At peak there were 385 people on SM2, game took at least 5 years to make. Conception should have started before the release of the first one with a small team and then ramped up progressively to 385 for the duration of production (2/6)
@TrikemanGames You’re right, it’s usually not included but this information didn’t come from Insomniac, it came from hacked internal files where they’re calculating revenue and ROI per project. They mentioned “total costs” which is why I believe it’s accounted for here.
@Grayyammu It’s not. I won’t post slides from the hack here but SM2 development started before SM shipped in parallel of MM and R&C RA. Similarly SM3 started before SM2 released and in parallel of Venom, Wolverine and the next R&C. They have 2 studios and multiple teams.
@JeromeOrtmann For sure! It’s the end of year game for Sony with a renowned IP and SM sold 20+ million copies so there’s a strong precedent to bet that much as the ultimate goal is to sell more PS5s.
@Cable616 Thanks for sharing! Bear in mind that SM2 is probably in the top 20 biggest releases of the generation. But there are other projects with a much higher budget (GTA VI obviously comes to mind).
@Lossa_igo @ChadVerrall I didn’t include the licensing fee because it’s not an upfront cost, Marvel takes a % of each digital or physical net sale as well as bundle.
@ChadVerrall@shinobi602 What Shinobi said :) Break-even is probably at 5.5 million copies and given that the first Spider-Man sold 20+ million copies I imagine they hope to sell at least 10-15 for the sequel (smaller install base than the PS4 at the time of release). Long tail sales are key here.
It might come as a surprise but this kind of budget is not uncommon in the AAA space on current-gen (PS5, XSX) for flagship titles. The determining factor is where the game was made. Salaries are much higher in LA than Canada or Europe for comparison (6/6)
Most importantly it doesn’t take into account Marketing costs which for a AAA game can represent up to 30%-50% of the overall budget depending on sales forecasting (ads on TV or times square aren’t free) (5/6)
That’s a wrap for 2023! We’re closing up shop this year to spend time with family and friends, enjoy the holiday season, and play some games.
While most of Riot will be closed, some teams who run live operations, anti-cheat, and security will be staggering their breaks to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Thank you to everyone who called Boba on Sunset, watched Faker win Worlds, planted puffcaps on your opponents, petted Naafiri, flexed the perfect Headliner and if you were able to attend EVO or Worlds, you may have even been able to cut the moon in half with Yasuo in Project L.
GGWP, see you in 2024.