I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now.  It results from seeing the cost of a text editor with syntax highlighting, which was more than $1 million.  That was rather stunning to me, I must say.

So this begs the question - if a text editor costs more than a million, how much does an MMO cost?  I've tried doing some rough mathematics in my head, but the best I can come up with is $20 million to $100 million.  Which is verging on astronomical considering they only charge $15 a month per subscriber (on average).

Sure, 100 000 subscribers paying $15 a month amounts to a fairly nice monthly income, but considering you could put $100 million in a bank for 5 years and make back $30 million odd, spending $100 million and making $130 million back in a period of 5 years from a loyal fan base seems much more difficult.

Does anyone have any clue as to what the real figures are like?

-Oscarian

20 to 100 million for big name triple A titles is about right.  Some in development now even more.  Those mmos are shooting for more than 100k subscribers though.  They all wanna make it big like WOW.  If even one could hit 1 million subscribers they would be doing quite well.  300k+ will be well enough to make their money back eventually.

That depends on the title/ company. Some might spend more than $100mil, some smaller ones made by indie devs might spend $20mil. Then there is Love, most likely made for less than $1mil. It all depends. Yes, people whine and complain about "moneygrubbing greedy devs", and to be fair, there are a number of them, many of them are doing it for the passion of being able to do something they really love. And that last part is key, because based on what it does take to make an mmo (aside from costs), you really have to be passionate about the game you are making.

all MMO's expect maybe Blizzards new MMO and possibly a few SOE ones have been funded by investors.  As for the cost, Companies love to make money, particularly tool companies.  3dsmax industry edition is nearly twice the cost (or could be double...i havent checked in a while) of the student edition.  As a company that makes tools you want to get as much profit from a sale as possible as you are not turning over huge amounts of product (realistically with updates you only really release a new product every 2 years or so and companies arent forced to upgrade to the new one).

So basically any MMO company that does not develope the game engine, art tools, programming tools, sound tools...ect has to pay quite a bit to use those things.  Then (for memory) if they use an out of house engine to run the MMO they have to pay a whopping big fee to do so.

All up i would say your looking at a base cost of around 10 million (would be a pretty crummy game though) and on average i would expect a decent AAA MMO to require at least 50 million to compete in the market.

Alot less than what some think. Alot of devs use pre-existing servers and tools that is really no additional cost to them. Most money spent comes from marketing. If they are interested in new tools and servers then it gets expensive.

Originally posted by Death1942

3dsmax industry edition is nearly twice the cost (or could be double...i havent checked in a while) of the student edition.

Depends on how you negotiate. Autodesk LOVES free advertising for it's products, and is sometimes willing to cut a deal on subscriptions for licenses. The sub model is what any reasonable company is going to go with anyway, since it allows them free upgrades to the latest version, year after year. Autodesk DOES update that often, by the way. However, like what you said implied, they only remotely get the bugs worked out every two years.

I can say that, aside from addons, most companies don't update software quite every year, even if they might be able to. The reason for this, especially with Autodesk products, is the training involved. A lot of times, mmos just don't have the time to take 2 days off to learn the new way of cobbling a world together, or making an animation. Also, by foregoing constant updates, you keep the same cogs in the pipline throughout development, and THAT is ideal. The last thing you want are extra surprises during crunch time. Most of the time, the ideal time to upgrade software, is right after a launch, and you only upgrade the software for the team that is working on the next xpack/huge patch/ title. Less buggy that way.

Well, not even thinking of tools, office space, or equipment - let's say we are a medium sized developer, with a team of 30 people; some coders, some managers, some animators, musicians, writers, etc.

Plus, let's say the average wage is $75 000 spread evenly for the 30 people; and an extra $35 000 for holidays, sick days, super annuation, etc.

Then, we're on a time frame of 2.5 years to launch the game.  So staff alone is costing you: ($110 000 / 12) * 30 staff * 30 months = $8.25 million.

The figures start to get mind boggling if you think long enough about them.

-Oscarian

[edit] clarity.

[edit] oopsie, fatal maths error, fixed.

IMO the cost should be relatively low.The reason you hear of big numbers from large corporations ,is because they have CEO's making multi million dollar salaries and there is a lot of crooked work that goes on in the accounting books.

If you have a dedicated staff that are willing to work for 50k a year and at 50 employees,that adds up to 2500k a year.IMO most of these games can be whipped out very fast,the design shows as well.So 3 years is quite doable,i would say 2 is even doable,however at 3 years that is 3x2500=7500k.That is around 20 million,so where does the rest of this money go?Then you must realize MANY developers have outside investors,so it does not even cost them much of their own money.

You have to lease a building for several years and some of those employees garner much larger salaries like even 1-3 million.Even adding in those factors and the very good chance they licensed the game engine,i am looking at MAYBE 25 million tops.Any more than that is just corporate waste,something you might see from Blizzard.

The big factor can be the game engine you license,i think the UE3 engine was up around 100mil+it changes a lot as time goes on,so i'm not sure where it is at right now.A top engine like the UE3 would only be viable to a developer wit ha big approach and a lot of workers to make a great project .

I believe MOST developers are thinking like EVE/CCP,lets just get a cheap product out there and hope people play it so we can get rich.If we get lucky,then we can build on the game and make better things happen in the future,if not ,then we lose nothing or very little.There is ALWAYS going to be a luck factor,WOW is one IMO,another is like that guy who made a million profit from a super cheap game for the Iphone.It was basically a 3 tank game,where you bomb each other,simplest design super cheap and yet he got rich..pure luck.I believe the coding he did in his spare time at work and took him like a few months,so ZERO cost and little effort to make over a million lol.,btw ONE guy also,so no sharing the profit lol.

It all depends on how fast you'd like to release the game because if you have very complete development before production then you would have rather low cost. But then development takes longer time which most investors expects to get their money already today.

This is also what alot of people fail to realize.  A mmorpg is not cheap to make when you calculate everything from paying the wages and physically maintain a studio.  There are also many necessary expenditures when designing a mmo, and the figures is indeed in the tens if not hundred million dollars.  Independent studios have very hard time with creating a new game from scratch for this vary reason especially if it is a first attempt.

Established big companies with more resources can pull off making a quality mmorpg easier.  People have been complain about devs without knowing the inner working of making a mmorpg.  Only a billionaire can afford to fund a full mmorpg by him/herself, millionaires are simply not good enough these days for funding a modern mmorpg alone these days.

Originally posted by linren

This is also what alot of people fail to realize.  A mmorpg is not cheap to make when you calculate everything from paying the wages and physically maintain a studio.  There are also many necessary expenditures when designing a mmo, and the figures is indeed in the tens if not hundred million dollars.  Independent studios have very hard time with creating a new game from scratch for this vary reason especially if it is a first attempt.

Established big companies with more resources can pull off making a quality mmorpg easier.  People have been complain about devs without knowing the inner working of making a mmorpg.  Only a billionaire can afford to fund a full mmorpg by him/herself, millionaires are simply not good enough these days for funding a modern mmorpg alone these days.

Definitely. It cost a huge amount if you want to establish a game company from the ground, thinking of the cost similar to create your own newspaper :p

I was talking about to developing a game. And it is more depends on the developer from a established game company. Because the developer team is like reasearch and development, and the game company is a factory. The better of product development the better quality of the product and faster production.

Originally posted by Larry2298

Originally posted by linren

This is also what alot of people fail to realize.  A mmorpg is not cheap to make when you calculate everything from paying the wages and physically maintain a studio.  There are also many necessary expenditures when designing a mmo, and the figures is indeed in the tens if not hundred million dollars.  Independent studios have very hard time with creating a new game from scratch for this vary reason especially if it is a first attempt.

Established big companies with more resources can pull off making a quality mmorpg easier.  People have been complain about devs without knowing the inner working of making a mmorpg.  Only a billionaire can afford to fund a full mmorpg by him/herself, millionaires are simply not good enough these days for funding a modern mmorpg alone these days.

 

Definitely. It cost a huge amount if you want to establish a game company from the ground, thinking of the cost similar to create your own newspaper :p

I was talking about to developing a game. And it is more depends on the developer from a established game company. Because the developer team is like reasearch and development, and the game company is a factory. The better of product development the better quality of the product and faster production.

 

Yup, agreed.  It is one of the advantage of having an already established company.  R&D department can be considered one of the biggest advantage the big company have over independent studios.  They simply have more data and personel that work on developing the next new game.  For an independent studio to overcome this hurdle they need a leader with vision, but still practical enough to make the game become a reality.  Basically making up the deficiency through talent and hardwork is the only way to go when it comes to small studios with less resources.

Banks dont give that kind of interest these days.

ANYTHING.   Just takes time and lots of it to make.

Money is just the easiest way to get people to spend their time how you want them to.

Originally posted by paulscott

ANYTHING.   Just takes time and lots of it to make.

Money is just the easiest way to get people to spend their time how you want them to.

This is probably the best answer you can recieve. Like I mentioned earlier, the costs can range from less than 1 mill for one guy doing it all himself over a span of extra years, or upwards of 100mil for a AAA title in 3 to 5. It all depends on what you are trying to do, how many others you can convince to see your vision, and what you are willing to pay them to see said vision. Once that is done, all you have to worry about is how long you can get your investors to continue to believe in your vision without getting their profits.

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Originally posted by Wizardry
IMO the cost should be relatively low.The reason you hear of big numbers from large corporations ,is because they have CEO's making multi million dollar salaries and there is a lot of crooked work that goes on in the accounting books.
If you have a dedicated staff that are willing to work for 50k a year and at 50 employees,that adds up to 2500k a year.IMO most of these games can be whipped out very fast,the design shows as well.So 3 years is quite doable,i would say 2 is even doable,however at 3 years that is 3x2500=7500k.That is around 20 million,so where does the rest of this money go?Then you must realize MANY developers have outside investors,so it does not even cost them much of their own money.
You have to lease a building for several years and some of those employees garner much larger salaries like even 1-3 million.Even adding in those factors and the very good chance they licensed the game engine,i am looking at MAYBE 25 million tops.Any more than that is just corporate waste,something you might see from Blizzard.
The big factor can be the game engine you license,i think the UE3 engine was up around 100mil+it changes a lot as time goes on,so i'm not sure where it is at right now.A top engine like the UE3 would only be viable to a developer wit ha big approach and a lot of workers to make a great project .
I believe MOST developers are thinking like EVE/CCP,lets just get a cheap product out there and hope people play it so we can get rich.If we get lucky,then we can build on the game and make better things happen in the future,if not ,then we lose nothing or very little.There is ALWAYS going to be a luck factor,WOW is one IMO,another is like that guy who made a million profit from a super cheap game for the Iphone.It was basically a 3 tank game,where you bomb each other,simplest design super cheap and yet he got rich..pure luck.I believe the coding he did in his spare time at work and took him like a few months,so ZERO cost and little effort to make over a million lol.,btw ONE guy also,so no sharing the profit lol.

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Your figures are so wrong, it's not even funny. First of all, you can't hire the talent at 50k a year. Even if you found talent willing to work for that, that's not what it will *cost* you. Fringe benefits (they'll want health insurance!), taxes, workers comp--you name it. 100k a year minimum, and probably more.

Um, equipment? Development machines, servers, so on. At enterprise grade--those servers are expected to stay up!--it's not cheap. Don't forget the bandwidth for connecting to all the users; it won't be cheap either.

The guy with the three tank game is a nice story. And it's good to see you can launch a game like that still. But you can't do a MMORPG like that. Not even close.

BTW, if you think WoW was "luck", you're soft in the head. When you consistently hit the bullseye, as Blizzard has done (remember a small, little-known game called StarCraft?), it's not luck. Whether or not you personally like their games is irrelevant; Blizzard has shown an ability to consistently create games that are massively popular.