News Only 20 percent of games make a profit

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/11...ake-a-profit/1

According to EEDAR only 20 percent of games which actually make it on to retail shelves are able to turn a significant profit.

[steveo_mcg]

L4D, Audio surf, CoD4, Lego Indy, The orange box. I think those all made profit.... Though maybe not Indy.

[Stickeh]

'Significant profit' That means something worth boasting about, i'm sure others make a profit, but obviously nothing special, if a game you can release can cover your programmers / developers pay checks i'd be pretty happy, the mega profit hyst helps your company to expand, and maybe give out some bonus's

[faugusztin]

Last 5 ?
GTA4 (don't know, it's not released yet), L4D (worth the cost), Fallout 3 (worth the cost), Far Cry 2 (not worth the cost), Crysis & Crysis:Warhead (don't know, it's 50/50).

[Tris]

last 5 for me would be wow:wotlk(pc), dead space (pc), sc4(x360), gta4(x360), cod4(pc). Think all of those count as successful games...maybe i am just too mainstream
I think all were kinda worth it, tho the xbox games less so due to the increased cost

[chiper136]

Originally Posted by faugusztin

GTA4 (don't know, it's not released yet).

I think rockstar has made a little profit of it already...i know us console owners cower under the pc might but we do have some small change to buy games with :P

[Whalemeister]

LMAO!!! That pie chart is the funniest thing I've seen all day!

Last five games, Fallout 3 (well worth it), FarCry 2 (hmmm), Crysis:Warhead (Good for £20), Audiosurf (Best value ever!), Mass Effect (well worth it!)

[Fod]

last five games, um.....
left 4 dead (tenner. yes, worth it)
gears of war 2 (so far it's awesome)
littlebigplanet (yes!)
fable 2 (oh yes)
fallout 3 (i haven't started playing this one yet...)

[ginbong]

GRID and Warhead (Worth it), Far Cry 2 CE (Not really worth it, haven't finished yet), Fallout 3 CE (Worth it though haven't finished yet), COD: World at War CE (Can't comment, no time to even install and play xD)

[ginbong]

All my games are for PC btw sorry

[Loot3r]

no wonder we sit with so many dying titles that get no support and a half finished game!

[steveo_mcg]

Originally Posted by Fod

last five games, um.....
left 4 dead (tenner. yes, worth it)
gears of war 2 (so far it's awesome)
littlebigplanet (yes!)
fable 2 (oh yes)
fallout 3 (i haven't started playing this one yet...)

Where???

[Veles]

Last 5 games I bought?

L4D - would be worth every penny if my ****ing modem wouldn't die every 5 minutes so I could actually play online how it's supposed to be played[/rant]
A Kingdom for Keflings - Really enjoy it, not a whole lot of replayability though
Fallout 3 - Definitely worth it, great game
Fable II - I like it, but it is just Fable 1 how it should have been made, little bit boring but I'm glad I bought it


Not sure what I bought after that, I guess it was Force Unleashed, got it off the bay, meh, would rather have that £30 for something else looking back on it.

we'd say that only 20 percent of games ever really deserve to make a profit

Unfortunately we all know that the ones that make a decent amount of profit are all the shitty franchise cash ins.

[Blademrk]

hmm, last 5:

Kingdom for Kelfings (addictive, but not much to go back to once you've finished it) - should have been about 400 MS point and not 800.
Gears of War 2 (Multi-player is awesome)
Soul Calibur 4 (still trying to get into this)
Lost Odysey (I'm at the beginning of the last disk - enjoyed it so far)
Burnout Paradise (Multi-player is fun, however I found the single player (in order to unlock some Licenses/cars) a bit of a chore).

[fargo]

I'm sure there are some great rpg games out there but thats not my bag so I stick to fps main series:
tomb raider
halflife
cod
moh
crysis
far cry
fear
anything else I won't waste my money on although I plan to check out fallout in the near future.
right now I have cod waw,far cry2 and tomb raider underworld loaded a great way to get thru the
winter.

[UrbanMarine]

Yup it's true because 20% of the game released are worth buying. The other 80% are pure crap. Maybe it was the pirates stealing parts of the 80%. First ships, then games and now %. Those pesky pirates!!!!! Making better games = better profit. GTA4 made a 400mil dollar profit hmm what could their secret be??? Oh yeah Rockstar makes good games geezzz never would of figured

One thing i've noticed a chunk of the profit making companies have street credit. Valve, Rockstar, Bungie, Westwood (now EA Westwood), 3DRealms (which puzzles me), Bethesda Game Studios etc

[Mentai]

God of War 2
Persona 3 FES
Left4Dead
World of Goo
Painkiller Gold Edition

I don't know how many of those turned a considerable profit, I know God of War 2 is platinum, and Left4Dead is very successful. World of Goo probably has made quite a bit considering how small the studio is, but Persona 3 FES is a bit of a niche product, they only do limited prints of it in the PAL region, though I suspect it does well in Japan.
And Painkiller... that Yahtzee review probably sold more of it over steam than it had previously haha.

[Cadillac Ferd]

Left 4 Dead - 60$: Honestly, Left 4 Dead is great fun if you manage to round up a few friends but really it's only multi-player and the campaigns are all kind of repetitive after a while. Probably not worth the full 60$ asking price.

Fallout 3 - 60$: Huge, sprawling, gigantic, massive world with ludicrous amounts of replayability. Definitely worth it.

Fable 2 - 60$: Not nearly as sprawling as Fallout 3 but still pretty expansive by most RPG's standards. Pretty good game, just a shame that the advertised multi-player (a big reason I was so excited for the game) ended up being so terrible and the storyline kept flipping from really good to completely terrible. In the end worth the 60$ but had I known what was actually in the box I would've been less excited about spending it.

Forza 2 (used) - 10$: Decent racing game, worth the 10$, if I had bought it used I think it would've been worth the 30$ price they ask for it nowadays.

Castle Crashers - 10$ish: Another fun multiplayer game, worth the slightly higher than average XBL asking price.

[yodasarmpit]

The truth of the matter is simple, with 99% of games released being either shite or direct copies of others, then 20% making a significant profit is a pretty good stat tbh.

The vast majority of people only buy a few games a year, and when those cost £30 a pop you choose wisely.

[Firehed]

Hitting retail really works against them in this day and age. By the time they hit the shelves at WalMart, you've had about six different parties take 50% of the remaining markup, leaving a couple bucks for the actual development firm. Download-based distribution reclaims most of that - even if you only reach 20% of the original audience, the vastly improved profit margins would probably still put you ahead.