@Aegis_Kleais All good points yet again and I see the logic in them but they don’t represent the generality of the matter. First of the average salaries. Unless something dramatically changed in years I’ve read multiple articles and other literary reports of game devs’ salaries. It has increments like most occupations do and the average is around the 50-60K per year for one who’s a junior or senior (dunno anymore) working at a relatively successful studio. The 90-120K a year was also mentioned back then and that was for esteemed devs who either had set up their own successful dev studio or one that was in the pockets of a big company.
Now I dont argue the fact just by those statistics. As I said, this was from years ago and the situation might’ve improved, but I highly doubt that. But it does transcend into my next point.
Lets say you’re 70K for every person sounds just about right. Yes, their salaries need to be paid from ppl playing the game. A game needs a source of revenue to stay relevant for not only the dev team but also management and shareholders. For a big launch title (AAA) nowadays, 370K units shipped is nothing (don’t take this the wrong way, the figure is massive, but read on with one eyebrow up). Even indie games that aren’t backed up by huge advertising or from an all-star team or a team even bigger than 10 ppl are satisfied if they get that number. Most companies/teams are already satisfied if they break even. If Apex were to be released as a purchase-to-play title, I think 400K units wouldn’t even cut it seeing as alot of AAA need over 1 million sold just so that the higher ups are happy.
Case in point would be Street Fighter V, which did way below what was needed initially. Resident Evil 6 (not how it did but what numbers it needed to sell and how they changed from Survival horror to Action horror just to appease the masses) or how they butchered Dead Space...
By having a free to play title with cosmetics model which is popular, you get way more money than doing the same if it was purchase-to-play. Apex, PUBG & Fortnite have all proven that. Each one of these titles has made at least $1 billion in revenue. So looking at that figure which makes my body cover in sweat just for thinking that I want that kind of money, sales figures don’t mean anything for this game. Neither will having severe punishments cause devs under another company rarely work on 1 title at the time. If Apex stops being lucrative, they might just burry the candle knowing full well that they made their money times over again and can start working on another title that hopefully does the same.
Other than that I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion, but I’m just not of the opinion that it’s as precarious as you make it out to be.
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