Full FeedVideo games not necessarily a money making industry
If you think the gaming industry is a sure fire way to make some money, you are way off.
According to Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), only 20% of games that hit the market make a decent profit. That means that 80% of the games you see on shelves are either losing profits or barely breaking even.
A game may be very successful but the company still doesn’t make a profit because of all the added expenses that went into the game. Every time you rework or redesign a part of the game, you have to fork over some extra cash. If you decide to add in extra features to the game, such as online play, you gotta open up the wallet. And adding multiplayer, is it worth an extra 500 Gs?
According to Geoffrey Zatkin, co-founder of EEDAR (as interviewed by GameDaily), there are several factors that determines what will make a game profitable. There is no real way to tell which of those little extras will help sell the game.
Genre and platform are big ones, if it is only released on one system that could make people either want it more, or want it less. Also the type of game could effect sales. First person shooters don’t allows do better than third. And the big decision whether or not to switch genres when your company is doing so well with on type.
Game developers have to consider all these questions when creating a game. They also have to think of things like release date (is it near a big holiday?), whether there is downloadable content, and what other games they came out with that were successful/unsuccessful. Plus a ton more.
So it’s easy to see how only about 20% of games make a profit but it is still a sad state of affairs. Spending the money to make a different and unique game can sometimes end up costing you a lot more in the long run. It’s a gamble every developer is willing to take until, one day, they hit the mother load and create a game that will set them financially for a long time.
Site [Electronic Entertainment Design and Research ] Read [Game Daily] Via [Forbes]
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I hope people take this information into consideration. There isn’t much that irks me more than people who complain about a game not having this feature, and now they might see why developers will sometimes “milk” a certain franchise.
on December 1, 2008 at 07:53 PM - LINKI know, game developers take a gamble everytime they put out a new game, even if the previous game was a great success.
No one seems to think of that
on December 2, 2008 at 09:30 PM - LINKOn the more personal/micro-scale of things, videogame game developer salaries are a lot lower than salaries for comparable technical jobs in the software industry. Employment in the industry, if you are a developer, has a lot of similarities with the Hollywood film studio model, where big companies will lay off a lot of workers right after a product has shipped. Game development is not the most stable or secure career path for a lot of professions in the industry. However, it can be really rewarding if games are what you’re passionate about.
on December 2, 2008 at 11:51 PM - LINKthis is very true! as long as you can afford to take a loss once in awhile!
on December 5, 2008 at 01:14 AM - LINK