MikeZ is so awesome. I think this image tells it all.

So adorbs.

Certainly not, but there is a measurable relationship between production quality and revenue. I'm still hold by my argument: Why would I invest in speculative products with high chances of failure? when there is a plethora of quality products that actually exist.

Wow, that really opened my eyes to development costs. Great write-up Patrick!

Great article Patrick, nice to see some comments from other devs, especially the one from Dave. Seeing everything broken down like that really helps understand the costs involved. Otherwise I might have thought it seemed kinda high too. Don't really plan to buy Skullgirls but I've been pulling for it since the beginning for some reason.

Hey thanks! that's a very good analysis. I suppose I'm not the kickstarter type.

This sounds great. I'll always be behind developers taking their pitch directly to the fans. The fans are demanding what they want with their wallet so there should be no issue. It turns out games cost money to make.

And 58.81$ a day isn't even minimum wage where I live.

Minimum wage is a little over 80 dollars a day, before taxes, and on that you still wouldn't be able to afford a reasonable standard of living. I live in a small town and the cheapest housing - a run down one bedroom above a downtown store - is 540$ monthly. Without utilities. Add a halfway decent mobile, not an iphone or anything like that, a used car, and food? 900-1100 dollars a month easily just to survive .

I'm not even pulling figures from a big city around here, which would be higher, this is a rural town outside the suburban sprawl.

Where I'm from these guys are making about 3 dollars more an hour than the kid tossing fries at McDonalds, or the greeter at the doors of the Walmart, which is still just barely enough to live on after taxes (which at those incomes would be 15% federal and 5% provincial on taxable income - the lowest bracket).

It's truly amazing how much the value of money changes depending on the cost of living in your area. You can't compare wages in one area to wages in another without also looking into exactly how far that money will get you.

If you only had 15$ worth of expenses you'd wonder why anyone would ever need 58.81$ a day, if you had 1900$ worth of expenses you'd wonder how anyone could live on 107$. It's all relative.

Great article Patrick! $150k does seems like a huge fucking numbers but Dave Lang's breakdown makes a lot of sense. Pretty cool to hear that these guys are really working for their passion too, hopefully their financial situation improves quickly.

Great article Patrick

@capasso: Our art staff is working full-time for the entirety of the project. Just because we outsource in-betweening and clean-up doesn't mean they aren't doing anything. On the core game, they were working 80-100 hours a week for the majority of the project.

Also, keep in mind, we're talking 1500 frames of animation, divided into three layers each. So that's 4500 art assets. It would take SIGNIFICANTLY longer to produce this amount of art without outsourcing, and that's more time we're paying salaries. 2D animation is a LOT of hard work, and distributing it widely is the only way to get it done in a reasonable timeframe.

And we could do hitboxes ourselves, but the designers' time is better spent actually implementing the character and balancing the game, which are things that only he can do. And, again, the less bottlenecks you have from salaried employees, the cheaper everything is.

I think this is my favourite @patrickklepek article yet. Very well written and an interesting insight. Cheers Patrick!

I'm not sure where you live, but Los Angeles has an incredibly high cost of living. Anyone who works there will be living pretty prudently with what they are being paid.

@morbid_coffee: The sequel to skullgirls will of course be skullgirlsguys

You've yet to establish the premise of 'failure', or it's likelihood. In the case of many Kickstarted games, 'success' is the creation of an enjoyable game that can be enjoyed, not in a product that sells X amount. 'Failure' is both the lack of the created product to be enjoyable, or the lack of its creation altogether. This is the crux of any unlimited contract work.

When @Superkenon references the Giant Bomb subscription, he's extremely apt in his comparison; you are contracting for development of a product you will enjoy. There in fact is no guarantee that subscription will result in Jar Time, Unprofessional Fridays, or any premium content, and there is no guarantee that such content will be of the quality standards you demand. You pay it anyway because you look at Giant Bomb, you look at their track record and examine their pitch. If you trust it, you put the money down. If not, then you walk on. This is the exact same situation with the Kickstarter; you are not purchasing a product, you are contracting the creation of such a product. In the same way I don't pay Nicole for a clean house, I pay for my house to be cleaned. In the same way that I don't pay Giant Bomb for videos, I pay for videos to be created.

This is probably one of the more insightful pieces I've read about this industry in a long time. It's nice to read criticism and blogs and meditations on the state of gaming as an art, but so many people (myself included) are almost entirely ignorant of just how much money goes into these creations - these trifles that we often trash due to genre or art style or (heaven forbid) what platform they're released on.

So much time, talent and WORK goes into these things, and it's great to see things laid bare like this.

I'd absolutely LOVE a postmortem feature with Dave Lang about one of Iron Galaxy's recent projects. Go through the budget, how funds were allocated, etc. Would be fascinating!

Thanks Cyborg Patrick.

I'm glad people have stopped with the complaining on the game's "promiscuity", its a great game.

Hey Patrick, in the last sentence you said Zero Lab Games instead of Lab Zero Games. ;<

Great Article Patrick! It's interesting to see where exactly money goes towards and to see exactly how much effort and time goes into things we usually assume as being a simple addition.

You know they will sell quite a few copies because of this and the press it gets, which should make things not as tight. That's what you have to remember about crowdfunded games, the average costumers are still to come. Eventhough it's different here with the game being finished.

@donpixel said:

@phished0ne said:

@donpixel said:

People willingess to trow money at kick-starters still bends my mind.

you mean like our willingness to throw money at a website we have no proof does anything worthwhile with our money?

1st - I use this site lots, I found it useful for my needs. So whenever I renew my Giantbomb subscription I visualise I'm paying for a service.

2nd - Skullgirlz or whatever is spelled its pretty darn stupid

3rd - Whatever right? free country you are entitled to have bad taste: so, if you DO LIKE skull girls, well though life, shitty entertainment products are usually nonprofitable, What about moving on to another option? I mean is not like there is noooothing to do out there?

People trowing money at kickstarters I would urge to think about:

- Why should I finance speculative entretaiment products when there is countless and countless of other options? I miss Planescape Torment, Did I run to gift money to the Planetscape Torment kickstarter... FUCK NO, I mean what for? there is Cyberpunk 2077 coming soon. Let capitalism do its job, shitty dated products need to die, so better newer ones can arise.

-Why getting so attached to a name franchise? If they fail commercialy, why should I invest in their production?

- Don't get me wrong, some rational fanboysm is OK, I just don't understand.. Why Why!? there is something really sad of trowing a large amount of money to something like Skullgirls, Do you have a girlfriend? what a bout a gift to her? Do you have a brother you love? why don't buy him tickets to a sport match. Even, do you love your mother? what about doing something nice to her?. Are you a selfish morron? save the money invest it for your retirement.. Do you want to make the world a better place? Give some money to charity.

OOhhh jeeeez I love skukllgirlzz, Need to trown money at it, eventhou its pure speculations.. Kickstarters YAY!

Wow, dude, this is seriously your argument? I'd laugh at it but I'd just end up feeling bad.

Loved the article! I saw some comments about the project earlier from someone who believes that $150,000 should be able to fund a whole Skullgirls sequel. Now THAT'S ridiculous.

great article

In this particular case Skullgirls does exist and there's no reason to assume that a new character would be of worse quality than what they have now. There's a level of trust similar to pre-orders. As a more general complaint of kickstarter stuff, you're not wrong (except that in implying my taste is anything but impeccable). The level of trust is often not warranted, with unproven developers and promises with nothing to show yet.

But I don't agree with your argument over Planescape Torment. I'm still waiting on my Persona 4 Arena pre-order. It's irrelevant how many other quality products, even similar ones are out there. Unless it's P4A2. I'm not anticipating it because I'm looking for a general quality product, or even a quality ArcSys fighter. I want P4A specifically.

Great article Patrick. It's pretty crazy how expensive games are these days.

@ravidrath: Right. Crazy how much effort is needed to animate a character in a somewhat timely manner. Maybe what I'm missing - I checked the Indiegogo page and couldn't find - is some description of the main staff, their roles and what they do on the project to make it happen.

MONEY!

Good job not reading the article

I subscribed to Giantbomb after what? 2 years of existence. They provided me with an acceptable service, It is safe to assume they will keep providing the same service. Again Giantbomb exist, unlike most kickstarters.

See, I want to clarify, I'm not a hater.. I understand why you guys feel invested into kickstarted... It is however a emotional action, because rationally makes no sense at all.

No one is answering my questions. Why purchasing a product promise? considering you can purchase a similar existing product of similar characteristics? lets be real, there is no lack of good videogames, good movies, good tv shows, good books etc.. Why not make a rational use of your money and invest it on something that is neither a dream(in the best of cases) or a very manipulative sales pitch.

Great article. I love that companies (and not just game companies) are becoming more transparent about the process that creates their products. I would absolutely be more willing to support something knowing the amount of money and effort that goes into it.

Have you actually seen some of the projects on Kickstarter? What exactly are you expecting from Kickstarter projects? A complete product from the start?

@capasso: We didn't get into that sort of detail on there, but maybe I should add it.

It's me (manager/CEO), MikeZ (design director), Alex (creative/art director), Mariel (lead animator), Jon (senior animator), Rich (clean-up lead), Earl (designer/implementer), and Brian (art associate producer).

We added Earl to the team because Mike also ends up doing a lot of programming, and it can completely distract him from design if he doesn't have any help. I may also forego my pay so we can hire another clean-up guy, because managing and doing QA/fixes on the cleaned-up frames is hugely time-consuming.

Most people just fail to realize how much goes into these projects thanks for en-lighting the internet a bit on just why it takes so much money for these kind of projects. For the work they have to do and for the pay there getting its totally justified that being said I was never that into Skull Girls but glad to see this crowd funding success.

@shinryu: And the award for most obvious "poster making a post without reading the article" goes to...

*drum roll*

@Shinryu!

Congratulations!

Big Band would be great, hopefully it can make it that far.

oh nvm, the male character i wanted was panzerfaust not Big Band...bleh

We are not "purchasing" anything. We are donating to further the development of a game we enjoyed. In fact, everyone(not just those who donated) get the DLC for free for the first what is it, 2 or 3 months? How does it rationally make no sense to donate towards the development of a game we enjoyed. You are acting like we dont have any previous proof of them creating a good product(at least to us). In a lot of cases that is true for crowdsourcing, but in this case it is a completely unfounded stance to take.

The PS3 version of Skullgirls has a metacritic rating of 82, you cant say its not rational to make a donation to further the development of a game that was highly regarded.

I think in general there's just this general ignorance towards talking about budgets because developers refuse to talk about them and what goes into them. Before Lab Zero did it, the only person I ever saw do it was the exec producer of Sumo Digital, Steve Lycett, show some numbers on how much it costs to do a character in both Sonic & All-Stars Racing games. Developers and publishers really don't like to talk about it as evidenced by this article by Matt Leone from last year.

And it's an understandable fear in a way. So many people want to jump down Ninja Theory and Capcom's throat over DmC lately that showing how budget was used in that game would just lead to more catcalls of "FLOP!" nor do publishers want shareholders panicking over hearing $30 million or so going down the toilet being discussed in public. So showing it isn't exactly ideal. But at the same time, educating the audience on what goes into a videogame and why it is so expensive to make a modern one would be beneficial to the industry in educating the consumer on why things do cost a lot of money and why DLC doesn't grown on trees. There has to be a way to do it or else there's just going to be more suspicion and doubt cast on videogame costs and DLC.

I have a group of friends who enjoy Skullgirls, and the online lobbies that are being patched onto all versions once the PC version hits will make it easier to play with that group. We don't all own Street Fighter, we don't all own Marvel, but we all own Skullgirls. This group of friends not only plays, some of them cosplay, some do fanart, etc, so they're pretty invested in more than just the features that you can find in other games. So I funded this project so that I can enjoy the game with them even more.

What's so awesome about skullgirls is all of the love and attention to detail that goes into each character. 150k for one character seems like a bargain in my opinion.

Whats awesome is that not only the fans of Skullgirls donated. Alot of people in the fighting game community who have never played the game donated also. Shout-out to the generous people in the FGC!

The 1k option was sold out so quick they had to increase it.

@donpixel: because i care about and love the product, and i trust the creators, even before this "pitch" to do right by skullgirls. Considering they made 8.5 cute and funny girls already, why would i doubt their ability to outline how much it takes to make a cute and funny girl and a cute and funny tuba-man.

capitalism is a pretty broken system :( and is almost intentionally set up to help the wealthy get wealthier. we're disproving capitalism with the ability to spend our money how we want, rather than how a corporation deems fit.

Those development costs that the developers broke down are completely dirty & deceptive. They're relying on the fact that most people won't look further into the numbers once they've broken them down, thinking "Oh, they've provided the numbers." But no, they haven't. You can stop just after analyzing the first number: "$48,000: Staff Salaries - 8 people for 10 weeks." As for the other numbers, they've' exaggerated and rounded them up by a huge margin. 150,000 'is' ludicrous.

Thank-you for the interesting news story Patrick.

What a great article Patrick!
I can't believe people thought 150,000$ was much.. so much work has to go into it, its not like farting out a few new maps to a shooter. Skullgirls is one of the prettiest 2D games ever made, so much care has gone into it and not only that.. balancing the game, which the entire game has to be tuned to must be a nightmare.

@DonPixel Also its pretty presumtuous for you to judge how other people spend their money. "why dont you spend it on your GIRLFRIEND or your FAMILY or CHARITY (lol contradiction, dude) or BLAH BLAH" you dont know shit about my family. i'm not giving my brother another red cent for the rest of his life, i'm not going to give him something just for him to turn around an sell it for pot money. I dont really have much family left at this point to speak of either.

Its my job to determine how i spend my money and what i think is valuable, you have no right to judge me. :/

@logan3: Thats a pretty presumptuous claim, especially with how expensive these specific characters are to produce. They have to pay testers to get it put up on microsoft's and sony's service. That's part of those company's terms and conditions. (quality assurance) Games aren't cheap. I trust these numbers.

And I gave 50 dollars to Obsidian Entertainment for them to make Project Eternity after I gave them 60 dollars the last four times they made games. They've provided me with acceptable games, it's safe to assume they will keep providing me with the same. Giant Bomb 'exists' in no forms different than inXile, Penny Arcade or an indie studio.

When you say "why would you purchase a product promise" you might as well look at every product or service ever invented. This argument entails that until you've used a product, there's no rational basis to pay for it; this is nonsense. As I referenced, I read an advertisment (a 'manipulative sales pitch') for a woman who offered to clean my house. I examined her pitch and hired her. She did a good job and I was pleased. If I read her pitch and it was lacking in credibility, I wouldn't hire her. This is in absolutely no way different than how you would go about funding kickstarters, or purchasing or pre-ordering games from established developers, paying for movies that are in theaters before you've watched them, or buying subscriptions for services that will come later. There is nothing more or less manipulative about a pitch for a product, to a pitch tocontract work on a good, or for a pitch to contract a service.

As for 'similar existing product of similar characteristics', you must be taking the piss here. This argument asserts that since there are other games that exist, regardless of genre, developer, quality or any specific elements therein, even regardless of the fact that they may have already been played and finished, it doesn't make sense to want something different. That the existence of Product A makes Project X obsolete. Under this train of thought, there isn't much sense in the production of any video games, because there are already video games that exist. Why would a person buy something new when there are already things that exist for them to buy, even if they've already bought them?

You keep using the term 'rational', but I'm not sure you're fully acquainted with rationalism. The premises you offer are at odds with reality, and your logic is twisted where it isn't completely circular. "Emotional action" indeed.

Great article, @patrickklepek, and great comments from everyone else (for the most part). This was very insightful. I was under no delusion in regards to the expenses behind game development, but to see a breakdown on the DLC cost like this is a good eye-opener.

Also, some of the comments here do make me wonder about Steam. Yes, it's a popular service, and some games do make money, but the average profit margin is an unknown, and the more games that populate the service, the fiercer the competition will become.

Often, crowdfunding projects will ask for roughly half of what it actually needs to complete what it’s really promising.

It's off-topic, but every time I see this it makes me vomit in my mouth a little bit. Shit like this is going to kill video game crowd-funding--purposely designing the funding so that if successful, you won't have anywhere near the amount of money needed to actually complete the project.

Anyways, best wishes to them. I purchased this game but dropped it pretty quick due to two characters being the ideal team size but there only being one character that I even remotely enjoyed playing. More characters certainly can't hurt this title. I'd love to see them add stretch goals where every $150k got a new character added.

Most of the staff is going to be making roughly the equivalent of $600 per week. That's unlikely to change. That isn’t much in the city of Los Angeles, where most of the staff is located.

$600 a week being a lean, reduced salary seems like what should have happened from the get go. There are teachers who don't even make that much per week and their work is astronomically more important than creating indie fighting games.

Because you clearly know more about what it costs and takes to make a game than the company who actually made the game right? If I had to make a guess, I'd say that they don't have the staff to do any of the contract work in house, and if they did, it would only raise the costs even higher. The contracted work is work that is only done at certain stages of development. It wouldn't make sense to employ someone full time when their work only takes a specific amount of time and once its done, they have nothing else to do. I also imagine its not easy to hire someone to work only for, lets say for the sake of my point, a month. If you know Hitboxes, you're not going to go from place to place for a month here or a month there when needed, you're going to work at a company that only does hitbox contract work. That way you have some actual job security.

Wow, I know making a proper char is a time sink, but never really thought about the cost. Thats pretty fucking ridiculous.

People aren't paid based on how important their work is, but how rare their talents are, how much demand there is for those talents, etc etc. Having been through the public education system, I can honestly say that ~70% of the teachers I had were complete crap, and got paid exactly what they deserved.