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The Witcher 3 to be most expensive Polish game; $15M dev. budget + $25M ad. budget
- Thread starter angular graphics
- Start date
JoeyJungle
Banned
Wow, I wonder if Cyberpunk is gonna surpass the price too? Amazing what those guys able to do with so "little" cash (compared to other studios).
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
thank you ser.
If 1 Million is considered profitable, then Hell Yeah, that is manageable.
Witcher 2 sold 400k in a week, definitely doable.
Who paid for wolf tech? CD Projekt or Nvidia gift?
Is that from the PhysX video? I assume Nvidia coughs up cash for developers to implement hardware-accelerated PhysX effects.
Well it was such a weird thing to begin with to have a series that started exclusively on PC, then you attempt to release its sequels on console? How will console-only players ever experience the whole story? Maybe they'll do a whole 1 and 2 story breakdown at the start of 3?
Extra Sauce
Member
More money spent on advertising than developing the game bums me out.
$25m seems a tad extravagant to me considering the modest success of the series thus far. I realise CDPR wants to leverage the fact this will be its first simultaneous multiplatform release with some marketing muscle, but even so exceeding the development budget, dramatically so, strikes me as unnecessary and possibly wasteful.
It's much easier to make CG clips 'to spec' regardless of your location, game development is much more culturally entrenched. I don't think you can outsource Call of Duty or GTA to Poland or Bulgaria, it just wouldn't work. Or look at Japanese attempts to appeal to a COD player such as Ninja Gaiden 3 or Resident Evil 6, they're critically panned and lack identity.
5M+ copies to date is not that modest.
Louis Cypher
Banned
Oh yes because CoD and GTA are just so original that dirty Europeans could never capture their deep nuance.
People in Europe watch American movies as well
Believe it or not this is very common.
Sure, that averages out to a respectable ~2.5m per title, but consider also that TW1 released way back in 2007 and in the ~5.5 years since the series has seen more than its fair share of dramatic price reductions during sale periods.
Edit: But what the 5m sales announcement did suggest is that the X360 release of TW2 did very well for a belated port, which bodes well for the console versions of the upcoming sequel.
Edit edit: Sorry, I edited this post at least a dozen times.
I should really stop posting on GAF when it's late!People in Europe don't make American movies, which kinda proves my point.
Sure. Still, the way this series has been going TW3 will surely recoup these costs in no time.
Oh, no disagreement there. I'd be surprised if it didn't at least make back its combined budgets after the first 6-8 weeks.
Who paid for wolf tech? CD Projekt or Nvidia gift?
Thank you.
Youtube is being a piece of shit today, for me.
That video wouldn't load even at 144p.
I think its sad that more money is spent marketing the game than developing the game.
It just rubs me the wrong way.
Specially with this Used game nonsense Devs keep on spouting.
They are worried about maybe that 1 million dollars lost in used games compared to their gargantuan Marketing budgets.
No. Pubs don't get the full $60 from a sale.
Safer to say 1mil copies sold in-order to be ok.
It just rubs me the wrong way.
Specially with this Used game nonsense Devs keep on spouting.
They are worried about maybe that 1 million dollars lost in used games compared to their gargantuan Marketing budgets.
No. Pubs don't get the full $60 from a sale.
Safer to say 1mil copies sold in-order to be ok.
I've been having a lot of issues lately with ads stalling, which as you can imagine makes it hard to watch anything since YouTube insists upon them so frequently.
Anyone can make a great product, convincing others to buy it is the tougher task.
Escape Goat
Member
It just seems that this IP should be way bigger than it is. Anime, theatrical productions, animated film, etc. 25million and nobody outside of video games knows who Geralt of Rivia is. Time to expand that brand awareness.
Then I have a gift for you.
1. Go to http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
2. Copy and paste the contents of that page into your hosts file
3. Never see a single ad on youtube (and other services) again.
i would hope the product would speak for itself.
That might not be enough if no one knows about it.
Portugeezer
Member
No it needs to sell more. They pay royalties to Sony/MS/Steam/etc, retailers get a cut, other expenses, etc...
But yeah, if they match Witcher 2 they will do okay, but with the extra marketing they should realistically sell more than Witcher 2 did.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Their advertising would be cheaper and much better just mentioning the following:
- More Witcher
- Better graphics
- Tweaks to combat
- BEARD!!!!
Boom, ya done.
Now I want a Berzerk-quality anime show of Witcher.
Phonomezer
Banned
Gotta spend money to make money!
The Dutch Slayer
Member
wow that is not that much, they went from $7 mil dev to $15 mil dev.
For "next gen" and 30 times as large.
All tough the 25M ad budget is pretty crazy :O
For "next gen" and 30 times as large.
All tough the 25M ad budget is pretty crazy :O
Who paid for wolf tech? CD Projekt or Nvidia gift?
Is this Witcher 3? Damn. I hope I'll be able to force this with an AMD card.
And you didn't need to spend 25mil for advertising! That'a a Witcher 4 right there!
I'm still stunned they'll be making an open world WRPG with great story, writing, characters, voice acting, animating etc for $15 million! I have been made aware that wages are lower in poland but even then it's absolutely remarkable.
It does make me wonder how much money they'll be pouring into Cyberpunk 2077 from the development side...
On a point of criticism, I hope they improve their facial animation. It's one of the very few drawbacks of their games.
You're right. Development costs can vary to a much greater degree than advertising cost.
It does make me wonder how much money they'll be pouring into Cyberpunk 2077 from the development side...
On a point of criticism, I hope they improve their facial animation. It's one of the very few drawbacks of their games.
You're right. Development costs can vary to a much greater degree than advertising cost.
not surprised.
WB failed them completely and let TW2 bombs on 360, and they got problems with Atari and THQ on PC version before that.
I still think they should've go with Bethesda (has RPG faithfuls and good publishers on both PC and consoles) or 2K but yeah wish them luck with self publishing with this one.
Wiktor
Member
Most of the sales came from PC so far. But on consoles you can't have multimillion selling game if you don't do crazy advertising. Sometimes it happens, but it's incredibly rare. To make W3 big not only on PC, but also on consoles they need huge marketing campaign.
THQ never published CDPR games. They were supposed to publish TW2 on Xbox 360 but the french court forced CDPR to let Namco-Bandai publish it instead. As for Atari - they still owe CDPR money.
I can understand CDPR publishing TW3 digitally worldwide (even on PS4 theoretically), but can they really afford to handle retail distribution too?
As for the marketing, haven't marketing budgets exceeded development budgets for a long time now? I remember people making a story out of Resident Evil 4's $25 million marketing budget back in 2005.
And on the DRM, I think CDPR gave Kotaku the most succinct version of their answer: "We can't just not release The Witcher 3 on Xbox One." They said they don't want to punish users who decide to put up with Microsoft's DRM.
As for the marketing, haven't marketing budgets exceeded development budgets for a long time now? I remember people making a story out of Resident Evil 4's $25 million marketing budget back in 2005.
And on the DRM, I think CDPR gave Kotaku the most succinct version of their answer: "We can't just not release The Witcher 3 on Xbox One." They said they don't want to punish users who decide to put up with Microsoft's DRM.
Anticitizen One
Banned
that ad. budget is absurd
eh. I hope they don't bite off more than they can chew. the Witcher 1 was fine, honestly... and it scares (and, to a lesser extent, disappoints) me when pretty niche developers try to make the next step.
not really. they're efficient, but I'm sure the standard of living is lower in Poland than it is in the traditional developer strongholds of USA/Japan/Western Europe and therefore costs are lower.
not really. they're efficient, but I'm sure the standard of living is lower in Poland than it is in the traditional developer strongholds of USA/Japan/Western Europe and therefore costs are lower.
They were one of the biggest game distributors/publishers in Central Europe for the past 18 years, so yes, they know how to publish stuff. They will sign distribution deals with 3rd parties who will then handle foreign markets.
Sure, as I said, I understand that, but even so it still seems excessive to me; though I don't mean to imply that I believe the game will ultimately prove unprofitable.
joseph1594
Member
Just to put in perspective the wage differences between Poland and North America and Western Europe, here are the GDP per capitas of the US, UK, Japan, and Poland (yes I realize GDP per capita doesn't tell a full story but for this example it works).
United States: $50,700
United Kingdom: $37,500
Japan: $36,900
Poland: $20,900
Wages in Poland are significantly lower compared to its western counterparts, as several people pointed out. As a result, CD Projekt can output games with amazing production values with far lower money. The way I see it, it is a win-win for everybody. They can afford to make risks and the payout for them can be far bigger. Regarding advertising, you got to spend money to make money. Advertising in all media avenues costs a shit load of money (the advertising cost of a blockbuster movie is typically at least as much of the actual movie budget, often far higher). TV air time, Internet ads, food/store promotions (Mountain Dew and Doritos lol), etc. can drive a game's budget up dramatically. Not to mention it is clear with CD Projekt's larger presence in E3 and The Witcher 3's reveal through Game Informer that they hope to make The Witcher series to hit big.
I would love for CD Projekt to get the appreciation it deserves and grow their team size so they can make more games as long as they do not do stupid shit like Bioware and Bethesda. The Witcher 3 looks phenomenal and deserves to sell a lot. Not to mention I would prefer it that they would be able to continually self-publish their games after The Witcher 3.
United States: $50,700
United Kingdom: $37,500
Japan: $36,900
Poland: $20,900
Wages in Poland are significantly lower compared to its western counterparts, as several people pointed out. As a result, CD Projekt can output games with amazing production values with far lower money. The way I see it, it is a win-win for everybody. They can afford to make risks and the payout for them can be far bigger. Regarding advertising, you got to spend money to make money. Advertising in all media avenues costs a shit load of money (the advertising cost of a blockbuster movie is typically at least as much of the actual movie budget, often far higher). TV air time, Internet ads, food/store promotions (Mountain Dew and Doritos lol), etc. can drive a game's budget up dramatically. Not to mention it is clear with CD Projekt's larger presence in E3 and The Witcher 3's reveal through Game Informer that they hope to make The Witcher series to hit big.
I would love for CD Projekt to get the appreciation it deserves and grow their team size so they can make more games as long as they do not do stupid shit like Bioware and Bethesda. The Witcher 3 looks phenomenal and deserves to sell a lot. Not to mention I would prefer it that they would be able to continually self-publish their games after The Witcher 3.