Jim Raynor Comes to Korea!!!

[GnaReffotsirk]

Oh, sorry for that, I didn't know that was prohibited. And yes, I have always believed that it's always an added cost to have ads and so have those costs added to the selling price.

Again, I apologize if that was a rude thing to say.

[protoswarrior]

Damn I wish they'd have posters like that on TTC buses in Toronto !

And, people would just stop to oogle and cheer

[Noctis]

Advertising is part of development cost.

aka. of the 100 million spent on the game, that includes ads. The cost of the ads isn't built into the retail price

[GnaReffotsirk]

But if you plan ahead before putting the price on, you know that each unit will help in stacking up the money for the ads right? Or, in reverse, if the price tag is fixed in the market, estimate total sales and take from that whatever amount you could spend for ads, and then choose what ads to pay for, right?

[TheEconomist]

Advertising is part of development cost.

aka. of the 100 million spent on the game, that includes ads. The cost of the ads isn't built into the retail price

Typically, yes, advertisement costs are included in development costs. However, for this particular number, ad costs were not included. This was specifically stated as far as I know. This especially apparent since the article said that StarCraft 2 was the most expensive game to date with a 100$ million development cost while Modern Warfare 2 cost 250 million with ads. Seems pretty obvious to me.

[GnaReffotsirk]

Okay, so, if say Blizzard didn't do so much ads and made the clients cheaper for koreans, do you think that would increase sales?

edit: Ah, but the cost of ads distributed as discount to each client (x expected sales) would maybe amount only to some few extra coins for candies maybe.

[TheEconomist]

No, it would not. Advertising has been a universal practice for decades for a reason.

[GnaReffotsirk]

I should learn more about this macro mechanic to survive the desert of the real more efficiently.

Is that a tarp? I'd have that thing on my roof for google earth awesomeness in a flash.

[Hammy]

Oh, sorry for that, I didn't know that was prohibited. And yes, I have always believed that it's always an added cost to have ads and so have those costs added to the selling price.

Again, I apologize if that was a rude thing to say.

It's not prohibited Don't worry. And you weren't rude at all.

That's just not how marketing works, nor business in general.

If advertising allows you to make more money, and then you put that money into product development, then that's positive marketing, which is a good thing.

Advertisement is a necessary investment (and NOT a waste of money obviously). They aren't brainwashing people into buying the game, just hyping it up and letting people know.

On a side note, those $100M they said SC2 cost Blizzard did not include marketing or ads. While $100M may seem to be a lot (especially when compared to WoW), it's really not THAT much in the entertainment business... Look up how much WoW make blizzard in a month...

[Noctis]

100M is a lot considering you have games like Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 costing 40-50 mil. True they are different genre's but we're looking at quality, and those 2 are considering among the highest quality games.

I think the main reason is cuz it took them nearly 5 years to make the game, others are done in about 2.