8 replies to this topic

[knessi]

I was just wonderring how does the Adhesive team make it through or how big of a $war-chest$ one should have.

example from epic
After Selling 15,000 copies of a udk based game, sold at 4.99$ = 74,850
Net Revenue... after distibution fee 30% and royalty fees 25%, = 51,796.25
so....
10 people, 10 months, 8-9hours, 20-21 working days or 150+ working hrs... u'll be making 3.45/hr.

even if you incressed the retail price from 4.99 to 10.99 you still wont be making that much.

so how can these indie teams or your (adhesive) make it through using UDK ___

do you negotiate a new deal... with epic and the distributor ___


i would love some insight on how you would make this work finacially.

Thanks!

[knessi]

that was the given example from epic.

$500k sold, lets say 25bucks per copy, thats like 20,000 copies sold
so i guess it's not out of the question for hawken to break $1mil plus, given the
awesome quality of this game... but what sucks thou is that you have to give
30% to the distributor (steam or apple) and 25% to epic, thats 55% (over half) of your net.

$500k - $1mil ... you be making 15.28 - 27.78/hr at 180+ hours/month excluding overtime, thats not too bad... using 10people in 10months.
(opps... had to reedit, agian,  no sleep makes my math fuzzy)

but what if im not Hawken... and my game sold at 10.99... i would have to sell 45455 copies
to break $500k and almost 1million copies to break $1million of my game... thats alot of copies (kinda scary.... and what if my game bombed)

i guess one has to aim high and plan well ahead, and having balls of steel wouldnt hurt
iether.


ive been reading about this (royalties) in unity3d and udk forums ... very insightful and interesting....

would love some insight from the adhesive team.... like did you guys got some investors or was it from your personal savings and or bank loans that make up the seed money... and how does one fill and maintain the $war-chest$ during the R&D period... is it a combination of strict budgeting, money pumping in by banks, investors, uncles, aunts, dad and mom.

or did i just answered my own question  :geek:

[Provi]

It appears Adhesive is leaning toward the publisher option.

If they end up with a big one, they could get much more advertizing. And with that I have little doubt they would zip past lower 6 digit and possibly break 7 digit sale numbers.

The size of Adhesive is also its advantage in this case since they only have 6 developers to split the profit up after the publisher, platform, and development costs.

So the biggest variable is traditional advertising or word-of-mouth marketing to boost Hawken's sales.

[[HWK]Deuy]

knessi said:

I was just wonderring how does the Adhesive team make it through or how big of a $war-chest$ one should have.

example from epic
After Selling 15,000 copies of a udk based game, sold at 4.99$ = 74,850
Net Revenue... after distibution fee 30% and royalty fees 25%, = 51,796.25
so....
10 people, 10 months, 8-9hours, 20-21 working days or 150+ working hrs... u'll be making 3.45/hr.

even if you incressed the retail price from 4.99 to 10.99 you still wont be making that much.

so how can these indie teams or your (adhesive) make it through using UDK ___

do you negotiate a new deal... with epic and the distributor ___


i would love some insight on how you would make this work finacially.

Thanks!

15k units at $5 is an extremely low estimate, those numbers are more along the lines of a smaller 1-3 man indie project with a shorter development cycle.  In that case, you wouldn't pay Epic royalty fees until 50K is made and you'd be splitting it among less people for less time spent working.  There are other options for licensing and distribution fees, some are more appealing only when larger sales are expected, but those things are negotiated.  

A fairly successful game should see sales in the hundred thousands (not dollars, units sold), and an absolute smash hit could be in the millions.  Across a couple platforms like console and PC together I don't think it would be out of the question for Hawken to sell 500k copies (but maybe that's wishful thinking).  Games like Torchlight, Castle Crashers, Limbo, have seen that kind of success or better.

No one on our team is getting paid except for people we outsource like the sound designer.  There has been no outside investment yet, just our own personal savings mostly from previous jobs in the game and movie industry.  Team members do this in different ways, some live with their parents and some accept freelance work on the side for income.  Going this route leaves a lot of uncertainty and I wouldn't reccomend it unless you have a clear goal and a trustworthy team.  We're currently looking into publishers and/or outside investment for financial stability as we finish the rest of the game.

[NaloaC]

The fact that you guys are designing, coding, building and poliching this on your own steam, time and money is incredibly commendable and show's your dedication to creating something new and fun.

I look forward to it's release and is certainly a guaranteed purchase on my part.

After seeing the more recent interviews that have been given, the material seems to be polishing up nicely and the newer additions look very nice.

I can only hope that your sales are substantial enough that you all get a suitably and justifiably juicy pay-check at the end of it all

[xXxTALONxXx]

and you could be millionairs

2 million copies sold is not out the question
http://en.wikipedia...._games#Xbox_360

times $50

100,000,000

UDK cut

$25,050,000

plus other 'crap' (taxes other expensives) worse case still leaves

like $4-$60,000,000 spread over like 4 years between the six of them

either way you cut it they make at least a (few) million each



P.S. when I come to intern your buying the coffee and pizza
and when I mean 'intern' I really mean just sitting around playing video games while drinking coffee and eating pizza

[Provi]

1)aKillArmy said:

and you could be millionairs

2 million copies sold is not out the question
http://en.wikipedia...._games#Xbox_360

times $50

100,000,000

UDK cut

$25,050,000...

The problem with that number is that the game will likely sell for around half the above price according to the devs.

Isolated cases like Mindcraft aside, games that sell copies in the multimillions are usually those which have unholy amounts of backing. I wouldn't mind Hawken getting that treatment, but we don't know whether that will be the case yet.

So far, the amount of publicity the game has gotten is not enough to generate those numbers.
But obviously the amount of hype should increase around its release date so I have my fingers crossed...

[xXxTALONxXx]

semantics...

[knessi]

Quote

We’ve been busy with other things (including the business side of the company, which never seems to move at the speed you hope.)

I know you guys at adhesive are super busy, but I would love more insights and  whatever tid bits you can throw at me on this subject, business side of the company.

like whats one of the biggie/s thats slowing you guys down.
what are you guys up too....
any landmines that you guys have avoided or and see on the horizon.



thanks guys  :geek: