Next gen EA games will skip the Wii U due to Frostbite Engine

[Foxi4]

But they lost money by their decision. They funded the Wii U version and didn't release it. The choices were, make money (or at least recover some of the money spent) by publishing the Wii U version, or just lose all the money. They chose "lose all the money" and you are telling me they made a profitable business decision.

That's the whole point - if the risks of publishing the title according to the licensing scenario proposed outweighed the money they invested in the port, it would be unreasonable to release it. If the costs of publishing the title outweigh the possible profits and cancelling is a lesser loss, you cancel the title.

 

[JoostinOnline]

That's the whole point - if the risks of publishing the title according to the licensing scenario proposed outweighed the money they invested in the port, it would be unreasonable to release it. If the costs of publishing the topic outweigh the possible profits and cancelling is a lesser loss, you cancel the title.

Considering how much shovelware is available across different consoles, there can't be a whole lot of risk in selling a game. Besides, it would sell huge for the Wii U, ESPECIALLY because there aren't that many games yet. Far less competition.

 

[Foxi4]

Considering how much shovelware is available across different consoles, there can't be a whole lot of risk in selling a game. Besides, it would sell huge for the Wii U, ESPECIALLY because there aren't that many games yet. Far less competition.

Far less market share too.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Far less market share too.

It doesn't matter. Obviously they wouldn't make that many copies for the Wii U, but pressing discs is cheap. With a $60 price on the game, they should have been able to make a lot of money.

 

[Foxi4]

It doesn't matter. Obviously they wouldn't make that many copies for the Wii U, but pressing discs is cheap. With a $60 price on the game, they should have been able to make a lot of money.

I'll give you an example here - let's say that they sell 1 million copies and already spent about a million on getting it to work on the Wii U. Now, let's say that Nintendo will take a 10% cut for each sold game due to licensing. The profits are going to be an initial $27 million for the first half-a-million copies and about $18 million after the game drops in price.

That brings us to a grand total of $34,8 million dollars. Now, how much do you think does patching post-release, keeping servers online, pressing the discs, preparing the cases, distributing the game and advertising it worldwide are going to cost?

Hint, pretty sure it's going to be more than $34,8 million dollars.

 

[FAST6191]

Even assuming pressing, shipping and licensing was not all that much there might be commitments for levels of advertising, the licensing stuff* might have meant EA could be left holding the bag for some time (a lack a liquidity is not a nice position to be in, especially if you are EA coming off the last few years), you could be seen to have to support a game (I have only seen what MS charge for title update publishing but I am guessing it might be comparable or at least similar orders of magnitude and if there is a "matched patch" commitment for licensing) and I could quite happily see cancelling a game if it would have led to bad PR.

*if EA used another dev tool they might have to pay per version released.

Also how much money was "lost" by porting to the Wii U? Presumably the assets which were already created could have been reused and asset creation is a killer. To that end if you stuck a bunch of cheap and cheerful code slaves in the basement for a few months then what you might have lost to wages and electricity use could be nothing to some of the stuff up above. Now this might at some level run contrary to the other things we have been discussing in the thread (in effect some of it could be saying the Wii U is not all that underpowered/difficult to code for) but I will stand by it for now.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Hint, pretty sure it's going to be more than $34,8 million dollars.

I seriously doubt that. Pressing discs is really cheap, the cases take up about 50% less plastic than any other consoles, and instruction manuals are no longer included. All that together is going to cost less than one dollar per game.

As far as advertisement, all they have to do is add the Wii U logo to the end of the advertisement right next to the other logos. Minimum wage is like $8 now, right? Since it takes at most 30 seconds to add a logo, it should cost them less than one penny in advertisement.

Unless you think that servers is going to cost around $33 million dollars, I'd say you are very wrong.

 

[Foxi4]

I seriously doubt that. Pressing discs is really cheap, the cases take up about 50% less plastic than any other consoles, and instruction manuals are no longer included. All that together is going to cost less than one dollar per game.

As far as advertisement, all they have to do is add the Wii U logo to the end of the advertisement right next to the other logos. Minimum wage is like $8 now, right? Since it takes at most 30 seconds to add a logo, it should cost them less than one penny in advertisement.

Unless you think that servers is going to cost around $33 million dollars, I'd say you are very wrong.

Assuming that $33 million dollars is just about enough to launch a triple-A title these days is pretty naive and a grand total of $33 million in sales (not profit, since this money would have to be used to cover the forementioned costs) is not an interesting prospect for a company that sold $200+ worth of Mass Effect 3 copies.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Assuming that $33 million dollars is just about enough to launch a triple-A title these days is pretty naive and a grand total of $33 million in sales (not profit, since this money would have to be used to cover the forementioned costs) is not an interesting prospect for a company that sold $200+ worth of Mass Effect 3 copies.

You are confusing launching a series of titles (i.e. the same game on several systems) and launching an extra title along the already funded titles. It's the difference in spending millions on advertisement, and spending 0.8 cents extra on advertisement.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Look, EA are not Disney villains, they're not releasing Crysis 3 for the Wii U not because they're stupidly evil and just want to torment Wii U owners but because there's LEGITIMATE BUSINESS REASONS why they didn't.

I don't know what point you're trying to make but honestly I'm going to take the point of a company with trained professionals who are trained and whose job is to decide what is a good and what is a bad business decision than that of an internet forum-goer whose using very basic reasoning with no actual knowledge of the deal making assumptions.

 

[tronic307]

Nintendo isn't the one who refused to publish the game.

If Nintendo moneyhatted Crysis 3, published it and slapped their Seal of Approval® on the box; would it have even sold 100k?

 

[JoostinOnline]

Look, EA are not Disney villains, they're not releasing Crysis 3 for the Wii U not because they're stupidly evil and just want to torment Wii U owners but because there's LEGITIMATE BUSINESS REASONS why they didn't.

The point I'm making is that I don't see any LEGITIMATE BUSINESS REASONS. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Regardless of the reasons though, I feel bad for any group of developers that create a game for a console and, right when it's ready to publish, get shut down. All the time and money went to waste.

 

[Rydian]

Income - Expenses = Net Income.

If Net Income is positive, then you make a profit. If net Income is negative, you take a loss. Even if you do make a profit, the profit often has to be large enough to make up for the time spent and all that jazz so some companies will not undertake something that's expected to only grant them a minimal profit over a large amount of time.

 

[Foxi4]

Income - Expenses = Net Income.

If Net Income is positive, then you make a profit. If net Income is negative, you take a loss. Even if you do make a profit, the profit often has to be large enough to make up for the time spent and all that jazz so some companies will not undertake something that's expected to only grant them a minimal profit over a large amount of time.

Thank you for mentioning the time aspect Rydian, we completely forgot about it earlier.

People often forget about the time aspect - even if a title would be profitable to a small degree, the studio indeed has to delegate the whole process, meaning use their human resources and their time to create a product ready for release. If that time could've been used differently and in a more profitable fashion, of course the studio isn't going to waste their resources on the barely profitable venture - they'll go for the big bucks because that's how business works.

"Time is Money" comes to mind - if the end product is not expected to give them a pre-determined profit nobody's going to engage their talented developers in it, instead giving them a more profitable project to work on.

 

[ggyo]

Look, EA are not Disney villains, they're not releasing Crysis 3 for the Wii U not because they're stupidly evil and just want to torment Wii U owners but because there's LEGITIMATE BUSINESS REASONS why they didn't.

I don't know what point you're trying to make but honestly I'm going to take the point of a company with trained professionals who are trained and whose job is to decide what is a good and what is a bad business decision than that of an internet forum-goer whose using very basic reasoning with no actual knowledge of the deal making assumptions.

For real.

Corporations, or at least those run by business-sensible executives, don't base their decisions on emotional interests. If they could make a profit by simply releasing a game that was (assumed by tempers to) already have completed development, it would have been released. Financial interests are first. These people have mouths to feed, investors to please, and employees to pay. They can never intentionally make a deal that will lose them money, and can never intentionally ignore prospects that will make them money.

And that's the difference between JoostinOnline, and successful people who don't project their emotional dispositions out of spite. It's not even about business knowledge. This is (un?)common sense.

 

[kehkou]

unrelated to the thread, but I like your sig

".. water tribe .." lol. Do you remember what episode that was from?

I think its just fan art.

 

[Haloman800]

I think its just fan art.

I know, but I remember one episode of Avatar where Katara said that/did that with her hands, I think it was an episode with Toph as well.

 

[ggyo]

I know, but I remember one episode of Avatar where Katara said that/did that with her hands, I think it was an episode with Toph as well.

Nah, it's the very first episode with Toph, and Sokka does it. Aang is looking for an earthbending master, and he goes to a bunch of quack trainers, and a school. After the school doesn't work out, he asks two students about earthbending matches at an earthbending arena, and the students go like "On the island of nunya... nunya business. AHAHAHAHA!" Katara does her thing, scares them, they give up the information, and while they're walking out, Sokka does a "represent" exit and says "Water triiibe."

I think it's called The Blind Bandit.

 

[the_randomizer]

Humorously, EA officially phases out online passes as of earlier today. HA-HA!

 

[Haloman800]

Nah, it's the very first episode with Toph, and Sokka does it. Aang is looking for an earthbending master, and he goes to a bunch of quack trainers, and a school. After the school doesn't work out, he asks two students about earthbending matches at an earthbending arena, and the students go like "On the island of nunya... nunya business. AHAHAHAHA!" Katara does her thing, scares them, they give up the information, and while they're walking out, Sokka does a "represent" exit and says "Water triiibe."

I think it's called The Blind Bandit.

Hahaha, that's exactly it. Thanks so much, great memory btw.