, so let's say they get $15-$20 per game. That's 5-6.5m sold which makes more sense. Makes sense why they didn't want to make Gears 4. It would've sold less than Gears 3 while costing more, so no profit.

[Max King of the Wild]

How the fudge did they calculate 100m for 4?

I'm assuming they would they would revamp the unreal engine for new hardware but should that cost be under 1 games development when they would use that work for other titles?