How does TT make profit on Xbox Live?

edited August 2009 in General Chat
How does TT turn a profit with their games on Xbox Live?

The reason I'm wondering this is: If I remember correctly, I think it was only 800 ms points for Season 1 of Sam an Max, which translates to something like less than $10 for the entire season...
Even if it was 1200 points that's still barely $15 if even...

The only way I figure this makes any sense is that maybe TT figures the game is already old enough to where sales have slowed down quite a bit, so maybe they'll use XBL as a way to seek out another group of gamers that may have never found S&M S1 otherwise or dont have a PC capable of running it... And since any more sales at this point would just be a bonus for a game that was made a couple years ago, they can mark the price down a bit...

Still that's pretty cheap, I feel kinda bad in retrospect lol, like I ripped off TT heheheh.


Then there's the Wallace and Gromit method, release them per episode.. The customer pays per episode, which seems closer to what you would pay straight from TT [here] but still a little cheaper...

But there's a catch it takes so long for Microsoft to release the episodes that the entire game is already released for PC, but XBL users are still waiting for episode 2... I would think it would be hard to keep interested by the time episode four comes out... :(

Also still waiting for S&M S2 on XBL [luckily I just went ahead and got it for PC]


I wish it could work better for them, and XBL users [including me] didn't have to wait so long for releases...

On the other hand I hear TT gives out coupons a lot and I've already used one to get half off the whole S&M Season 2, so maybe I just dont know how it works..

So anyways how do they make a buck with this deal?

Comments

  • edited August 2009
    I'm pretty sure season one was 1600 points ($20) and that episode one of Wallace and Gromit was 800 points ($10) so you're off a bit. After Microsoft takes their cut, they're probably actually making a little less by selling it on XBLA, but still enough to make it worthwhile.
  • edited August 2009
    Considering it's perfectly possible to find S&M Season One for less than £10 on other formats, it's not exactly out of the ordinary.

    As for W&G's 360 release schedule, it isn't exactly new: SBCG4AP Wii lagged behind the PC version's release schedule (although admittedly not nearly as badly as W&G is) and I'll imagine ToMI Wii will fall behind as well.
  • edited August 2009
    Considering it's perfectly possible to find S&M Season One for less than £10 on other formats, it's not exactly out of the ordinary.

    As for W&G's 360 release schedule, it isn't exactly new: SBCG4AP Wii lagged behind the PC version's release schedule (although admittedly not nearly as badly as W&G is) and I'll imagine ToMI Wii will fall behind as well.

    W&G is falling behind because of Xbox's "Summer of Arcade," it's not Telltale's fault.
  • edited August 2009
    Pale Man wrote: »
    W&G is falling behind because of Xbox's "Summer of Arcade," it's not Telltale's fault.
    Likewise, it probably wasn't Telltale's fault when SBCG4AP Wii fell behind the PC version.
  • edited August 2009
    Likewise, it probably wasn't Telltale's fault when SBCG4AP Wii fell behind the PC version.

    Well for that, I think part of it actually was because they were doing some last minute stuff to try to get it running a little better, but I can't be sure of that.
  • edited August 2009
    They probably make a profit by selling lots of games :)
  • edited August 2009
    Hero1 wrote: »
    They probably make a profit by selling lots of games :)

    plus one.
  • edited August 2009
    According to Harmonix, developers of Rock Band, developers receive just over 30% of the sales on Xbox Live.Mixing this with Sam and Max Season One, Telltale generated just about $85,000.
  • edited August 2009
    According to Harmonix, developers of Rock Band, developers receive just over 30% of the sales on Xbox Live.Mixing this with Sam and Max Season One, Telltale generated just about $85,000.

    I doubt it took that much work to port it, with it being a side project. With the Rockband thing I expect they received a lower percentage, with EA being their publisher.
  • edited August 2009
    patters wrote: »
    I doubt it took that much work to port it, with it being a side project. With the Rockband thing I expect they received a lower percentage, with EA being their publisher.
    Yeah, but who published the DLC?

    Still, $85k-ish for repeating an exercise they've done before (porting Sam & Max Season One into the ready made CSI Hard Evidence engine) should not be sniffed at.
  • edited August 2009
    Yeah, but who published the DLC?

    Still, $85k-ish for repeating an exercise they've done before (porting Sam & Max Season One into the ready made CSI Hard Evidence engine) should not be sniffed at.

    Microsoft, but what I am getting at would be the route for rockband would be

    Microsoft - EA - Harmonix

    yet for telltale it would be

    Microsoft - Telltale

    So as the publisher would take their cut so by this I would assume that Telltale's percentage would be higher. This is assuming that the sales percentage from DLC and XBLA games are the same.
  • edited August 2009
    Not to mention the royalties to the Rock Band song artists
  • ssn626391689ssn626391689 Telltale Alumni
    edited August 2009
    Electronic Arts is only the distributor of the Rock Band games, not the publisher. Their only job is to put games onto store shelves. Rock Band's publisher is their parent company MTV Games. When it comes to DLC money MTV gets whatever Harmonix gets.
  • edited August 2009
    Electronic Arts is only the distributor of the Rock Band games, not the publisher. Their only job is to put games onto store shelves. Rock Band's publisher is their parent company MTV Games. When it comes to DLC money MTV gets whatever Harmonix gets.
    That's us told.

    So, back to the topic: $85k-ish for doing something that Telltale has done before (porting Sam & Max Season One into the CSI Hard Evidence engine) should not be sniffed at.

    And yes, I did just type that all out.
  • edited August 2009
    That's us told.

    So, back to the topic: $85k-ish for doing something that Telltale has done before (porting Sam & Max Season One into the CSI Hard Evidence engine) should not be sniffed at.

    And yes, I did just type that all out.

    makes me wonder how much profit they make.. After saleries, servers, property lets, overheads, taxes, etc...

    I would like to think even without tomi they are reeling in a cash spinner!

    Saying that as long as ttg are in business i'm a happy fella!
  • edited August 2009
    Thanks Pale Man I had a feeling I was a bit off, but still that's lower than the price here... Well not for W&G tho..


    So I guess the general consensus is that it's mostly just a little bonus profit for a project that's already done, right? I mentioned something like that in my OP, it's in there somewhere...


    Hey more power to 'em, make more money and bring in more fans, sounds good to me. I was just curious if there was any REAL profit being made from the XBL deal but I suppose some is better than none... right?

    Just curious, although I'm a little confused as to how this became a thread about Rock Band... How did that happen? Might need to read through again.


    edit: ok so yeah around 85,000 for something that didnt take much effort to port and probably required little investment sounds pretty good. I wouldnt sniff at it lol. :)

    Also I'm aware it's not TT's fault it takes so long between releases, especially during the 'Summer Arcade' thing which was pretty bogus to begin with. MvC2 was a terrible port IMO, why are soryukens SO HARD to throw? and net play is terrible... And SoMI wasn't even listed in the summer arcade line up even though it came out during that period... Anyways I'm getting way off-topic.
  • edited August 2009
    Also for the record although maybe a bit off topic, if it weren't for XBL I would have never known about TTGames pre-ToMI. So going into ToMI I was already familiar with TT, but wouldn't have been if not for XBL... Just throwin that out there, for the record.

    :D
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