EA-Release - price/quality and appreciation of the community?

[K^2]

On 3/1/2023 at 5:03 AM, Moons said:

the first red flag i saw was the price - while i do enjoy KSP its just not a game that in my opinion justifies a price tag of 50 Dollars not even as full release (i cant even comprehend that the FAQs seriously state that 50 isnt even the final price ...)

Obviously, you can think the game isn't worth the price, in which case, you should probably wait until it goes on sale, which I'm sure it will eventually. This is kind of a blanket statement. There are a lot of games that are not going to get me to spend the full price on day one, but that I'll happily pick up at half price on a sale some day. Nothing wrong with that.

But the price of the game is based on two factors. a) How much people are willing to pay - because no corporation is going to leave money on the ground, and b) How much the game cost to make, because, again, revenue / investment is what determines performance in corporation's mind.

Lets do a very rough estimate of the production cost. Ignoring basically every other overhead and any money that already went to the Star Theory, Intercept had at least fifty people working on this game for about three years. Given that the studio is near (in?) Seattle, the average salary can't be less than $100k/yr across the studio. Typical cost of an employee to the company is about 60% higher in the US (again, at least for the West Coast states,) so we're looking at 50 people * $160k/yr/person * 3 years = $24 Million USD cost just in salary so far. Marketing hasn't been fully spun up, but it likely brings us up to a $30M even already.

Out of the $50 price tag, 30% is taken by Steam or Epic. So we're looking at $35/game going to Private Division. It will take over 850,000 sales to get back the $30M invested already.

This is a very conservative number, and we're still in Early Access. By the time the game is fully released, the total development costs are likely to be over $30M by themselves, and there will be a lot more invested into marketing. Half of the budget is not unusual, so $45M total spent is conservative. That will require nearly 1.3 million sales just for them to keep the price at that $50 number.

KSP reportedly sold 4 million copies some time in 2020. Nine years into the game's life. Getting 1.3M sales on KSP2 at full price is a tall order. And that's just to break even.

More likely, the full release of the game will be under a now typical $60 price tag bringing the target to 1M sales, which the game can probably make in the first months, and then start bringing the price down for various sales, at that point, working towards pure profit.

 

So while I understand frustration of unfulfilled expectations, the price point looks very reasonable based on the costs and market expectations.

[Moons]

14 hours ago, K^2 said:

Obviously, you can think the game isn't worth the price, in which case, you should probably wait until it goes on sale, which I'm sure it will eventually. This is kind of a blanket statement. There are a lot of games that are not going to get me to spend the full price on day one, but that I'll happily pick up at half price on a sale some day. Nothing wrong with that.

But the price of the game is based on two factors. a) How much people are willing to pay - because no corporation is going to leave money on the ground, and b) How much the game cost to make, because, again, revenue / investment is what determines performance in corporation's mind.

Lets do a very rough estimate of the production cost. Ignoring basically every other overhead and any money that already went to the Star Theory, Intercept had at least fifty people working on this game for about three years. Given that the studio is near (in?) Seattle, the average salary can't be less than $100k/yr across the studio. Typical cost of an employee to the company is about 60% higher in the US (again, at least for the West Coast states,) so we're looking at 50 people * $160k/yr/person * 3 years = $24 Million USD cost just in salary so far. Marketing hasn't been fully spun up, but it likely brings us up to a $30M even already.

Out of the $50 price tag, 30% is taken by Steam or Epic. So we're looking at $35/game going to Private Division. It will take over 850,000 sales to get back the $30M invested already.

This is a very conservative number, and we're still in Early Access. By the time the game is fully released, the total development costs are likely to be over $30M by themselves, and there will be a lot more invested into marketing. Half of the budget is not unusual, so $45M total spent is conservative. That will require nearly 1.3 million sales just for them to keep the price at that $50 number.

KSP reportedly sold 4 million copies some time in 2020. Nine years into the game's life. Getting 1.3M sales on KSP2 at full price is a tall order. And that's just to break even.

More likely, the full release of the game will be under a now typical $60 price tag bringing the target to 1M sales, which the game can probably make in the first months, and then start bringing the price down for various sales, at that point, working towards pure profit.

 

So while I understand frustration of unfulfilled expectations, the price point looks very reasonable based on the costs and market expectations.

Yeah i wont buy it - not even in a normal sale. It s not only important to me what a game costs but how a company interacts with its customers.

You can talk about that all you want but i dont care and neither does the industry. The price of a game is not based on what you wrote at all - have you never wondered why 99% of games cost almost the same ammount of money - especially AAA - no matter the difference in development costs?

In reality its pretty simple - games cost as much as Experience has demonstrated that people are willing to pay - tahts it. At most the costs set the lower limit.

And yes i only dont care if a game got more expensive because development had issues - like in this case change of developer etc. - to me its simple - ammount content + overall quality = price im willing to pay -> that will be compared with the price of other games and if it seems to high then i wont buy it.

 

Also 160k a year per person? In general what is the point of making up numbers on the fly to come to a conclusion?

 

[Casellina X]

14 hours ago, K^2 said:

Lets do a very rough estimate of the production cost. Ignoring basically every other overhead and any money that already went to the Star Theory, Intercept had at least fifty people working on this game for about three years. Given that the studio is near (in?) Seattle, the average salary can't be less than $100k/yr across the studio. Typical cost of an employee to the company is about 60% higher in the US (again, at least for the West Coast states,) so we're looking at 50 people * $160k/yr/person * 3 years = $24 Million USD cost just in salary so far. Marketing hasn't been fully spun up, but it likely brings us up to a $30M even already.

The open positions at Intercept games show the salary ranges. Across everything, it ranges from $55k-$130k depending on the role. So the average salary certainly could be less than $100k per year across the studio and your 60% addition doesn't play out in this case.

[Moons]

18 minutes ago, Casellina X said:

The open positions at Intercept games show the salary ranges. Across everything, it ranges from $55k-$130k depending on the role. So the average salary certainly could be less than $100k per year across the studio and your 60% addition doesn't play out in this case.

Besides thet we also dont know how many people worked since when- how many are in full time etc.

And honestly im having a hard time thinking that the game released in EA right now is the work of 50 people working for 3 years full time. Chances are ther eis a lot of part time, working on different projects or simply lots of content not beeing released in the EA version but obviously nobody knows.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons

[Periple]

21 minutes ago, Casellina X said:

and your 60% addition doesn't play out in this case

How do you figure and what do you think would be the right number in this case? 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Periple

[Casellina X]

2 minutes ago, Periple said:

How do you figure and what do you think would be the right number in this case? 

I live in the general area, do software engineering, and my total compensation is only 13% higher than my base. But regardless of how you or I speculate, it doesn't make much sense to do it anyway.

[Periple]

1 minute ago, Casellina X said:

I live in the general area, do software engineering, and my total compensation is only 13% higher than my base. But regardless of how you or I speculate, it doesn't make much sense to do it anyway.

That's not the 60% though, 60% is the cost to company -- including office rent, equipment, licenses, travel, administrative costs, insurance etc etc

[K^2]

6 hours ago, Casellina X said:

The open positions at Intercept games show the salary ranges. Across everything, it ranges from $55k-$130k depending on the role. So the average salary certainly could be less than $100k per year across the studio and your 60% addition doesn't play out in this case.

And the director salaries? And the C-suite? There's a reason why an average for incomes is generally significantly above the median. $100k average might turn out to be conservative with this range on currently open positions.

The 60% has been addressed above, yeah, it includes a lot of the overhead you don't think about as an employee, but that get factored in when you start doing estimates for how much an employee costs to the company. Always hated these estimates. Feels like you're turning people into numbers, and that's not a good feeling.

[Periple]

7 hours ago, K^2 said:

Feels like you're turning people into numbers, and that's not a good feeling.

I even hate travel budgeting! I like numbers but not with my people, I just want to give them everything that makes them happy but sometimes our nice finance person doesn’t agree

[RocketRockington]

15 hours ago, Periple said:

That's not the 60% though, 60% is the cost to company -- including office rent, equipment, licenses, travel, administrative costs, insurance etc etc

That 60% also doesn't include costs for a lot of other things.  I've often heard the # 3x pure salary costs be thrown around for game development costs.   

[K^2]

50 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

That 60% also doesn't include costs for a lot of other things.  I've often heard the # 3x pure salary costs be thrown around for game development costs.   

Smaller studios tend to be more frugal, but yes, even the compensation + marketing estimate is certainly just a lower bound. 3x pure salary sounds very believable for larger studios.

[Moons]

2 hours ago, K^2 said:

Smaller studios tend to be more frugal, but yes, even the compensation + marketing estimate is certainly just a lower bound. 3x pure salary sounds very believable for larger studios.

Yeah but that number probably has nothing to do with the costs of the workers - and its also different from publisher to publisher.

I for one simply dont care about that - and why would i. If you do some reading you will find numbers like companies spending 2-3 times the budget of development on marketing - why would i as a consumer even care about a company spending absurd ammounts of money for smoke and mirrors?

 

And as i stated above people are reading way to much into development costs regarding the price (we also dont know how many people worked all the time, how many are part time etc.) - there is a reason why almost all games cost pretty much the same - and it has nothing to do with development costs - if at all its probably a lower limit.

And i dont want to sound negative but i m having a hard time thinking that 50 People? worked 3 years full time for what was released now - especially since im sure they can re-use a lot of the things of the old game etc. - maybe this was just a release of parts of what they made - who knows.

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Moons

[Periple]

11 minutes ago, Moons said:

And i dont want to sound negative but i m having a hard time thinking that 50 People? worked 3 years full time for what was released now - especially since im sure they can re-use a lot of the things of the old game etc. - maybe this was just a release of parts of what they made - who knows.

This looks pretty good for 50 people and three years if they did start from scratch! Certainly not so bad it looks like it’s in development hell or something.

I don’t think they used any code or assets from the original at all!

[K^2]

15 minutes ago, Moons said:

I for one simply dont care about that - and why would i. If you do some reading you will find numbers like companies spending 2-3 times the budget of development on marketing - why would i as a consumer even care about a company spending absurd ammounts of money for smoke and mirrors?

By the same token, the publisher doesn't care how you feel about the price. Only whether you, or rather, your demographic on average, are willing to pay it. They invested the money into marketing, because they intend to get it back, and then as much money as they can on top of it. And you might not care for it, but you're on this forum payed for by that same marketing budget, so it's clearly working as intended.

15 minutes ago, Moons said:

And i dont want to sound negative but i m having a hard time thinking that 50 People? worked 3 years full time for what was released now - especially since im sure they can re-use a lot of the things of the old game etc. - maybe this was just a release of parts of what they made - who knows.

How much experience do you have in making games? Because that's what it takes at an absolute minimum. You're not making anything remotely like KSP, let alone KSP2, with an artist and a programmer. This requires a team, which has managers, production, human resources...

Edited March 4, 2023 by K^2

[Moons]

1 minute ago, Periple said:

This looks pretty good for 50 people and three years if they did start from scratch! Certainly not so bad it looks like it’s in development hell or something.

I don’t think they used any code or assets from the original at all!

I seriously doubt that they didnt use anything from the old game - obviously using it as a base etc. - since that would be pretty inefficient.

You do realize that most games are finished in 3 years of development?

[K^2]

1 minute ago, Moons said:

You do realize that most games are finished in 3 years of development?

No, they aren't. Not unless we're talking indy titles with flipped assets or some smaller mobile games.

[Moons]

12 minutes ago, K^2 said:

By the same token, the publisher doesn't care how you feel about the price. Only whether you, or rather, your demographic on average, are willing to pay it. They invested the money into marketing, because they intend to get it back, and then as much money as they can on top of it. And you might not care for it, but you're on this forum payed for by that same marketing budget, so it's clearly working as intended.

Yes they dont care about i feel about the price - thats a fact. But they care if the price leads to less sales and less profit overall if too few people purchase the game. I dont get your posting - above you tried to explain development costs with made up numbers to explain the price while now you pretty much state what i stated as well - the game costs as much as people are willing to pay for it and they will try to maximize profits since thats whats the main goal of a company is.

Well i didnt buy the game and i probably wont buy it if it continues like this. I own KSP1 since steam release with all Addons and i would have instantly bought this game at a reasonable EA price like other EA games in a similar state - arround 30 Dollars. And looking at the player numbers in comparison to the insane ammount of people that had the game on their wishlist i wonder if their plan is working as intended.

Its also not a question of hardware or money in general since - gladly - my hardware is way beyond minimum requirements and i also could afford to buy a game for 50 Dollars - which probably most people can - but with this release they actually made me stop an impulse purchase and made me question if i will get this game at all even if it gets cheaper - and i doubt im the only one.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Moons