Deja Vu anyone?

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Original post by Kars Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how much money the average MMO (or other computer games) brings in verses the development costs?

Well, according to Square-Enix, FFXI finally broke even around last november after being out in japan for 2.5 years and the US 1 year. They meant break even as including development and maintenance costs along with the hardware costs, it seems. At that time, I think they were trying to hit the 250k or was it the 500k subscriber mark. So, all things considered, breaking even may not be the first of your worries. Probably need to worry about how to stay afloat long enough to actually think about breaking even.

If you want to create something at least on the scale of FFXI, that would mean hardware-wise, you'd be buying and maintaining 26 - 28 server clusters, which is what FFXI currently runs on server side. I think just buying the proper hardware to setup 25 server clusters will cost you more than $2 million, especially if you want reliable hardware. (we're talking clusters here, so probably not your average 2 or 4 machine per cluster, and by the way they do maintenance, it seems they definitely have more than 4 machines per cluster)

Then you add in all the costs others have mentioned and it really isn't hard to believe that WoW cost $30 - $40 million.

Need I remind you and everyone else that we have discussed all this already?

We answered all your questions in that thread already:

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-Are my ideas possible? -Is that enough money to run a top notch extreme graphics game? -Is it possibly for me to get a team to do exactly as I want it?

Answers:

- Your ideas are extreemly risky. You are highly unlikely to succeed with your current plans.

- Probably not. It's enough money for an "ok" MMORPG (or a "good" game) if managed well.

- No. You'll never get exactly what you want. And if you ignore the good advice of your team when they tell you what you want is a bad plan, you'll not only annoy them, but you'll end up with a sub-standard game.


And on this last question lies the problem. You are trying (again) to get us to answer in the affirmitive that your ideas are possible exactly as you want them. The simple fact of the matter is they are not. You are going to have to make some changes and tradeoffs.

On the one hand - to get the end result you want, you'd have to start small and pour your heart and soul into building up a game development company, making several successful games along the way (and this would require serious cutting back on the "do exactly as I want it" attitude).

On the other hand - you could get a result but using the throw-money-at-it do-exactly-as-I-want-it path you want, but the result would not be what you are looking for. You're likely to end up with a low-quality game, a pissed off team, and no more money.

I'm afraid it's one or the other. Not both.

WOW everyone on this thread is gullible even moderators ... in the last thread that was just pointed out the kid says he is 18 , in this one he says he is 17 ...

for the love of GOD ... how could anyone believe he has 2.5 million dollars, if he makes up his/her age right off the bat. He went from being 18 two months ago to 17 now. Maybe he has a regressive aging disease and will shrivel up and turn into an infant.

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Original post by Codemonger WOW everyone on this thread is gullible even moderators ... in the last thread that was just pointed out the kid says he is 18 , in this one he says he is 17 ... for the love of GOD ... how could anyone believe he has 2.5 million dollars, if he makes up his/her age right off the bat. He went from being 18 two months ago to 17 now. Maybe he has a regressive aging disease and will shrivel up and turn into an infant.

I'm sure most people who replied understand the low chance that this person is telling the truth and are responding in a hypothetical sense.