Argument about Half-Life 2. Need some facts.

[Asuka]

OK im having this argument with a friend. He says that if Valve sold Half-Life 2 for 10$ they would make enough money still. I told him they wouldnt be nearly enough money to make a Half-Life 3 with that. I dont think with selling hl2 for 10$ will Valve be able to pay and motivate all its workers to build a game nearly as good as hl2. I just want all the facts we can get.

How much money it took to make hl1, hl2.

How much money they made from hl1, hl2.

Estimated amount of money to start Valve.

Estimated amount of money spent on workers.

Estimated amount of money on publishers.

Estimated amount of money to run steam.

etc.

What i know is it took about 40 million to make hl2 around the time it hit the 5 year mark.

Vivendi Universal sold 1.7 million copies in just under two months.

Im trying to find out how much money Valve spent and got from hl1/hl2. I know we can never get a 100% number but an estimate is enough.

thx.

 

[Francis_Cole]

Valve make a LOT more money selling it through steam.
Publishing/Distributing/Retail costs can be more than 50%

 

[SFLUFAN]

Because Valve is a private company and therefore not obligated to make public its financial statements, it is absolutely near impossible to reasonably estimate that information.

PS: your friend is an absolute moron who needs to take a basic accounting or finance course to understand that there are both fixed and variable costs that have to be covered by revenue.

 

[Yombi]

If Gabe needs to i'm sure he will put some of his millions from his Microsoft days into the cause

 

[westie]

If Gabe needs to i'm sure he will put some of his millions from his Microsoft days into the cause

Didn't he put his own money into HL2.

 

[Asuka]

Didn't he put his own money into HL2.

Yes he did.

Im not only asking about how much Valve made etc.

Im asking what are the things they need to pay for etc. Things that need to be covered by all companies.

 

[Top Secret]

Didn't he put his own money into HL2.

I believe he openely stated that he had. He even said "and some other money we had laying around" implying that it was pocket funded.

 

[Chris D]

I think it was actually, all the money he made from Microsoft went into funding Valve and then all the money made from HL1 went into funding HL2.

We know that the HL franchise sold nearly 10 million units world-wide.

 

[Greatgat]

I think it was actually, all the money he made from Microsoft went into funding Valve and then all the money made from HL1 went into funding HL2.

We know that the HL franchise sold nearly 10 million units world-wide.

Yeah, that's the impression I had. I didn't know Valve was privately held, though. That's kind of nifty.

I don't really have anything to contribute though, so...

*scurries back to the front page*

 

[Grom Hellscream]

I think it was actually, all the money he made from Microsoft went into funding Valve and then all the money made from HL1 went into funding HL2.

We know that the HL franchise sold nearly 10 million units world-wide.

Wow, that's a lot of money...

 

[Sparta]

10,000,000 x 50 = 500,000,000. I have no idea how much Valve got out of that but those numbers just dont seem right for some reason.....

I'm gonna take a guess and say Valve got 40% of it (I know somewhere there's a quote from either Gabe, Doug or someone at Valve that says they make up to about 2 and a half times more money selling on Steam then in stores by cutting out the middle man, so 40% sounds about right since Half-Life 1 was only sold in stores) that means they got somewhere close to 200,000,000.

If they sold 1.7 million copies of it through VU, and they make 40% of every copy sold, then they made 34 million off of HL2 back when it was announced that they sold 1.7 mil copies. (Which was when, back in December? Or early Jan?)

If i'm right that is. They may only make 1 and a half times more, i have no idea.

 

[Hazar]

10,000,000 x 50 = 500,000,000. I have no idea how much Valve got out of that but those numbers just dont seem right for some reason.....

paying salaries for that many people over that amount of time adds up.... not to mention the cost of building steam

anyways, I don't think that valve could pull making only $10 per game; $25 is prolly a better estimate

 

[Sparta]

paying salaries for that many people over that amount of time adds up.... not to mention the cost of building steam

anyways, I don't think that valve could pull making only $10 per game; $25 is prolly a better estimate

But there's 3 parties involved in games. Developer, Publisher and Distributor.
The Developer gets the largest percentage, 40% and the Publisher and Distributor get 30% (Unless like VU or Midway or one of those larger companies that both publish and distribute the games). I'm pretty sure thats how it works, but i could be completely wrong.

If anyone in the game industry could correct me or confirm any of this, that'd be great.

 

[Hazar]

But there's 3 parties involved in games. Developer, Publisher and Distributor.
The Developer gets the largest percentage, 40% and the Publisher and Distributor get 30% (Unless like VU or Midway or one of those larger companies that both publish and distribute the games). I'm pretty sure thats how it works, but i could be completely wrong.

If anyone in the game industry could correct me or confirm any of this, that'd be great.

yeah, I ment $10 profit

WHAR ART THOU GAME INDUSTRY?? GABE?? LOLS

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I think it's pretty silly to argue about this unless you have a balance sheet from Valve and Vivendi.

 

[Muhahahaha]

Because Valve is a private company and therefore not obligated to make public its financial statements, it is absolutely near impossible to reasonably estimate that information.

PS: your friend is an absolute moron who needs to take a basic accounting or finance course to understand that there are both fixed and variable costs that have to be covered by revenue.

Or a basic economics class. The market is always driven to equilibrium! Supply and demand dictate the price. If people didn't want it so badly, then they would have to lower the price so that they would sell. A lower price would not help them because, believe it or not, supply is always limited. They would run out at a lower price and not make enough money. A higher price would cause a surplus of the product just sitting on shelves. They have probably picked a very good price. I'm happy :sniper:

 

[SupaKoopa]

the pricing might have had a lot to do with vivendi, the publisher. i assume they wanted the boxed version to cost fifty bucks, as most publishers do, and i guess vivendi didn't want valve to undersell them on steam...