Ovion, on 15 August 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:
Urbie Hero would be 2,250MC.
Say that an Urbie 'bundle' / mastery pack 4,000MC.
So that's roughly $10.35 for the hero, $18.40 for the 'pack' (based on 6,500MC pack).
Lets call it a $20 bundle for the Urbie (Hero + 2 normal, 3 mechbays, badge, cockpit item, maybe some premium time), similar to clan / phoenix.
I somehow severely doubt that it costs 250k to make a mech.
After a little research, it appears the average wage for staff making games is 45-100K per year, Staff reviews have said that salaries are competive, but not at the highend , so 75k a year is probably a generous estimate and stats say an average working year in canada is around 1700 this means that the hourly rate would be roughly $45 an hour. I can't help but feel this is a little generous, but it's a guesstimate.
This means, at $250k it would be 5556 man hours, or 3.2 working years total workload.
Spread among even 10 people, that's still 556, or 3-4 months, to make one mech
But lets consider, I could whack out a hi res model in 1-2 weeks (being a CAD Designer), and these guys will be more experienced than me. (being professional games designers after all)
I bet the code would take that long tops too, especially being almost all of it exists already. (Other mechs, minor changes to adapt to current)
Art can't really take much more than the same. (many assets exist, especially the basics, but I'd allow for this taking a little longer)
So that's what... 3-5 guys, taking 1-2 weeks..., or 120-500 man hours - $5,400 to $22,500.
(Maybe as much as double that if it's up to 10 people making the mech, or it takes more time.)
With fringe costs, and such, I could see a mech being between $6,000 to $25,000 (or $12,000 to $50,000 if 6-10 people work it, or it takes twice as long)
Assuming 800 people buy at $20, that's $16,000 right there.
I reckon you'd easily get 1000+ buying urbies, making $20,000.
They could even do a Gold Urbie pack for $50, (standard pack + 1mech, bay, gold urbie hero) I bet at least 100 people would buy that. (Hell, I might even)
This is ignoring that there's already an Urbanmech model (cockpit item), so they have the concept work and a basic model all done as-is.
Very nice thought, give it enough bells and whistles and everyone will buy one!