World of Warcraft Cost 200 Million USD Since 2004

[GameBanshee News]

Looking at an analyst conference call, Kotaku reports that WoW has cost Blizzard 200 million USD since 2004.

$200 million. Or, at least that's what Blizzard disclosed during yesterday's analyst conference call.

That's it. Staff payroll, hardware support, customer service (which, interestingly, they say is their largest department), the lot. Well, mostly - we think they're just talking the upkeep costs, not the original development costs. Sure, in isolation $200 million is a lot of clams, but when you put $200 million in the "expenditures" column then put $300 gazillion in the "revenue" column, you're not just laughing all the way to the bank, you're cackling.

[Xandax]

Everybody has always known that a "successful" MMO is a cash-cow and that especially WoW with its groundbreaking subscriptions numbers was a huge one at that.

But many also seem to fail miserable if they do not get success. Funcom looks to be - perhaps not in trouble as such - but seriously hit by AoC for example, or Sigil who got bought by SOE because they messed up Vanguard and so on.

Many producers wants to make a MMO because it is cash-cows..... if they work

[Brother None]

Originally Posted by Xandax

But many also seem to fail miserable if they do not get success. Funcom looks to be - perhaps not in trouble as such - but seriously hit by AoC for example, or Sigil who got bought by SOE because they messed up Vanguard and so on.

You forget NCSoft's massive closures due to Tabula Rasa. Though there was more wrong there than it being an MMO.

FunCom might be in a lot of trouble. Remember all those ugly financial reports leading up to AoC? They really needed a hit. The sales were really good, but if they then started really investing in the long-term the current leaking of players (at least I assume AoC is leaking players) will hurt.

[mdjh]

MMORPG is very expensive to make if you are serious about everything involved.

I'm not least surprised when it's said that the customer service sector is the biggest, just imagine how many times you try to keep the GMs in contact.

[Lemmus]

I find this number a little questionable. Aside from the fact that any "conference call" that had press involved would not include a number like that, I remember seeing figures on EverQuest back in the day (as in back when EQ was the MMOG market, pre-AC even). Granted that internet costs have changed a lot since then, but their actual profit was about 10% of the subscription fee, the biggest expenditure being internet server costs. Unless Blizzard has somehow acquired a good chunk of the backbone, I can't see any way around them paying someone a massive amount of money in connection fees.

Which is not to say that they're not making money hand over fist, but $50M/year is way too small a number to take at face value.