i just heard that halo2 made $124,000,000 in the first 24 hours of sales.
wow.

Doesn't that beat a bunch of blockbuster movies in recent history?

yeah.

no doubt down to the fact full priced new games are absolute ripoffs in price.

you know what pissed me off? i bought halo 6 weeks ago. it was $50!!! this game is 3 years old. i couldn't find it any cheaper.

You got ripped off. Last time I checked, Halo was a member of the Platnium Collection, and it's price was 20 or 30 bucks. That's USD though, so maybe I'm just being a total idiot not knowing the going conversion rates.

why was halo 2's release so much greater then san adreas and stuff... its wierd no other game has gotten that kind of release ever... its like the release of the ps2

Because it's halo 2.
Because of hype.
Because it's halo 2.
Because the first one is an engaging galactic story-driven FPS that is fun.
Because it's halo 2.

Plus, none of the GTAs have multiplayer support.

GTA:SA does (not online, but still...)

Wow, cash money.

Watch for HL2, I can't wait to see the numbers from Valve.

...I suspect that if movie tickets cost $50+, that there would be numerous movies that trumped Halo 2's sales.

I doubt it. Think about how many people would pay 50 bucks for a 2 hour experience, as compared to 50 bucks for a 4 year long or more experience.

dude, it is a hypothetical situation.



he is just saying that if you adjusted the movie revenue so that the tickets were $50 U.S insteadof 8 dollars, a number of movies would beat it.

in fact, if you divide 124000000 by 50 then times by 8, you only get $19,840,000.

(commas are there for the yanks who need commas in big numbers.)

We appreciate it.

Also, the average game cost at least $53, or more (especially if you got the Collector's Edition), so, assuming that the average cost was $55, and that the average ticket costs $7 (as some theaters offer prices as low as $5, and some as high as $8.25), Halo 2 made $15,781,818.18 in movie terms. Nothing to dismiss, but nothing to be awed about.

The average cost to make a console game is $12-15 million you know. It's even more for bigger titles such as Halo 2.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/play.html?pg=4

what about a movie that costs 3 times more? i'll pay a maximum of 20 of your dollars going to the cinema to see it, then buying it on dvd.

movies have a wider audience and more marketing than video games?

Where does the money go!?

Honestly... when you see people throwing out things like Day of Defeat and Natural Selection for free...

Only thing the developers of those mods don't create is the engine itself, and I can't possibly comprehend how it would take $12-15 million to make any game engine.

Enlighten me, somebody!

Um.

R&D costs.
Millions of lines of code.
Custom tool development.
Thousands of man hours for initial development.
Professional testing.
Tens of thousands of hours for debugging.

And then you also have the really expensive part, the artwork. And then you have packaging, distribution and marketing.

Stop talking. It costs a fortune to make a decent game. Day of Defeat and Natural Selection are free because nobody would pay for them.

I'd pay for not having to see that damn Halo 2 commercial on TV every 5 minutes, it's getting on my nerves.

Yeah, I'm one of those that don't care much for Halo.

gothicx is right. I hate that stupid tv commercial. They just shoot all. With that bliew...dadaboom...tsiew,tsiew,tsiew...bliew...bliew sound. And i am shaking and shivering under the table :p...i hate it

So, how many people bought the HL2 Silver package?

Besides, DoD and NS are Half-life mods not games. It's the same reason as to why everything can be downloaded for free on Massassi.

That was entirely unnecessary, because I was asking a decent question.

Thank you, regardless.

Of course, you had to reply to his semi-insult. Really, if you think games are so easy to make, go out and make one yourself, see how long it takes you just to make the engine, then get to work on models, and then textures, then maps and then you can't forget testing, and back to making the maps easier to play, and you can't forget shaders in the engine, but this creates more bugs, and...

You see where this is going. Just expounding somewhat on what Jon`C said.

Yes, of course, because when someone insults poor uninformed me after asking what I thought was a reasonable question (although looking back now, it was worded ... ignorantly. Sorry about that.), I tend to get offended and hurt. I did say "enlighten me", but I didn't exactly mean it in an arrogant manner.



Right, didn't mean to come across as if games are easy to make. Just a production cost in the tens of millions was surprising.

Sorry thread, I'll stop now.

It sounded like you were saying the developers of big games just fritter the money away on... oh, hell, what are you kids doing these days... fast food, and... ping pong tables, I don't know.

In reality they work obscene hours in exchange for little or no compensation.

Half-Life is a pretty good story. They started out with a $1 million investment, licensed the Quake 1 engine (they couldn't afford to make their own) and then proceeded to make a game.
It was ugly, and it looked like crap. Seriously. $1 million spent almost entirely on artwork and the artwork was sub-par.

They somehow got a deal with Sierra, a metric ****ton of funding, and then made engine improvements and decent artwork. And then the game was good. This is sad because it costs more money to make a game than all of the money we've ever seen combined, and I've seen gold ingots so

Thing is, I didn't like HL1, but I must admit that it is probably somewhere in the top 20 of most sold games of all time. Probably top 10.

I have yet to see one.

Seriously? The TV programming in The Netherlands actually has commcial blocks that go HALO - something - HALO - somethin - HALO - something - HALO. It's terrible.

Here in the US, I've seen both the 60 second one, and 30 second one on TV, ONCE, and that's it. Than again, I hardly ever watch TV. I have both sitting on my computer. I like them, but I can see how that would quickly fade if your faced with watching one every 15 minutes or so.