Hello to everybody. I'm doing with a friend a business plan. We have chosen to sell our projects to a publisher. We have the idea of doing all the development in our study, but we don't know how much the publishers pay for a complete game. We know that it depends on the quality of the game, so please give us an idea being realist. We also know that it depends on the development platform too. We know it's not an easy question, but we would be very pleased if you help us. Thanks in advance.

Being realistic: Expect $0. If you find a publisher willing to publish it at your expense, expect that you will have pay thousand dollars for the work they are going to do.

Selling game ideas to a game publisher is not a realistic business plan. Read this. According to the very rough but realistic numbers, you have less than a 7% chance of selling a completed, polished, ready-to-ship game to a publisher.

Selling completed games to a publisher is almost certainly not going to happen unless you have a proven track record and an excellent game. Read this, the first six publication methods (a-f) probably apply to you.

A publisher will only buy a game if they can anticipate sales in the hundreds-of-thousands, or perhaps tens-of-thousands in the mobile market. But if you could sell that many copies with your completed game, you'd probably be better off financially doing it yourself.

OK!! That has been so realistic; but now, being less realistic, let's say that we are a important developer studio, that has finished a really good game (FFX level more or less, for example).
Of course, we don't have this kind of level, but we need the numbers of the possible game sell, because we have to obtain a business plan that's viable.

We hope that now you can be a little more "fantastic".
By the wat, thanks for your opinion.

Thanks in advance.

P.S: I know that the project it's not viable, but we need to do the finance results and we need some benefits for it.

This smells of homework. Though in this case we could likely help. Most of the info you're asking for would be private and never released, so most numbers you get here will be out of thin air and you could likely make them up yourself.

Best of luck.

Of course, it doesn't smell, it stinks -LOL-. I have read my previous posts, and you're right, I've forgot to tell it.
It's a "serious" business plan, but it's not going to be put on practice, so we have to "make-up" it to make it viable.
We agree with you, we can imagine the numbers ourselves, but the problem is that we are really lost, because we don't know how much is expensive, and how much is cheap. Because of that, we only need a estimated number.

Thanks in advance again, and thanks mike2343 for your attention

Quote: Original post by sagoga69

We know that it depends on the quality of the game, so please give us an idea being realist. We also know that it depends on the development platform too.

You know this information is important but you haven't given it to us so how can we answer.

Even if it is for homework you still need to tell us what type of game and on what format. Will the publisher fund the game or will the developer self fund?

Quote: Original post by sagoga69
OK!! That has been so realistic; but now, being less realistic, let's say that we are a important developer studio, that has finished a really good game (FFX level more or less, for example).

The Final Fantasy games are major works. FFIX had a stated cost of over $30M USD. FFX has a stated cost of a little under $40M USD.

I suppose if you self-financed the development cost of that kind of "really good game", finding a publisher would be a trivial thing.

Quote: Original post by sagoga69
Of course, we don't have this kind of level, but we need the numbers of the possible game sell, because we have to obtain a business plan that's viable.

We hope that now you can be a little more "fantastic".

The number of SKUs sold is anybody's guess. It depends on the platform for the game, the quality of the game, the reputation of the companies, branding, popularity of releated titles, the amount and quality of marketing, media coverage, hype, distribution channels, the ESRB game rating, the day you release and events near it, other titles released around the same time, the economy, and thousands of other factors.

For comparison, FFX was one of the most successful PS2 games out there. It sold about 8 million copies worldwide.

There is no simple formula.

Quote: Original post by sagoga69
P.S: I know that the project it's not viable, but we need to do the finance results and we need some benefits for it.

I agree with the above -- smells like homework. Real ventures don't need to come up with finance results when they know up front that the project is not viable. They will instead look at more viable plans rather than persuing a known dead-end.

Quote: Original post by sagoga69 we can imagine the numbers ourselves, but the problem is that we are really lost, because we don't know how much is expensive, and how much is cheap. Because of that, we only need a estimated number.

You can get some numbers here and here - did you read the other articles frob pointed you to before?

Thanks a lot tsloper.
Yes, we had read the documents, but there are so many lines to read, so we only had read the ones that Frod pointed to.
Now, we have read the ones that you have pointed and they are exactly what we are looking for.

For the moment, we have are doubts solved, so thanks a lot frod, mike2343 and tsloper for your help. You have been very fast and very kind.

By the way, frod, logically, if the project it's not viable, there's no reason to do it, and if we have money to develope a 30M USD we don't need a publisher, but the situation is that we need to convince a business teacher that the project is viable, and she doesn't know anything about game business.

Edit 1: tsloper, my congratulations for your complete document. It's a really good web.

I can't actually answer what you're asking, since you gave no info, but your response about "so many lines to read" made me want to respond. Whether this is for your homework or whether you are honestly writing a real business plan with a publisher calling you for it, the way to success is paved with "many lines to read."

The business plan is also "many lines to write", so studying Expository Writing really pays off in this case. ;)

Now, if you don't read many lines, the publisher will be paying you nothing. Based on the paragraph of info you gave, I'd suggest you and your friend make the game, publish it on the internet yourselves and have a PayPal Donate button and CafePress Shop with your game merchandise (provided none of it is someone else's copyright). If it's a decent enough game, you begin to build a following, and maybe some of the sales/donations can go to Game #2.