Analysts believe Spore will sell 3 to 5 million copies in a year Will Spore be a huge hit or a sleeper? This is up to you to decide. I personally believe that it will reach beyond what The Sims series has done. With all of the editors built into Spore, its a huge sandbox where almost no rules apply. Four analysts polled by TheStreet.com predict sales of Spore will range from 3 million to 5 million units this year.
Just think at $50 ( give or take )a game times 3-5 million! And they might also be charging us for an online fee too! :O
swmeek! You cynical old so and so, you ... Your forgot to factor in European sales. Half that 3-5 million will be European sales. In Britland the game will likely retail at 35 which is a monster three score and ten luvverly US greenbacks. Let's say EA reaps 180 million in year one. (3 million at $60) Um less retail margin leaves EA 120 million net (based on average retail margin of 33%) Marketing in 1st year? Call me cynical, but does anyone know if EA owns an advertising agency. Spore has been so hyped that the need for marketing is practically non-existent. Manufacture and packaging and distribution, let's give EA a generously whopping 20 million (6.66 bucks a unit) That leaves $100 million Development. Ah, again let's be generous and allow that 10 geeks have been working on it for 4 years. Let's see geeks cost $70,000 per year, so that makes $2.8 million for baseline development. Woo, that doesn't sound like much ... let's decimate the budget and multiply by ten to be fair to EA. 28 million for development (includes nominal interest compounded over four years to reflect EA's need for return on investment risk. So that leaves $72 million bucks for the EA board to <ahem> "distribute creatively" before they file accounts which will result in the figures used to assess pre-tax profits. Maybe if I were an actual accountant I would have no problem massaging those figures ... or maybe not. I mean running a huge website costs like millions, doesn't it? And all that telephone support ... you know there's no money in those 900 numbers, don't you? No wonder the delay in releasing Spore has been so long. I finally figured it out. EA was waiting for the economic forecasters to read the runes and name the day. Lucky Prexy Clintbama's first budget will be blessed with the NASDAQ leading a Wall Street revival on the strength of unusually buoyant first quarter figures from EA Games. Who ever thought that politics and economics could be such fun? ETA Forgot to emphasise that after the first 3 million every sale is like 40 extra bucks pure profit.
