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Comment by gilgoomesh | Hacker News Reader

This article quotes sales numbers in the millions and asserts that this means games like Bioshock Infinite were "hugely profitable".

That's not necessarily true.

Bioshock Infinite in particular was "disappointing" compared to projections:

http://www.p4rgaming.com/take-two-in-retrospect-ken-levines-...

2K posted losses in the hundreds of millions in the year leading up to Bioshock Infinite's release (Bioshock would have been a significant percentage of that) and continued to lose money in the year of its release:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-13-bioshock-in...

People often ignore that these games may cost over a $100 million to develop and the same again to market (Bioshock Infinite ads were everywhere). Selling 5 million copies might only net $100 million back again (after taxes and other distribution costs).

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I'm pretty sure that's a parody.

The market has only a specific size. If you sell as many games as the most successful games ever you really can't expect more. Besides, Bioshock Infinite had no special message, it was utterly trivial in that respect. The article is a joke on both fronts: That the sales projections must have been overblown since they indeed regarded the millions of copies sold as disappointing, and that they thought the story with its twist was great writing.

Oops, you're right. In my haste, I really did link to a parody piece. Very embarassing for me.

I was trying to illustrate the point that Bioshock Infinite's early sales were disappointing. Early projections had 2K selling 3 million copies in the first month:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-06-bioshock-in...

But it actually sold less than a million:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/npd-bioshock-infinite-march...

and only hit 3.7 million after 3 months.

HOWEVER... Don't cry a river for 2K. Bioshock Infinite eventually sold 11 million copies, becoming the biggest Bioshock game:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-01-bioshock-in...

Has the games industry adopted Hollywood Accounting? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

I'd say it qualifies as Hollywood Accounting if the revenue exceeds the budget and yet the project is still deemed unprofitable. I haven't really heard of this in the games industry.

Typical Hollywood Accounting is when companies make up overhead figures. But in the games industry the costs seem too transparent to be able to get away with posting fictious overheads as most of the cost is dominated by marketing and salaries.

If it exists anywhere it would be in third party publishing deals where the developer takes an advance on royalties with the possibility of more royalties if the project is profitable. I've been involved in a few deals like this and although I have no proof of Hollywood Accounting I've had my suspicions.

Very strange conclusions. Was BioShock Infinite the only game they were developing in that period? Maybe some other development was too expensive. Without all numbers it's quite strange to make such conclusions.

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