Snapdad wrote on Mar 6, 2013, 04:29:
"Ravaged with disease and famine, the people wait for something to change."

Not interested.

TurdFergasun wrote on Feb 27, 2013, 21:36:
oh boy, the mcdonalds of video games is coming out with a new flavor of milkshake!!! rejoice peasants!

Cutter wrote on Feb 23, 2013, 15:17:
Google glasses - $1500 to show the world what a pathetic douchebag you are.

finga wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 08:55:

Dev wrote on Feb 14, 2013, 04:29:
I have a problem, because I'd much rather see it go into improving or expanding minecraft. Maybe doing minecraft 2. He's got his own company, why not re-invest more into that?

The community already did expand Minecraft much further than I think Mojang ever would have. It's called Feed the Beast, and it's definitely not for everyone. Minecraft is bottled lightning and heaping more stuff onto it wouldn't necessarily improve it.

Mojang is not feeling the burning need to turn their success into a big corporate games-making machine, and whether people like their games or not, that's a rare thing. They *are* working on two games, but they're obviously super-intent on doing things their way. Throwing money at the solutions that Mojang is looking for... won't really fix those problems.

It's like suggesting that money is the only thing Valve needed to make Half-Life 3. Well, Valve could spend ungodly amounts of money on that game if they wanted to; maybe they've already done that and found it's not solving their development problems. This isn't the kind of business where loads of capital necessarily make a great game, especially when we're talking about indie games. There's an element of finesse to some kinds of game development that brute force wads of cash won't make happen.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 8, 2013, 13:50:

Jivaro wrote on Feb 8, 2013, 12:17:
Here is the salary chart. Decide for yourself. Glassdoor is known for being slightly above the reality when it comes to large corporations and slightly below the reality with smaller companies, so don't take this info as fact. More like ballpark numbers.

I don't think it's the salaries necessarily, but the hours. If you make the guys work 60-70 hours per week with no OT, then a 100K salary is only 66K, and you're saving all that money not having to hire x number more people at 100K per year.

Cutter wrote on Feb 8, 2013, 08:23:

Fibrocyte wrote on Feb 8, 2013, 05:49:

Cutter wrote on Feb 8, 2013, 03:29:
Record operating margins? We're slave driving like never before!

"I would like to thank our incredibly talented employees around the world for their passion, drive and creativity, which continues to fuel our success."

They have his thanks but not his money.

You know both of these things for a fact or you're just spewing jealous venom?

Why would I be jealous of working for someone like Kodick? Are you fucking high?

You know how you increase operating margins? You lower costs. You know where most of your costs are? Employees. And how do you do that? Worker them harder and pay them less. Recessions are a dream economy for guys like Kodick knowing they have their employees by the balls.

Why do you think they fired IW? They knew they could get other people to do it for a 1/4 of what they were paying them.

Am I jealous of that? Dude, take a fucking reality pill. Unless you mean am I jealous of Kodick and making monster bank like he does? No, I'm not. I could have easily been a broker or a banker - it runs in the family - but I have a conscience and I don't like fucking other people over so I can profit solely for myself. So really, either way, no not jealous in the least. What I feel for the rank and file at Actiblizz is pity.

Cutter wrote on Feb 8, 2013, 03:29:
Record operating margins? We're slave driving like never before!

"I would like to thank our incredibly talented employees around the world for their passion, drive and creativity, which continues to fuel our success."

They have his thanks but not his money.

Quboid wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 23:38:
Does anyone else find the MM notation bizarre? Maybe it's a British thing (not that I'm the only Brit here) but that looks like millimetres to me. I know it meant million way back but I think the only people to use it now, aside from Blue, are people working in print media and that's hardly applicable here.

Verno wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 13:24:

Orphic Resonance wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 12:40:

Fibrocyte wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 12:36:
Grossly lowballing the estimate.

what? 18 mil is "grossly lowballing" a game dev cycle? dont think so

maybe if you include advertising.. but i wouldnt consider that part of the deal, if its privately funded to begin with

18 mil is easily a AAA dev budget if you dont include marketing

Nah I think he meant Cutter was lowballing it with the 3mil figure because you don't ship a sequel to Pyschonauts on anything less than 10mil IMHO.

DrEvil wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 12:12:

Cutter wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 12:04:

DrEvil wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 11:59:

Cutter wrote on Feb 5, 2013, 09:29:
18 million for Psychonauts? Cereal? Every Friday is free coke and hookers at the office or what?

Do you have any idea how much it costs to pay even 10 people a reasonable salary plus benefits, have insurance for your company, and pay for its existence (incorporation papers, etc.)? $1MM dollars isn't even enough to pay the salary, let alone everything else, especially in the California Bay Area for a year. I won't even get into the real estate costs out here.

With that said, I personally think $18MM is more than I expected. I didn't expect more than $10MM.

Yes, actually I do know because I've run several business with a dozen plus employees. Using your example that would probably be around 600k+/-. Even really pushing it with nicer offices, higher salary and better benefits, etc. let's call it a million. We're still talking about Psychonauts here. How it could go beyond 2 mil is beyond me, so yeah, I totally get where Notch is coming from on this. I'd dearly LOVE to see how DF breaks down this 18 mil.

I have no idea how you could not see it going beyond $2MM. Just the salary + benefits for 10 developers and artists in the California Bay Area for two years alone is easily more than $2MM.

And yes, it would have been interesting to see the breakdown.

Without knowing the scope of the game, estimated development time, platforms supported, etc. this is all armchair guesses anyway.

But I think you're still lowballing the estimate.