Gaming Development Costs for DS Games

[two40]

Just wondering what the costs are for developing DS games. No reason apart from curiosity.

I suppose you could break it down to three types.

Ports
Mediocre cheap quick crap
Decent well executed

 

[test84]

highly depends on the game, game type, development team and their publisher.

 

[two40]

Yes, that's a given. I'm not asking for all of the specifics in all possible permutations. That's why I broke it down to a rough 3 types. There's got to be an average cost for ports, cheap and well made titles. I don't care about that one game that cost xx more than any in the history of development for the DS, just the averages for the average in those groups.

cheers

 

[2fast4u]

Bad games can cost just as much as good ones. Bit like movies really. Resevour Dogs/Clerks were made on a shoestring and Pluto Nash and countless others had squillions spent on them

 

[MADKATZ99]

If it costs more than 20 grand they are all wasting their time. I dont know how many copys would sell, but the cart wouldnt cost so much, so basically you are only paying for the employee's pay checks at the end of the week? I know shipping and the stores own profit would come into it... but they must make soo much money off cheap crappy games because there are so many of them in the world. Otherwise, they wouldnt do it!

 

[two40]

thats what im wondering. it can't be too expensive to dev some of these low asset games. it would come down to paying for programing time which cant be much. i come from pc games mainly and there some of the budgets are huge. was just curious how big and small they get on the DS.

 

[kikapo_O]

I don't know who benefits from a bad game? Don't they feel boring while they are programming those games? Hmm maybe it's this equation:

lousy game x fast programming = fast money but only for the programmers

 

[Deleted User]

It's quite easy to compute, there's an average income of say between 2000 and 2500 bucks a month for someone in the business, for a port and a cash-in you can have a team of 5 peoples, 20 for better projects, and a time between 1 months and 6 months. It makes 10 grand the less and 300 the greatest. It's a looze computation but..

 

[rcxAsh]

I would imagine that it might cost a bit more than that. 2000 to 2500 a month sounds a bit low, in my opinion. Granted, I guess it depends on the company and country... but from my experience, a straight programmer can cost more than 2500 a month. Contractors may cost even more.

And then you also need artists, writers, music/sound, marketing, etc.

Testing teams also cost money. Depending on the company, these can be paid quite a bit as well.

I believe Nintendo also has a licensing process/cost that the developer/publisher must go through.

You'll also need to purchase and license development tools. Most industry tools are fairly costly. And of course there are the indirect costs like the office to do the work in and the computers to develop with, etc.

Granted, my thoughts come from a different type of software industry, but I'd assume that there are similar aspects.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Bad games can cost just as much as good ones. Bit like movies really. Resevour Dogs/Clerks were made on a shoestring and Pluto Nash and countless others had squillions spent on them

You're comparing the 1million + spent on reservoir Dogs to the 30 thousand spent in Clerks?

 

[bradigor]

No he means Resevour Dogs about a German Shepard in an alley. Cost $100 to make