At minimum, a studio will cost 1M a year to run. At $20 per game of which 30% is taken by steam, that's what, 75,000 games sold per year just to break even? Most games sell less than 1,000...
You know Hades? That studio had a game before that called Pyre. It sold less than 100,000 copies. And this is an established studio...
Skyrim was made by a team of 100 people. Fallout 4 had about double that. By Starfield, Bethesda had grown to over 500 employees.
So just considering the wages of hundreds of employees, 1M a year is a probably a low all estimate for big studios.
But you could say my studio apartment is technically a game studio because I make games in it as a hobby. And my studio only costs a few hundred a month.
A good rule of thumb in the video game industry is that each employee costs $100,000 minimum (with benefits) + another $100,000 to "support" them (licenses, building, electricity, insurance, auditing/compliancec/hr/blahblah, computers, free fruits at lunch...)
A studio with 100 people would cost roughly $20M a year to run at the low end (maya subs are insanely expensive, also there are licenses for everything you do now). This is hoping that many of your artists/vfx only earn 60-80 else it can be more. A senior programmer can cost half a million to the company (counting benefits, cost of operation, support staff) easily.
Damn, I gamedev as a hobby. And my projects aren't great, but they are better than some slop that comes out these days. Fuck man, I'd do this for burger flipping wage, I already do it for free.
At minimum, a studio will cost 1M a year to run. At $20 per game of which 30% is taken by steam, that's what, 75,000 games sold per year just to break even? Most games sell less than 1,000...
You know Hades? That studio had a game before that called Pyre. It sold less than 100,000 copies. And this is an established studio...
Skyrim was made by a team of 100 people. Fallout 4 had about double that. By Starfield, Bethesda had grown to over 500 employees.
So just considering the wages of hundreds of employees, 1M a year is a probably a low all estimate for big studios.
But you could say my studio apartment is technically a game studio because I make games in it as a hobby. And my studio only costs a few hundred a month.
A good rule of thumb in the video game industry is that each employee costs $100,000 minimum (with benefits) + another $100,000 to "support" them (licenses, building, electricity, insurance, auditing/compliancec/hr/blahblah, computers, free fruits at lunch...)
A studio with 100 people would cost roughly $20M a year to run at the low end (maya subs are insanely expensive, also there are licenses for everything you do now). This is hoping that many of your artists/vfx only earn 60-80 else it can be more. A senior programmer can cost half a million to the company (counting benefits, cost of operation, support staff) easily.
Damn, I gamedev as a hobby. And my projects aren't great, but they are better than some slop that comes out these days. Fuck man, I'd do this for burger flipping wage, I already do it for free.