Elder Scrolls Online - Development Cost?

Drithius said:

Yes. Salaries in the gaming industry are quite low, comparatively. People buy into the hype, sacrificing their salaries (as well as their lives during crunch time). 50-60k might be the median these days. Higher of course for project leads.

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Depends on many things. I know my native country Finland is fairly expensive, but in dollars, a standard gaming industry salary would be about 60.000-70.000. This is what the worker gets to his account.

But the employer spends another 25.000-30.000 dollars in taxes, pensions, insurances, healthcare, etc. The employee doesn't see that money directly in his account, but the employer has to pay it nevertheless.

In most countries, particularly the rich western ones, the companies have to pay a lot more money, than what the employer directly receives. So that 50-60K median can be misleading, and the real median might be 75.000-90.000K.

This is obviously a very high profile, high end project, and the workforce is going to be more experienced, and better paid than in most projects.

An easy to way to cut down the budget is to outsource to 2nd and 3rd world countries. but I don't see any reason why we should support that.

ToddMcF2002 said:

Recouping 200m will be a cakewalk for them anyway.

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Guys this is easy Math. They have over 4 Million Beta sign ups. Let's say 1/2 buy it at Full retail $50 a box. That is $100 Million (yes I know they do not get it all the revenue). Then 1/2 those subscribers stay 1 year ( 2MX 12 months x 1/2) That is 15M per month over 12 months = 180M. There is 280M the first year-- couple that with the downsizing that will occur to reduce overhead and the rest will be gravy.

I actually think the first year sales will move as many units as Skyrim-- so we may be talking close to a Billion in Sales. And every one of those sales that stays more than 1 month is gravy.

benetar said:

Guys this is easy Math. They have over 4 Million Beta sign ups. Let's say 1/2 buy it at Full retail $50 a box. That is $100 Million (yes I know they do not get it all the revenue). Then 1/2 those subscribers stay 1 year ( 2MX 12 months x 1/2) That is 15M per month over 12 months = 180M. There is 280M the first year— couple that with the downsizing that will occur to reduce overhead and the rest will be gravy.

I actually think the first year sales will move as many units as Skyrim— so we may be talking close to a Billion in Sales. And every one of those sales that stays more than 1 month is gravy.

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Actually, ESO would have to do a lot better than that to stay in the red, because you don't account for ongoing cost, not to mention on-going development as a MMO doesn't stop development once it's out of the gate. Unless it wants to start bleeding subscribers madly. Also salaries, which probably aren't that low a number given they've spend money for like 40 Torments/Eternities over 6 years or so, even if they reduce the overhead a bit.

As for sales, I am a bit doubtful there's much overlap between Elder Scrolls fans and MMO ones, not to mention that the ESO, from what I gather, is nothing like the single player games. No way they move as much units as Skyrim at release, nomatter what.

benetar said:

Guys this is easy Math. They have over 4 Million Beta sign ups. Let's say 1/2 buy it at Full retail $50 a box. That is $100 Million (yes I know they do not get it all the revenue). Then 1/2 those subscribers stay 1 year ( 2MX 12 months x 1/2) That is 15M per month over 12 months = 180M. There is 280M the first year— couple that with the downsizing that will occur to reduce overhead and the rest will be gravy.

I actually think the first year sales will move as many units as Skyrim— so we may be talking close to a Billion in Sales. And every one of those sales that stays more than 1 month is gravy.

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I would be surprised if even 1/10th of those 4 million sign ups buy the game. Many people 'beta jump' MMOs, they just sign up for any MMO they see in sites like MMORPG.com and play for free. Then there are those (like ahem, me) who just didn't like the game, plus others that won't buy it at full price but wait until it hits $30 or less (or wait until it inevitably goes F2P).

As for the salaries, it depends on where the developers are. In Silicon Valley developers probably earn 100k+, but rest of the country it's more like 50-80k.