maximaz said:I've always wondered just how much money companies make from games. $300m from 5m units would mean that they make $60m per million copies sold, which doesn't seem realistic.
This confusion seems to happen every time a publisher makes this kind of press release. To specify, looking at the press release, it is:
5 million copies shipped, not sold-through
Which seems "roughly calculated" (i.e. just multiply it by 60) to represent retail sale value, not publisher value. They offered the same guesstimate for Fallout 3's shipping numbers (see below), it's a meaningless but impressive claim.
Dork Mage's guesstimate is an overestimate too. You don't just pay the retailer, distributor and packaging overhead, you also pay a percentage to the console you're publishing on. A 20 dollar per copy return is, last time I heard, pretty good. But these things vary more than you'd think.
How much Obsidian makes on it is anyone's guess. Depends on their deal. There's no doubt they get bonuses when certain sales numbers are hit, but what this is exactly, who knows. Maybe Bethesda was smart enough to build a high sales target into the contract.
Lexx said:How was Fallout 3 going at this time after release?
Fallout 3 shipped 4.7 million in a week.