Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#31

Post by enko » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:04 AM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #20

jlgreco wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That money bought them things like this: http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/000028992/826f/GTA-5-mur... (That is a massive painting on the side of a building, incase that isn't clear)

I'd like to know what are the ROIs for an advertisement like that. I can't really imagine that the people who will buy the game will buy it due to this advertisement. At the same time though, Rockstar probably knows what they are doing.

It's extremely hard to measure, but stunts like that seem to definitely add to "hype". I mean, it's being posted organically here on HN, isn't it!

"Hype" definitely gets sales. It leads to people checking out the game/movie, paying attention when they otherwise might not have - it's a form of social proof.

$800m in sales, first day. How much of that was due to marketing? Who knows. But it looks pretty positive to me, and stunts like this are part of it. Almost certainly positive, IMO.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#32

Post by prawn » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:05 AM UTC

eropple wrote: post #28

pratik661 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that people in the game industry make significantly less than other software engineers. Why do you think that is? The few software engineers that I know who work the hours that are the norm in the game industry make even more. I wonder what market forces are at work here.

It's "fun". Working for sports teams is the same way. I just had an NBA team looking for someone capable of doing very nontrivial development in areas that border on computer vision and machine learning for $40K a year. (They ended up hiring a--as in, one--fresh college grad for the position. I look forward to seeing what they can come up with.)

Magazine work is also very competitive.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#33

Post by fhd2 » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:14 AM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #4

Kind of surprised that marketing cost them more than development ($115m vs $150m).

> Kind of surprised that marketing cost them more than development ($115m vs $150m).

Kinda depressing, considering how game developers are typically underpaid and overworked... But as long as people are willing to put up with it, it's going to continue.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#34

Post by nightski » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:28 AM UTC

bcbrown wrote: post #25

pratik661 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that people in the game industry make significantly less than other software engineers. Why do you think that is? The few software engineers that I know who work the hours that are the norm in the game industry make even more. I wonder what market forces are at work here.

Supply and demand. There's a lot of people who want to work in games, and are willing to work for less pay in order to do so, I imagine.

There are quite a few people who want to work on games, true. But I am not so sure the pool of talented engineers that are very good at the tasks game development poses is much larger than anywhere else in industry.

On the other hand, I don't think a very large portion of game development teams are engineers anymore. Not only are the tools much better, there is much more focus on other things like art, sound, marketing, design, etc...

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#35

Post by maximilianburke » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:29 AM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #4

Kind of surprised that marketing cost them more than development ($115m vs $150m).

Marketing has been a larger cost than development for quite some time now in the world of AAA video games.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#36

Post by adventured » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:36 AM UTC

piggity wrote: post #24

colmvp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played this yesterday (I don't own a console) at a friends house and what they've been able to achieve on these consoles is impressive considering these consoles aren't next gen and are resource limited. It seems like that happens at every end of every console's life. Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, and GTA V are three fantastic games to close out the PS3.

I wonder if the developers get a real handle on the platform and squeezing the most out of it by the time it gets to EOL.

They must no doubt, given the specs on those systems.

eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_specificatio...

A whopping 512mb of RAM to run GTA 5

I picked up my 360 in the launch month, and it's still running eight years later. Have to give them credit for that as I've put a lot of miles on the system.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#37

Post by rwallace » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:41 AM UTC

pratik661 wrote: post #21

dpiers wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average salary in the game industry is 84k.

I've noticed that people in the game industry make significantly less than other software engineers. Why do you think that is? The few software engineers that I know who work the hours that are the norm in the game industry make even more. I wonder what market forces are at work here.

Economics 101. When a job has a halo effect, people will crowd into it until they bid down salary and working conditions to the point where they would be better off working at McDonald's.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#38

Post by pchristensen » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:43 AM UTC

piggity wrote: post #24

colmvp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played this yesterday (I don't own a console) at a friends house and what they've been able to achieve on these consoles is impressive considering these consoles aren't next gen and are resource limited. It seems like that happens at every end of every console's life. Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, and GTA V are three fantastic games to close out the PS3.

I wonder if the developers get a real handle on the platform and squeezing the most out of it by the time it gets to EOL.

Bingo. Andy Gavin's blog about developing Crash Bandicoot covers some of the issues of developing for consoles.

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#39

Post by pandaman » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:50 AM UTC

pratik661 wrote: post #21

dpiers wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average salary in the game industry is 84k.

I've noticed that people in the game industry make significantly less than other software engineers. Why do you think that is? The few software engineers that I know who work the hours that are the norm in the game industry make even more. I wonder what market forces are at work here.

There are probably about 50 profitable AAA game studios in the whole world. These pay quite well[1]. But there are just few hundred engineers working in all of them. The rest of the industry is either a new studio building up its team while working on low profit titles or an old studio circling the drain. These cannot pay well. People work there either to get experience and advance into one of AAA teams or are hoping their own studio will become a AAA itself.

[1]http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salarie...

Re: Grand Theft Auto V Earns $800 Million in a Day

#40

Post by Impossible » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 5:52 AM UTC

pratik661 wrote: post #21

dpiers wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average salary in the game industry is 84k.

I've noticed that people in the game industry make significantly less than other software engineers. Why do you think that is? The few software engineers that I know who work the hours that are the norm in the game industry make even more. I wonder what market forces are at work here.

I see comments like this a lot on HN, and I think the difference is exaggerated. Yes, engineers make more outside of the game industry, but if you look at average salaries for engineers it's not that much lower. That $84K number includes, artists, designers, QA and producers. The average salary in the US for game industry software engineers was $91K in 2013 (http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=10567).

According to sources that come up in Google (bureau of labor, indeed, glassdoor, salary.com) the average nation wide software engineer salary is close to that plus or minus $5K.

On HN it feels like nation wide game industry numbers are being compared to the salaries of the best engineers at the most successful Silicon Valley\SF tech companies. When you compare against top tier companies we're looking at a $20K+ jump. But if you start comparing against top tier game developers like Valve, Riot or Naughty Dog you get comparable results.

I know that salary surveys are understandably taken with a grain of salt on HN, but I feel like it's a better yardstick than the "common wisdom" that gets thrown around.