Course Maker: how big is it and when can we expect it?

  • Thread starter kogunenjou
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Humorous.... Guess what? You may be shocked to learn it, but no... I have no need to provide evidence to you or anyone beyond what I've provided. You seem to think one has to be a business major to comment on the greed behind their slaggardly performance, and to provide detailed financial reports for Sony and their vassal satellite profit centers? Lol... That's ripe. If they don't make a dime but provide what they advertised and btw, what we paid for, then they did their job but any reduced profit is their loss, tough, since they then clearly under-priced the product. Too bad for poor Sony corporation.

If I offer an item for sale and make no profit, it's my bad, not yours for buying it.However, If I sell you that object, then turn around and don't deliver, or deliver only a part of it, then it's not only my "bad" but I've also become criminal, in spirit if not also in a court of law. I'll leave the posting of industry financials to you and the rest of the reseller community posing on the forums as if you were "regular joe" customers, as it's beyond my pervue both in terms of easy availability and my own personal interest, which doesn't extend to following detailed game-industry financial numbers.

We all pick sides. I'm not an investor in this. I'm a consumer. As such, I'll fight for my rights to receive what I paid for, not for your right to make a "tidy" profit at my expense so you can drive your porsche.

I also don't follow game industry financials and I'm not about to start. I can, however do a rough calculation based on assumed playership and combine it with the product price to establish a raw input value from customers, ie, what is being lost from consumer's bank accounts and what's being taken in by you and your 1% friends. For the first 1 million licenses, that number would roughly be $60,000,000, as predicated by initial sale prices at and prior to release (I ordered my copy in either August or September 2013), and generously accounting for subsequent discounting post-release, and a guesstimate at the present gt6 player numbers of around 3-4 million, that's roughly $180,000,000 taken in by Sony, PD, and all their partner middlemen resellers so far. As far as I'm concerned, ie, as an end-user, they or "you" are all part of the same entity.

In any case, neither Sony nor PD are going away crying with their pockets empty. They are making a profit. What you call "tidy" profit, and what I call, in light of their continued failure to deliver paid content, and the current NWO business community's low value vs price "hand over fist".

Yes, I think you are defending Sony/PD, regardless of whether you realize it, whether your motivations are born of loyalty to Sony, to PD, or whether something I said reminded you of your own similar business practices or the economic class to which you belong. Your post was quite clearly a defense of Sony/PD and the business practices they employ, (or a defense of the economic class which employs these NWO practices) no matter any other posts you've written.

Finally, I am not writing about GT1, or GT4, or GTA. I am writing about GT6. You guys sure like to blur the lines between what is and what was and what will be, as if GT1 or GTA predicates the responsibilities that Sony and PD have wrt GT6. GT1 is gone. done, over. GTA is someone else's title.

Well, that's the first and probably last time I've ever been accused of being a reseller and/or someone in Sony or Polyphony's pocket. Yeesh.

You still don't seem to make the distinction that I can vocally disapprove of the way that GT6 (and GT5) has been designed, marketed and produced, and I can believe that their marketing "tactics" are dishonest, damaging to both the brand and the consumer, and borderline illegal in some cases, and yet neither of those things require me to believe that they're raking in the cash.

I'm following the calculations through numbers available publically or from informed estimates, whereas you're pulling numbers out of your passage. That you would even claim that the $180 million raw sales dollars that are taken in by all people in the production and supply chain are all profit shows that you don't know what you're talking about. Those companies all have costs. Polyphony has costs, Sony has costs, DHL have costs, Gamestop have costs.

$180 million sales does not equal $180 million profit.

I don't even see the advantage to me to try and push the image that they're not rolling in the dough if they actually were. What does that do for me? What does that do for Gamestop? What does that image do for Sony or Polyphony? Does it change anything?

Still, you're hardly the person for a rational conversation so I'll put you on ignore before this gets out of hand. You can choose to reply or not for the benefit of the other people in the thread.
 
I also don't follow game industry financials and I'm not about to start. I can, however do a rough calculation based on assumed playership and combine it with the product price to establish a raw input value from customers, ie, what is being lost from consumer's bank accounts and what's being taken in by you and your 1% friends. For the first 1 million licenses, that number would roughly be $60,000,000, as predicated by initial sale prices at and prior to release (I ordered my copy in either August or September 2013), and generously accounting for subsequent discounting post-release, and a guesstimate at the present gt6 player numbers of around 3-4 million, that's roughly $180,000,000 taken in by Sony, PD, and all their partner middlemen resellers so far
I got the game with Anniversary cars for <$30 around January... your estimations are off.

he said "will"! feathers and stone if not :P
 
Still, you're hardly the person for a rational conversation so I'll put you on ignore before this gets out of hand. You can choose to reply or not for the benefit of the other people in the thread.

As I noted, as far as consumers go, that's $180 million transferred from their hands to those of vendors. Regardless of how you guys split it up, that's all profit one way or another. Profit for you, for those who create the software you're selling, and all the people in your merchant chain. You can play all the word games you like, it doesn't change the fact that the money is gone from the bank accounts of those paid for the software, and it was transferred to Sony and the rest of the merchant chain.

I made my point. If you're too obstinate to admit it, so much the better you blocked me.
 
Awww come on guys, look for a topic that is discussing the finances of GT! :lol: This is an important topic about a feature that doesn't exist for a game that released 8 months ago! :D
 
As I noted, as far as consumers go, that's $180 million transferred from their hands to those of vendors. Regardless of how you guys split it up, that's all profit one way or another. Profit for you, for those who create the software you're selling, and all the people in your merchant chain. You can play all the word games you like, it doesn't change the fact that the money is gone from the bank accounts of those paid for the software, and it was transferred to Sony and the rest of the merchant chain.

I made my point. If you're too obstinate to admit it, so much the better you blocked me.
You really need to pull out Business 101 and start reading from page 1. Sales =/= profit. That's rule #1. If you don't get that one, the rest are over your head.
 
Any money packs that have been bought have been pure profit. They have definitely exceeded $180M in total sales but maybe only $120M in profits.
 
Any money packs that have been bought have been pure profit. They have definitely exceeded $180M in total sales but maybe only $120M in profits.
Got some sources for that conclusion?
 
Got some sources for that conclusion?
Well to be honest I pulled the $120M out of thin air as an example. As stated above there are obvious costs in shipping, etc.
But I'm sure they have made a solid chunk off of the credit packs.
 
Well to be honest I pulled the $120M out of thin air as an example. As stated above there are obvious costs in shipping, etc.
But I'm sure they have made a solid chunk off of the credit packs.
Got a link to how many credit packs they've sold? Credit packs aren't "pure profit" either. They are simply additional revenue. The $$$ go into the bank just like any other revenue.
 
Well, I can tell you lot that the course maker will definitely appear some time in the next 2 weeks.

How do I know this? Simple. I'm going to be away for 2 weeks, with no internet access or anything, so any GT6 updates will be missed by me. Ergo, PD will release every feature under the sun over the next fortnight; Sod's law and that :P

[/sarcasm]
 
Regarding PD funding, PD is funded well enough. If they sold only 1 million copies of GT6, they made 40-60 million.

Only that you forgot shipping cost, retailer profit, production cost, licensing and marketing. ;)

Let's take things that are in public domain and things we know about PD to analyze the situation in order to come up with somehow accurate estimation.

Taking into account low marketing budget, digital copies, DOLLAR/EURO/BRITISH POUND conversion, (strong sales in EU) pre-orders and quick price drop, 20-25$ net profit per unit sold seems realistic and from 2.5 mln units (including digital) that's around 50-63$ mln.

Revenue from micro transaction could be estimated by taking amount of "reviews" on each credits package and multiplying it by 10 or more. Not everyone who bought it left the review.

Everything should be around 100, MAX 150k $.

120 PD's (it's more now) employees working for 36 months at the industry average wage of 7,000$/month amount to around 30mln $ not including social and health insurance PD have to pay.

That leaves us with around 20-30$ mln's.

60$ mln stated by Kaz for GT5 seems to make sense.

Simply double the PD's wages during GT6 3 years of development by two and there you go = 60$ mln.

Most of the cost of game development are in fact wages. The rest is rather insignificant in comparison. In GT6 there was no voice actors and no motion capture, no story writers etc.

All in all looks like GT6 made a net profit of 10$-15$ mln depending on how much PD's employees are earning and how expensive are the car's licenses.
 
Only that you forgot shipping cost, retailer profit, production cost, licensing and marketing. ;)

Let's take things that are in public domain and things we know about PD to analyze the situation in order to come up with somehow accurate estimation.

Taking into account low marketing budget, digital copies, DOLLAR/EURO/BRITISH POUND conversion, (strong sales in EU) pre-orders and quick price drop, 20-25$ net profit per unit sold seems realistic and from 2.5 mln units (including digital) that's around 50-63$ mln.

Revenue from micro transaction could be estimated by taking amount of "reviews" on each credits package and multiplying it by 10 or more. Not everyone who bought it left the review.

Everything should be around 100, MAX 150k $.

120 PD's (it's more now) employees working for 36 months at the industry average wage of 7,000$/month amount to around 30mln $ not including social and health insurance PD have to pay.

That leaves us with around 20-30$ mln's.

60$ mln stated by Kaz for GT5 seems to make sense.

Simply double the PD's wages during GT6 3 years of development by two and there you go = 60$ mln.

Most of the cost of game development are in fact wages. The rest is rather insignificant in comparison. In GT6 there was no voice actors and no motion capture, no story writers etc.

All in all looks like GT6 made a net profit of 10$-15$ mln depending on how much PD's employees are earning and how expensive are the car's licenses.

Let's not. All those can be considered profit for someone in their merchant chain. Every single nickle, shilling, sheckle, yen, etc we pay as consumers to purchase GT6 is profit for someone in their merchant chain.
 
Let's not. All those can be considered profit for someone in their merchant chain. Every single nickle, shilling, sheckle, yen, etc we pay as consumers to purchase GT6 is profit for someone in their merchant chain.
Again, please take a business course before equating revenue and profit. Revenue =/= profit, it never has and it never will.
 
Again, please take a business course before equating revenue and profit. Revenue =/= profit, it never has and it never will.

I took plenty of business courses back in college, thanks. I'm well aware of how business people see the equation. That's the core of the problem. Their greed and myopic attitudes.
 
I took plenty of business courses back in college, thanks. I'm well aware of how business people see the equation. That's the core of the problem. Their greed and myopic attitudes.
I'd suggest trying to get a refund in that case.
 
Why? I don't want a refund, I want what I paid for. Your comment is kinda like people who say, "if you have any problem with GT, then go play Forza". Pointless. In any case, I'm done with this particular subthread.
 
Why? I don't want a refund, I want what I paid for. Your comment is kinda like people who say, "if you have any problem with GT, then go play Forza". Pointless. In any case, I'm done with this particular subthread.
I think he means a refund for the business courses.
But anyway, let's drop the whole profit discussion and get back on the topic of the course maker.
 
Lol. You guys are too funny. Not. When you can't win the argument, you resort to childish attempts to denigrate a person's education. Humorous. My education and my skills and intelligence got me a ten year stint at NASA, and allowed me to design equipment for heavy hitters like Boeing, among others.

Now let's stop with the childish attempt at school yard bullying and get back to talking about coursemaker, ok?
 
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I think he means a refund for the business courses.
But anyway, let's drop the whole profit discussion and get back on the topic of the course maker.
Exactly. Fairly safe to say that if you were taught that revenue=profit you got ripped off.
 
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Let's not. All those can be considered profit for someone in their merchant chain. Every single nickle, shilling, sheckle, yen, etc we pay as consumers to purchase GT6 is profit for someone in their merchant chain.
Is for example the tax they pay to the government profit to the merchant chain as you put it ? When you receive your pay packet at the end if the week do you get every dollar you earn or is your 'profit' for the week the amount YOU receive after tax ?
 
But anyway, let's drop the whole profit discussion and get back on the topic of the course maker.
Just a thought.

Anyway, since Kaz himself has the working beta, I'm assuming it isn't too far off from release. Assuming, of course, that it isn't a part of some heavily interconnected upgrade like the community features, which could be a Spec II monster. I'm assuming CM II is an independent code package that plugs in fairly easily to that, so I'm hoping to see it by September. Fingers crossed... ;)
 
I still think that the community features will be out and people will have time to get used to them (somewhat) before a new course maker (of whatever quality, and, yes, I'm hoping for an extensive one) comes out.
 
As much as I want to see CM II, I do think the community stuff, and given earlier, is a more significant addition to GT6. The online tools are pretty weak, in fact the weakest feature set I've ever seen. The Club and League Builder features would be nice, but I think they will only really be good with Race Mod and a Livery Editor delivered first. I can just imagine the squabbling within a bunch trying to create a Super GT based league, and the fights which erupt over who gets the Castrol Supra or Raybrig NSX. :P Race Mod and a Livery Editor would put an end to that. Of course, then we'd have arguments over who could recreate which classic race car, though that's a much cooler situation.

But early on, giving us the kind of online tools every other racing game has, along with comprehensive Leaderboards, that would give a big boost to GT6's appeal. Then to whet our appetites, a track or two of DLC like Zahara or Rondo would be stupendous.
 

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