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Comment by binarycrusader | Hacker News Reader

  Bungie says it has a whopping 350 in-house developers working on Destiny

Holy burn rate Batman! Maybe it's just me, but if that number is accurate, this looks like an "all-in" bet by Activision and Bungie both. If this project fails, Bungie will likely not survive and Activision would at least take a major hit.

If you think that's wild, pessimistic speculation, consider this statement:

   One thing that was made quite clear is that the game will not be subscription-based. Every presenter was clear in stating that players will not pay a monthly fee to participate in this persistent world.

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Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't Bungie sitting on vast piles of cash from the Halo franchise...? Even at that amount of burn, if it turns out to be a flop Bungie isn't going anywhere.

350 developers is a lot. Lets say, for the sake of simplicity, that they cost $85k a year (salary plus benefits like insurance). We're talking about almost $30 million a year just on those developers- and that's not even counting administrative staff, buildings, equipment, and all the services that go around that.

At the same time, they have basically no other games coming out. They have no licensing for Halo, so that's all Microsoft's baby now. Other games they've talked about launching have failed to reach market.

The point being, they're burning through a lot of cash and don't seem to be producing anything but this game. If it flops then Bungie will probably continue to exist, but it certainly won't be the same company it is now.

on the other hand, maybe it shows how much confidence/love the developers have for the project :)

Developer confidence wont mean a thing if the market thinks your work is bunk.

I would agree if we talked about a small/medium sized studio. But with ~350 employees love is not in there anymore.

Its all about the ROI at the end and it has to be as high as possible. Probably the pitch for this game was something like "its like COD and Halo just BIGGER !!". To get a budget this size approved.

Everyone is fighting an uphill battle against WoW and my guess is an indie studio will take the crown in the foreseeable future.

They probably didn't start out at 350 developers. Early pre production would have been a much smaller team, with more developers added as the success of the project was more apparent. Still very risky, but at least they'll ship something interesting.

It's a smart idea; 10 years * 3 story arcs, 30 world events. They only need to invest for the first year or two. They can create the rest, like WoW has been doing.

As for subscription-based, we'll see micro transactions, or expansion packs.

Social features could be fun. I'm sure we'll see a cow-clicker mechanic.

I'd also bet that they'll have random world events, and user-triggered world events. Outside of the 10 year arc.

Not so all-in, but it's interesting to see a gaming company switching to long term bets. To me this means once the battleship is up and running, bungie/activision will have the freedom to produce more games.

Also I'm sure they've had some nice input from Blizzard, statistics, code and all.

It's a big investment, but also huge potential rewards. Bungie is aiming for their own World of Warcraft type recurring profits (most likely micro-transaction based).

I wouldn't bet against them.

I wonder if game publishers/developers seek or accept external funding to back up a specific project?

From what I understand there are, for example, ways to invest in a motion picture, so it's not a big stretch to assume the same can be done with a game project.

Game developes are what, $80-150K/year on average (of all levels). Add benefits and tax overhead, makes it $110-180K/year. Times 350:

$38,500,000 - $63,000,000 per year.

(I don't know if they include artists, managers, executives in that 350 number, so it could be more, much more).

It's really not a crazy budget, movies break that all the time. There are multi-billion dollar game studios out there.

Except developing an MMO doesn't take just one year, it's more like two or three at least.

Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane.

Avatar's budget, to take a not-too-random example, was $237 million. You're looking at probably about half that for a videogame, which is insane.

Err.. That's not insane at all.

Video game revenue has long outstripped movie revenue[1, 2009]. To pick a non-random example, it too 24 hours for Halo 4 to bring in $220M revenue (as opposed to 17 days for Avatar)[2]

Halo 4 cost around $40M to produce[2]

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/v...

[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732443980457811...

Also, keep in mind that Halo was only on the xbox 360. Destiny will be available cross-platform so the market is even larger.

> which is insane

Is it really? I'd have expected an MMO to be a bigger project than an animation movie. There is script writing, animation, 3d modeling, speech and sound in both of them. While the visual quality in a movie has to be higher, there is a LOT of stuff in a modern game that has to be modeled. And then we've not even talked about the programming side. Secondly, keep in mind that very succesful games generate billions dollars of profit, so it would make sense to spend a fraction of that if that improves your chances of becoming the next megahit.

> Secondly, keep in mind that very succesful games generate billions dollars of profit, so it would make sense to spend a fraction of that if that improves your chances of becoming the next megahit.

You also have to support a game after release (of which the costs are not insignificant). Movies, not so much.

Well yes, and in return the players keep paying you every month instead of once (at least that's how it is for these modern MMOs).

GTA4, Red Dead Redemption, Codblops, and Battlefield 3 all cost in the $100M+ range.

Your salary number is bit too high, in general, game developers make less than your average software developer.

Also, there is no way they have 350 programmers working on that project. That number has to include various types of designers, artists, and programmers.

>In general, game developers make less than your average software developer.

Interesting. Can I ask where you read that or how you came to that conclusion?

If I can chime in, my opinion is anecdotal but I think generally true: many programmers dream about building games and so are less driven by money; the game companies then take advantage of that. In contrast, if you are programming databases or sharepoint, you probably have less passion about the domain your working in and will want more money for your trouble.

I don't know why you have to shit on developers outside the games industry as you've done here (perhaps it wasn't intentional?).

I love games, and I have plenty of passion both for them and for programming in general. But the games industry is saturated with developers who got into programing solely to make games, and who only want to make games, and is famous for taking advantage of that. I'd rather not be taken advantage of, and 'passion' has nothing to do with it.

I don't know why you think I said something derogatory or even controversial. I mean, developers might have passion for programming, but sharepoint? There are many jobs out there whose domains are overtly uninteresting to many of us, but they still need to be done and the work itself can be interesting; but companies will still need to pony up a bit more money in a competitive market to get us in the door.

Now game developers wants to be game developers. They don't need much extra incentive. Its like acting in LA or NYC; it takes talent and training, and you can get paid for it, but maybe not as much as being a claims adjuster. Are those actors being exploited or is it just a supply and demand thing? Now, in contrast, how many kids dream of being claims adjusters?

That guy must really like Web Parts. I did not find your statement offensive.

I agree- look at how much money is in mainframe consulting. There is truth to the argument that the more attractive the discipline + focus, the less you have to incentivize.

I took the statement to indicate a lack of passion in programming in general rather than a particular domain. Re-reading I can see the intent. But, thanks for the downvotes anyway.

You tend to get downvoted for being wrong, yeah. Best not to complain about downvotes unless they're really confusing.

Wait, what? Game development seemed like the most stressful/worst thing you can do in software, i'd never expect game developers to make less than average developer.

Game Developer Magazine runs a salary survey every year. The average game programmer salary in 2012 was a little north of $90,000. There are game programmers who make much more than that, but it is not the norm.

http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/1108/game_developer_...

It's a supply and demand thing. Very few people grow up wanting to make web apps, but many many people grow up wanting to make games, and when they have that chance, willing to take a pay cut to do it.

Bungie is not your average studio though. I suspect that their developer salaries are at least on par with the software industry average.

I wouldn't be so sure. Even huge, profitable companies such as Blizzard have relatively low salaries compared to other software fields

They have a lot of ex-Microsofties, who don't come cheap.

I just looked at EA salaries, and their level III engineers make $98K on average. It's very sad, considering game dev not only requires good programming skills, but also all kinds of math, graphics, sound knowledge.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/electronic-arts-salary-SRC...

Game dev is like playing in a rock band, but for computer geeks instead of band geeks. It's low paid because people want to do it -- i do it for nothing (sure, I hope to make money from it).

You know what really pays poorly given the skills and knowledge requires? Classical music.

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