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The $ numbers of XBLA

Tue, 2006-09-19 18:45 — Tomacco

Jeff Tunnell, co-founder of GarageGames, has posted a very in depth and interesting look at the numbers behind XBLA. While I won't go too in depth in it here the basics (as far as he could tell them without breaking NDA) were this:

  • Marble Blast Ultra cost close to $300,000 to develop
  • It sold approximately 120,000 copies
  • At $10 USD a piece, it made approximately 1.2 million
  • Developers get to keep between 30%-65%
  • At 65% (his number not mine) they brought in approx. $780,000
He also mentioned that while MBU is considered one of the highest grossing XBLA titles, it would be considered a failure to some publicly traded studios who look for at least a 5x return on investment.

 

[UPDATE] It seems that I forgot to add the link. You can check it out here.

Comments

Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 06:23 #1
I still think that even
I still think that even though they didn't get five times their investment for the game, they still did make a fairly large profit for the game.

And the fact that the game is still being sold, doesn't count out the fact that within time the game will more than make five times the investment the company brought in.
Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 12:44 #2
To the owner of this

To the owner of this site:

 

This site is seriously ugly. You need to change it pretty bad. I know I can't be the only one who thinks this way. The content and the writing is pretty good, not bad at all actually. But the fact is this site is horrible looking. I think this site has a lot of potential and I have been a regular visitor here for a while now, but even my visits have dropped because of it. Need to change it man...

Don't take it as me being a prick, cause I do like the site for it's content, I just can't take how ugly it is right now.

Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 14:51 #3
re: To the owner of this site
Don't worry I don't take you as being a prick. I'd be up for any suggestions you might have. If you'd rather talk offline about it then e-mail me at xblarcade@gmail.com
Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 15:16 #4
I disagree, I don't think
I disagree, I don't think the site is ugly. I actually like it. There are a few things that I would like to see changed like padding added to the text on the left bar and title (e.g. XBLArcade.com, Your one stop source for XBLA News, Recent Comments). Things of that nature. Also the characters by the date in each post aren't installed on my work computer, so they come up as boxes. like Wed, 2006 � 09 � 20 14:51. Even with that said, I could just as easily throw the site in an RSS reader and never come to the site, but I don't because 1) I actually like the layout, 2) added value of comments, 3) added value of forum.
Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 18:58 #5
Ice2Dragon:I think that's

Ice2Dragon:

I think that's the point. It sounds to me like he was presenting this as a reason why XBLA is better for an indie developer than trying to go through retail channels with a big publisher that would demand bigger returns.

Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 21:20 #6
Link?
You say Jeff Tunnell posted an in-depth look at the numbers, but you don't say where he posted it. Do you have a link please?
Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 21:26 #7
re: Link please
Sorry about the missing link, it's now fixed
Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 21:56 #8
Whaa? MBU may not have made

Whaa? MBU may not have made a 5x return on investment as of today, but by the time the 360's lifecycle is complete, it may have made back 10 or 20 times it's original investment... hell, MS is expecting the number of installed 360's to double by the end of the year!

Very odd for him to write off MBU as a 'commercial failure' when the potential install base has been very small to date.

Posted on: Wed, 2006-09-20 21:59 #9
Oh, I actually read the post

Oh, I actually read the post now and see the developer makes the same point I just did about the increasing number of xbox 360's.

I'm less dumbfounded by his remarks now.

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