Why Games Cost $60

Where does the money go when you buy a game like GoW... well, a nice fact sheet at Forbes.com explains quite a bit. The quick summary looks like this:

Programming And Engineering: 20% (about $12)
Retail: 20% ($12)
like BestBuy or GameStop

Publisher profit=1.5%
like Epic or EA

Distributor: 1.5% (about $1)
Corporate Costs (quantitative analysis, management overhead): 0.3% (about 20 cents)
Lawyers?

Art/Design: 25% (about $15)
Console Owner Fee: 11.5% (about $7)
to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo

Marketing: 7% (about $4)Market Development Fund: 5% (about $3)
Manufacturing Costs, Packaging: 5% (about $3)
Blu-Ray might cost more

Licensing: 5% (about $3)Publisher profit: 1.5% (about $1)
Hardware development costs: 0.05% (less than 3 cents)

I got the info listening to one of my favorite podcasts at Next-Gen.biz.

-by conartistic