Why do games never seem to lose money...

Why do games never seem to lose money? like in Hollywood a movie with a $100 million budget more often than not loses money but a game always makes their money back, i've never heard of a financial flop

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>i've never heard of a financial flop
then you are not listening.

most of the games that fails are mediocre which is why you forgot about them like for example lawbreakers, metal gear survive and anthem

>i've never heard of a financial flop
are you joking? here's one example off the top of my head: Kingdoms of Amalur

want another example? think of that game you absolutely love that never got a sequel or any announcement of a reboot: it was a financial flop, regardless of how good the game was, it didn't make enough money and now it's collecting dust in some shitty publishers basement because they refuse to sell the IP to anyone else in case they run out of ideas and need something to milk

we even have modern examples of shit games that also flopped financially like Lawbreakers, Battleborn, Anthem, etc

Anthem?

/thread

Retard.

>In absolute numbers: more high budget movies are made than games
>Movies still, on average, cost a lot more than video-games
>There's an expansive community built around movie box office performance and there's no videogame equivalent to it

>but a game always makes their money back
A game or a movie that only manages to cover it's development costs is considered a massive flop, as well.

The GameCube as a whole was a flop

Plenty of online-only multiplayer games that are dead on arrival.

>Why do games never seem to lose money?
Welcome to Yea Forums, you will fit right in with the rest, you obviously know fucking nothing about game development.

Really nigga? That shit sold millions.

It happens all the fucking time you dunce. If the media covered every financial flop, it'd be paragraphs. Here's some.

>Anthem
>Mass Effect: Andromeda
>Rage 2
>The Division 2
>Crackdown 3

It's just like movies too. The harder it flops, the less people know about it.

>That shit sold millions
Do you know what "net profit" is?

They do, but they don't report it.

OP have you ever heard of "Hollywood Accounting?"

Pretty much every film is sent through so many subsidiaries and holding companies that on paper they all are losses.

Anthem sold a fuck ton of copies i don't think they "lose" money on that game

I was surprised The Division even got a sequel considering everyone was shitting on it after it released.
Was The Division 2 really that much worse compared to the first one?

Anthem, ME:Andromeda and specially The Division 2 aren't flops. The Division 2 is the best selling game of the year so far.

This, but there are many games out there that have been financial flops. Anything that didn't get a sequel was probably a financial flop.

It sold a lot (at sale prices soon after release too) but was meant to make money from microtransaction shit.

Instead it died immediately because it was shit.

The game not being as big as they hoped doesn't mean it lost money like the OP is asking

It had a giant marketing budget, and was discounted like a week after release due to unsold stock. A lot of sales were not at full price.

all of those games you posted made back their development budgets. fuck, anthem even managed to pull off $100 million in cash shop sales

Because you don't pay attention. A flop can and has immediately killed the studio that made it.

EA isn't the one selling those discounted copies, they already got the money. The game is fourth in the NPD chart for the year and is goign to end up in the top 10, with the initial shipment they already made their money back even if the game die right after.

and there are movies that make hundreds of millions in revenue that are still considered flops because they didn't make enough money

I'm willing to bet Survive in itself had such a small budget it probably made money even with little sales. About 80% of the assets must have been reused, writing was nonexistent and much of the mechanics were also already there.

Moust games are flops. You just don't know about it.

Bioshock infinite was a flop, killed the studio. Everything telltale made(except TWD S1) were flops, killed the studio. That roman game crytek made was a flop, studio has been circling the drain for a while now. Dead space 3 was a flop due to EA meddling, studio was murdered. Control was a flop, didn't even make top 20 when released on ps4. Artifact was a flop, valve have so much money that it doesn't affect them though.

Another retard who thinks stores buy copies from publishers to have in store.

Learn how the world works you dumb fuck.

>EA isn't the one selling those discounted copies, they already got the money.
Are you retarded? The vast majority of games are sold through digital stores, meaning that EA only gets money when people buy the actual game.

>they already got the money
Stay in school kid

Also it's important to note that mediocre games get release with the expectation of failure. However, a company will lose less money by releasing an inferior product than by shutting down production completely.

Is that really true of anthem? That shit makes me sick.

Games lose money all the fucking time you mong.

The reason you haven't noticed is that.
1. Budgets aren't reported, we don't actually know for sure what any game cost to make so we can't be sure how much it needs to sell to make it's money back
2. Sales numbers have become obscured since the rise of digital distribution, if a game is a flop no one is going to actually say how much it sold
3. Games don't have an equivalent to movie theaters, it's a "Direct to home video" only medium in a way.

Not losing money doesn't mean it was a worthwhile investment.

The Order 1886

Reminder that Anthem was in development hell for roughly 5-6 years before the public ever heard of it.
A game like Anthem needs to be an absolute smash hit to make it's money back, especially with the kind of advertising budget they put into that turd.

>BUT MUH YOUTUBE HEADLINES AND TWITTER SCREENCAPS

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>games don’t flop
*ahem*

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Literally none of these titles are flops, just didn't make as much profit as expected

In the eyes of executives, that's a massive flop

Why would you post that pic? Is it supposed to be related?
You clearly know nothing about that case.
You also seem to know nothing about the vidya industry if you claim there was never a financial flop

Lmao

You think selling "Millions" is enough for that kind of game?
Anthem was a tent-pole release, it was meant to be a cash-cow for YEARS to come, EA wanted it to be "The Next Big Time™".
It was in development for 7 years and they advertised it out the ass, selling 5-6 million copies won't come close to covering costs, much less the kind of revenue EA expected.

True, but executives have stupidly outworldish expectations, hell 3 of the games listed here were sequels to shit games and one was a new IP. They honestly thought these would all be huge successes somehow

jeez user, no reason to get so upset.

How is with all these idiost acting like they know how retail works at all? EA didn't lose a fucking dollar with Anthem even if the game was shit and died inmediately.

>Games are developed for free, guys!
Stop posting, you underage cretin.

And it wasn't even Nintendos biggest flop

what
if you spend 500 million dollars on a game and only make 480 million dollars then the game is a failure.

The game is still fourth in the NPD chart you fucking idiot. The NPD charts are based on dollar sales not number of units so the discounted copies mean fucking shit. Anthem made more money in the US than RE:2, Sekiro, even fucking Madden so no, they didn't lose any money. So now can you stop acting so superior when you obviously don't know shit.

No shit but they didn't spend anywhere near that.

>AAA game in development for 7 years and had an extremely large amount of marketing
>lol it was just a low-budget side project they totally made their money back

because's games are very expensive and then you have dlc and microtransactions on top of that
movies dont have those things, the popcorn money goes to the theater, not the movie company

a game would need a massive budget and hardly any sales to actually lose money
and that pretty much never happens

Yea Forums always talks about how tortanic was a huge flop
when in reality the game made massive profit

Me:Andromeda was also in development for years and it had a budget of a hundred million including marketing. A hundred million is what Anthem made in a month in digital revenue alone.