Hitman 3 budget (base game) was around $22.5m

Raigor · Jan 14, 2023

View: https://twitter.com/DarkDetectiveNL/status/1614068188056268800

IO Interactive Annual Report 2021/22: another huge year for Hitman 3

IO Interactive Annual Report 2020/21 details can be found here. IO Interactive's annual report over the fiscal year 2021/22, which ended on 31st March 2022, has been out for quite a while already, but I never made a thread for some reason, so here I go, as I believe it's not widely known public...

www.installbaseforum.com

Key highlights:
- Hitman 3 overperformed against expectations in its first year
- Hitman 3 continues to sell well in its second year so far, thanks to the releases on Steam and Game Pass
- Revenue was higher than expected thanks to a content deal with Microsoft for Game Pass, which included a minimum guarantee and a performance bonus

Looking ahead
- FY23 revenue expected somewhere between DKK 450m and 500m, with expected profits before tax somewhere between DKK 250m and 300m.
- Management expects big drops in revenue and profit in FY24 and FY25, due to lack of releases.
- IO Interactive aims to diversify its product line-up through new platforms, namely mobile gaming, and publishing opportunities for the games of other studios.

This is pretty amazing, but it helped a lot already having the technology built from H1 and H2.

007 is NOT going to cost this low tho :D

nsilvias · Jan 14, 2023

Raigor said:
007 is NOT going to cost this low tho :D

the license alone will cost the dev cost of hitman 3 lol

Raigor · Jan 14, 2023

nsilvias said:
the license alone will cost the dev cost of hitman 3 lol

Oh absolutely and i suspect the Broccoli Family will require a % fee from sales.

Lowrys · Jan 14, 2023

Amazing. Compared to over $160m for Callisto.

Khanimus · Jan 14, 2023

Lowrys said:
Amazing. Compared to over $160m for Callisto.

Hitman 3 is built on so much work done in the first two games. Obviously there's asset generation and a fuckton of evolution in terms of under the hood work. Plus they save on the cost of not doing the super polished pre-rendered cutscenes of the first.

Like end result aside, Callisto is a new big project. It's not comparable to a deliberately iterative sequel.

Wrexis · Jan 14, 2023

Lowrys said:
Amazing. Compared to over $160m for Callisto.

Not a fair comparison at all.

Hitman 3 is the third game in the series and it is built off of an existing engine.
IO is an existing studio.
Calisto spent a lot of money on Hollywood actors.
Calisto was designed with a strong focus on graphical and technical prowess over a longer gameplay loop like Hitman.

bloodyroarx · Jan 14, 2023

Wrexis said:
Not a fair comparison at all.

Hitman 3 is the third game in the series and it is built off of an existing engine.

IO is an existing studio.

Calisto spent a lot of money on Hollywood actors.

Calisto was designed with a strong focus on graphical and technical prowess over a longer gameplay loop like Hitman.

Not to mention studio startup costs were probably apart of the Calisto budget to some degree.

Wrexis · Jan 14, 2023

bloodyroarx said:
Not to mention studio startup costs were probably apart of the Calisto budget to some degree.

Yeah, and I just checked, Striking Distance Studios is based in California. Not the cheapest place to establish a new studio.

PinkCrayon · Jan 14, 2023

Not surprising given it was largely the same game as the previous two, and the cutscene budget kept dropping significantly from game to game. Would've been nice to have another map or two at launch though...

bloodyroarx · Jan 14, 2023

Wrexis said:
Yeah, and I just checked, Striking Distance Studios is based in California. Not the cheapest place to establish a new studio.

Not even just Cali, the Bay Area.

Foffy · Jan 14, 2023

A lot of the leg work for the trilogy was done with the first game, the rest was rather iterative on top of that. Not shocked to learn that design approach probably meant the budget was smaller.

I'm sure the budget for the second game was the smallest of the three. That's when IO was downsizing the team after the buyout. You could tell the game got "smaller" in terms of presentation.

Lowrys · Jan 14, 2023

Khanimus said:
Hitman 3 is built on so much work done in the first two games. Obviously there's asset generation and a fuckton of evolution in terms of under the hood work. Plus they save on the cost of not doing the super polished pre-rendered cutscenes of the first.

Like end result aside, Callisto is a new big project. It's not comparable to a deliberately iterative sequel.

Wrexis said:
Not a fair comparison at all.

Hitman 3 is the third game in the series and it is built off of an existing engine.

IO is an existing studio.

Calisto spent a lot of money on Hollywood actors.

Calisto was designed with a strong focus on graphical and technical prowess over a longer gameplay loop like Hitman.

Fair enough! That's fair.

Spacejaws · Jan 14, 2023

Apparently it broke even in it's first week. Good on them!

AppleMIX · Jan 14, 2023

Amazing work for such a low budget.

Possibly the best stealth game ever released.

cyrribrae · Jan 14, 2023

where is the 155DKK figure coming from? I'd love to know what they're including in that sum. And I'd like to know how that compares with their ongoing burn rate now that they're seeing success supporting it as a live service. Either way, GREAT to see. That's amazing and it's so good to see them succeeding independently. Their position has forced them to fit into tight constraints, but it seems those bets have paid off very well.

Also, interesting to see them site Game Pass as a driver of sales. Another reminder that these two are not necessarily in contrast (and Hitman Trilogy "launched" (yes, Hitman 3 had already been out normally for a while by then) into Game Pass even). Also interesting to hear that they made a deal that combines the upfront payment with ongoing performance bonuses. Makes sense and I can see why that would be an attractive deal for IO.

Primal Sage · Jan 14, 2023

Raigor said:
View: https://twitter.com/DarkDetectiveNL/status/1614068188056268800

IO Interactive Annual Report 2021/22: another huge year for Hitman 3

IO Interactive Annual Report 2020/21 details can be found here. IO Interactive's annual report over the fiscal year 2021/22, which ended on 31st March 2022, has been out for quite a while already, but I never made a thread for some reason, so here I go, as I believe it's not widely known public...

www.installbaseforum.com

Oooh, the forecast for FY2023 means 007 is coming out this year (or March 2024 at the latest). Excellent.

Spacejaws · Jan 14, 2023

cyrribrae said:
where is the 155DKK figure coming from? I'd love to know what they're including in that sum. And I'd like to know how that compares with their ongoing burn rate now that they're seeing success supporting it as a live service. Either way, GREAT to see. That's amazing and it's so good to see them succeeding independently. Their position has forced them to fit into tight constraints, but it seems those bets have paid off very well.

Also, interesting to see them site Game Pass as a driver of sales. Another reminder that these two are not necessarily in contrast (and Hitman Trilogy "launched" (yes, Hitman 3 had already been out normally for a while by then) into Game Pass even). Also interesting to hear that they made a deal that combines the upfront payment with ongoing performance bonuses. Makes sense and I can see why that would be an attractive deal for IO.

I think the Gamepass deals often get put down as sales anyway? Just like the Epic Games deals where the payment is considered a sales advance of X copies that I'm sure some devs add to their total sales figure. Can't remember who maybe Metro but I remember some sales report people were able to work out what the Epic Games upfront payment was by looking at the reported sales numbers and deducting the numbers we did know from other platforms.

Dead Man Typing · Jan 14, 2023

The series deserves all its success.
Square Enix deserves a lot of credit for letting IO have the IP when they bought their independence.

Their engine and art teams deserves so much credit for making all the previous levels work with the improvements to the engine. VR and ray tracing among other improvements that reach back to the levels from 2015. Amazing stuff.

Ratuso · Jan 14, 2023

Khanimus said:
Hitman 3 is built on so much work done in the first two games. Obviously there's asset generation and a fuckton of evolution in terms of under the hood work. Plus they save on the cost of not doing the super polished pre-rendered cutscenes of the first.

Like end result aside, Callisto is a new big project. It's not comparable to a deliberately iterative sequel.

Wrexis said:
Not a fair comparison at all.

Hitman 3 is the third game in the series and it is built off of an existing engine.

IO is an existing studio.

Calisto spent a lot of money on Hollywood actors.

Calisto was designed with a strong focus on graphical and technical prowess over a longer gameplay loop like Hitman.

Not only that, but Striking Distancie Studios is a US studio based in California. Salaries there are much more higher than the ones in Denmark, so the cost is much bigger.

TheMoon · Jan 14, 2023

good for IO! really nice to see that they are thriving in their post Square Enix/Eidos era.

Wrexis said:
Not a fair comparison at all.

~~Hitman 3 is the third game in the series and it is built off of an existing engine.~~

~~IO is an existing studio.~~

Calisto spent a lot of money on Hollywood actors.

~~Calisto was designed with a strong focus on graphical and technical prowess over a longer gameplay loop like Hitman.~~

this is also where you can perfectly see how the bad the management/planning was when that is one if your new studio/new ip priorities

nvm all the other obvious problems lol

s y · Jan 14, 2023

Considering Hitman sequels are basically map packs....that makes sense.

u_neek · Jan 14, 2023

So, what stops you from giving me new missions monthly for the rest of my life, IO?

PachaelD · Jan 14, 2023

cyrribrae said:
where is the 155DKK figure coming from? I'd love to know what they're including in that sum. And I'd like to know how that compares with their ongoing burn rate now that they're seeing success supporting it as a live service.

Financial report for FY21/22 is here, but I couldn't find a '155' DKK figure, maybe I missed it.
That said Dark is generally good with this things so he might have got this from somewhere idk
https://regnskaber.cvrapi.dk/902612...zIxL2U2NTktNGM0Zi05MmU4LWEzMDEwNjI4ZGM3MA.pdf

I mean all they got in the last thread about it was an estimate for the Bond game release

IO Interactive Project 007 and Project Dragon set release after March 2025 Rumor

Full credit to DarkDetective for sharing this, and to GamingLeaksAndRumours where I saw this first. https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/x2d080/project_007_project_dragon_will_release_after/ https://twitter.com/DarkDetectiveNL/status/1564948589461258247

www.resetera.com

Jonnax · Jan 14, 2023

How did Square Enix come to the conclusion that they had to sell? 😵‍💫

RayCharlizard · Jan 14, 2023

u_neek said:
So, what stops you from giving me new missions monthly for the rest of my life, IO?

Cus that new game they're working on costs money to make so they're gonna focus on that instead of developing content for a game indefinitely.

LewieP · Jan 14, 2023

Worth every penny, but obviously it's highly iterative, building on the work of the prior two games.

I would be happy if they did another three iterative entries in this series, but I'm also very excited for their Bond game, and whatever else they work on in the future.

Kind of amazed they haven't been acquired yet. Looking from the outside in, they must be fending off acquisition offers with a stick in the current industry climate. Although if they pull off Bond as well as I expect them to, perhaps the value will shoot up, so maybe their ownership is playing the long game.

Kalor · Jan 14, 2023

Jonnax said:
How did Square Enix come to the conclusion that they had to sell? 😵‍💫

Because Square got the expensive first game which took 4 years to recoup costs, long after IO had split from Square. While Hitman 3 got to build on years of technology and not need to cost as much.

SchrodingersDog · Jan 14, 2023

That's pretty amazing. And really goes to show, you don't always need AAA budget to deliver AAA fun and quality if you develop wisely!

Sometimes when playing other high budget games, I can't help but think how a lot of money must've been wasted on things that just don't at all impact overall fun for me.

Eg I specifically recall assassins creed valhalla and how there was some kid dancing during the tutorial sequence. So they probably spent a good bit of money on motion capturing and polishing up that animation, and then use it once for like 30 seconds til you walk by. I dunno, I just feel stuff like that probably eats up a good amount of budget, but honestly I couldn't care less if it wasn't there.

Alex840 · Jan 14, 2023

Lowrys said:
Amazing. Compared to over $160m for Callisto.

Where did $160m come from? That's insane!

Dynamic3 · Jan 14, 2023

Primal Sage said:
Oooh, the forecast for FY2023 means 007 is coming out this year (or March 2024 at the latest). Excellent.

No it means it's not coming out til Apr. 2026 at the earliest. The FY2023 forecast likely accounts for the repackaging, Freelancer launch (perhaps with mtx), and maybe DLC.

plan9 · Jan 14, 2023

That's efficient budgeting, Callisto Protocol dev costs could've funded Hitman 4-10 if each sequel budget stayed the same lol.

GJ · Jan 14, 2023

Primal Sage said:
Oooh, the forecast for FY2023 means 007 is coming out this year (or March 2024 at the latest). Excellent.

According to that post by Dark their fiscal 2023 ends this March and they're expecting very little of their fiscal 2024 and 2025. This game isn't coming out for at least two years.

Raigor · Jan 14, 2023

u_neek said:
So, what stops you from giving me new missions monthly for the rest of my life, IO?

What's stopping them? They have two AAA games in development right now.

CrunchyFrog · Jan 14, 2023

Also explains how they were able to at least decide to backtrack and simplify the content acquisition for H3, though why that whole boondoggle was made so arcane in the first place alongside Epic store timed exclusivity is still a mystery. One of iOi's only real missteps with this trilogy, though maybe their going indie and worrying about initial cash flow had something to do with it.

Clark Zuckerberg · Jan 14, 2023

Wrexis said:
Not a fair comparison at all.

Hitman 3 is the third game in the series and it is built off of an existing engine.

IO is an existing studio.

Calisto spent a lot of money on Hollywood actors.

Calisto was designed with a strong focus on graphical and technical prowess over a longer gameplay loop like Hitman.

There's no way they spent more than like a few million of that on actors. Josh Duhamel isn't really that sought after (he was just in the Mighty Ducks show lol) and everyone else only has minor roles in things or are in smaller things. None of them can demand "big" cheques, at least relative to actual Hollywood names.

Lowrys · Jan 14, 2023

CrunchyFrog said:
Also explains how they were able to at least decide to backtrack and simplify the content acquisition for H3, though why that whole boondoggle was made so arcane in the first place alongside Epic store timed exclusivity is still a mystery. One of iOi's only real missteps with this trilogy, though maybe their going indie and worrying about initial cash flow had something to do with it.

Along with the ridiculous always-online requirement.

Primal Sage · Jan 14, 2023

Dynamic3 said:
No it means it's not coming out til Apr. 2026 at the earliest. The FY2023 forecast likely accounts for the repackaging, Freelancer launch (perhaps with mtx), and maybe DLC.

GJ said:
According to that post by Dark their fiscal 2023 ends this March and they're expecting very little of their fiscal 2024 and 2025. This game isn't coming out for at least two years.

My bad. I read FY2023 as the fiscal year ending March 2024 and could not imagine Hitman 3 would generate that amount during 2023.

FY23 revenue expected somewhere between DKK 450m and 500m, with expected profits before tax somewhere between DKK 250m and 300m.

Jawbreaker · Jan 14, 2023

I can tell.

RockItSci12 · Jan 14, 2023

So proud of IO and how they saved this trilogy and made it easily the best Hitman series ever. I used to be a Blood Money stan, and when the first Paris episode dropped and I was getting booted and disconnected constantly, I hated this new direction sooo much, but they fixed and raised the bar consistently. One of my favorite gaming trilogies period

cyrribrae · Jan 14, 2023

Spacejaws said:
I think the Gamepass deals often get put down as sales anyway? Just like the Epic Games deals where the payment is considered a sales advance of X copies that I'm sure some devs add to their total sales figure. Can't remember who maybe Metro but I remember some sales report people were able to work out what the Epic Games upfront payment was by looking at the reported sales numbers and deducting the numbers we did know from other platforms.

Is that true? That feels so dishonest to do it that way lol what. Translating upfront Game Pass money to theoretical sales is just obfuscating all the data with (completely arbitrarily, no less) hypothetical numbers. I (am not a financial expert, but I) would have serious issues if they were doing this. I know that they include the Game Pass REVENUE straight in company projections, but I don't remember anyone saying that they just converted the money (especially if it's both the upfront AND the ongoing performance bonus pay) to theoretical sales and reported that..

I don't know if it's impossible, but my plain reading is just that they saw sales go up after the game went into Game Pass, no? But I'm happy to be educated if this really is just common practice. If there are links to the Epic thing, I'll take those haha.

PachaelD said:
Financial report for FY21/22 is here, but I couldn't find a '155' DKK figure, maybe I missed it.
That said Dark is generally good with this things so he might have got this from somewhere idk
https://regnskaber.cvrapi.dk/902612...zIxL2U2NTktNGM0Zi05MmU4LWEzMDEwNjI4ZGM3MA.pdf

I mean all they got in the last thread about it was an estimate for the Bond game release

IO Interactive Project 007 and Project Dragon set release after March 2025 Rumor

Full credit to DarkDetective for sharing this, and to GamingLeaksAndRumours where I saw this first. https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/x2d080/project_007_project_dragon_will_release_after/ https://twitter.com/DarkDetectiveNL/status/1564948589461258247

www.resetera.com

Hmm fair enough. Yea, was wondering if this was publicly revealed or just something that they'd found out on their own.

Aangster · Jan 14, 2023

Would it have killed the budget for IOI to add a revolver and do more around non-stealth mechanics, or at least rework the rating system?

Spacejaws · Jan 14, 2023

cyrribrae said:
Is that true? That feels so dishonest to do it that way lol what. Translating upfront Game Pass money to theoretical sales is just obfuscating all the data with (completely arbitrarily, no less) hypothetical numbers. I (am not a financial expert, but I) would have serious issues if they were doing this. I know that they include the Game Pass REVENUE straight in company projections, but I don't remember anyone saying that they just converted the money (especially if it's both the upfront AND the ongoing performance bonus pay) to theoretical sales and reported that..

I don't know if it's impossible, but my plain reading is just that they saw sales go up after the game went into Game Pass, no? But I'm happy to be educated if this really is just common practice. If there are links to the Epic thing, I'll take those haha.

I'm not sure if this is the one but I think it was Control?

Epic Paid The Makers Of Control A $10.5 Million Advance For Exclusivity

Many game developers have shifted to release their games on the Epic Games Store, but the upstart platform has proven surprisingly controversial. A report outlining Control developer Remedy Entertainment’s deal with Epic grants a clearer picture into the money and percentages that draw in high...

kotaku.com

Where the Epic payment is apparently an up front cost for X copies sold, then as far as I know they don't get more money from sales until that advance is exceeded but in the sales report it gets lumped with sales revenue for the game rather than a contract payment or such. I remember there being an article showing you the slides from the presentation or something, but it's also kinda threw up in the air positive spins from devs after an Epic release saying they made 100k sales or the game was profitable a week after release and now it's like...because of the sales after the advance or the upfront money...

Pretty sure more stuff came out with the court documents.

This doesn't mean thats how the data for IO is being interpreted here, but ever since that stuff was brought to light its always made me second guess positive spins on any platform or exclusives. Well from companies in general. Not suprising that one moment they will say they are incredibly happy with the sales or 'suprised' and then thr next we hear about it the devs getting shut down and the fames not profitable enough lol. Probably due to trying to put on a happy front for investors and keep sales discussions about the game positive by scrounginf together data that's technically true.

Bebpo · Jan 14, 2023

Hopefully Hitman 3 being a big success means we don't have to wait 5-10 years for another Hitman game while they're focused on 007.

Also hopefully means when they do come back to Hitman they'll stick with what worked in this trilogy and not completely change things up for the worse like some of the older games i.e. Absolution.

MYeager · Jan 14, 2023

Bebpo said:
Hopefully Hitman 3 being a big success means we don't have to wait 5-10 years for another Hitman game while they're focused on 007.

Also hopefully means when they do come back to Hitman they'll stick with what worked in this trilogy and not completely change things up for the worse like some of the older games i.e. Absolution.

Not sure if they need to come back when they haven't left yet. I mean they're just about to relaunch it as a new service with a completely new mode, I think they plan on growing and adding to that as their central model.

writhingcorpse897 · Jan 14, 2023

Bebpo said:
Hopefully Hitman 3 being a big success means we don't have to wait 5-10 years for another Hitman game while they're focused on 007.

Also hopefully means when they do come back to Hitman they'll stick with what worked in this trilogy and not completely change things up for the worse like some of the older games i.e. Absolution.

I think a few DLC maps every year or so would be good until 007 comes out. Although I'd prefer a new game, ideally.

Pyro · Jan 14, 2023

IO Interactive and Remedy (Control's budget was $30M) are the best arguments against setting up a game dev studio in expensive places like America and also possibly shows big, publicly traded publishers having just too high expectations for games' profit margins. Square Enix being disappointed in Tomb Raider and Deus Ex have always baffled me and made me assume they just spent too much on development and/or marketing.

The_R3medy · Jan 14, 2023

Would love to see what the cost of something like Hitman 1 was by comparison. Seems like they had a lot of their costs already paid for on the tech side and this was largely focused on creating the games and not having to reinvent the tech wheel.

CrunchyFrog · Jan 14, 2023

Lowrys said:
Along with the ridiculous always-online requirement.

FWIW, the game is still absolutely playable without internet, and I can at least understand locking out achievements, record times, public contract missions, etc. to prevent score manipulation if their goal was to turn Hitman into more of a connected/leaderboard-based franchise for longevity (though still foolhardy), but locking out location/item unlock progression too is a bewildering and stupid move. I really hope they at least patch out the latter at some point.

Zebesian-X · Jan 14, 2023

Explains how they turned a profit so damn quick with Hitman 3. I remember being nervous about them going out on their own, but with financials like these it feels like a no-brainer lol.

It's also a good example of why iterative sequels aren't necessarily a bad thing. The trilogy is such an accomplishment, and we never would have gotten it if the team felt like they had to re-invent the wheel each time. Sometimes "More of the same" is the best call you can make

Magic Mushroom · Jan 14, 2023

IO, Remedy and Housemarque have all proven that you can make excellent and successful AAA games without monstrous budgets. Northern European studios doing good work.

Hitman 3 budget (base game) was around $22.5m

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