OK, lets look at this from a business perspective. Last I checked, Half-Life was about to pass the 2 million sold mark, and that was over 6 months ago. Considering that everytime they come out with something new for it, they release a new edition of HL for the shelves, I think it's safe to say they've sold over 2 million copies now:).
Basically development companies get a royalty percentage of the profits off the number of units sold. This can translate down into the price of a single unit. Now I've never seen the price of half-life lowered in all the times I've seen it on the shelves (in fact, it's more expensive now than it was when I first bought it). So let's just say for simplicities sake that HL sells for $40 a box. The publisher usually sees approx. about half of that, if not just a little more, but for our example let's just make it an even $20. Now the royalty rate a developer actually gets is different from gig to gig, from developer to developer (many various factors involved), but for now let's use the example of 10%. So, if HL had a 10% royalty rate, that's $2 off of every unit sold that they see. Do the math, and at 2 million units sold, that's $4 million dollars profit right there. Now granted there's recoupment costs that the publishers takes out of that so the actually seen money will be a bit less, but that's still way more than $200k. And, remember, that this example is based on HL getting a 10% royalty rate (I'm pretty sure it's higher than that). For another example, let's just say thay had a 25% royalty rate. Out of $20 profit for each box, that's $5 a unit. Do the math with 2 million units sold, and that's $10 million in profit they just made. It goes up pretty quick doesn't it:).
John Carmack knows this (he's been in the industry a long time now:) Plus John Carmack has always been one to support the growth and development of the industry. I've never really seen him try to decieve the public (in fact, he's always done his best to inform the public), so I'd say his credibility good:). The fault of the original logic was the way they were putting their numbers together (2 million units sold, 10% of the number of units sold equals the number of dollars earned........not quite right:). I think it's safe to say that a couple of million is equivalent to a 'FAR more':)
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OK, lets look at this from a business perspective. Last I checked, Half-Life was about to pass the 2 million sold mark, and that was over 6 months ago. Considering that everytime they come out with something new for it, they release a new edition of HL for the shelves, I think it's safe to say they've sold over 2 million copies now :).
Basically development companies get a royalty percentage of the profits off the number of units sold. This can translate down into the price of a single unit. Now I've never seen the price of half-life lowered in all the times I've seen it on the shelves (in fact, it's more expensive now than it was when I first bought it). So let's just say for simplicities sake that HL sells for $40 a box. The publisher usually sees approx. about half of that, if not just a little more, but for our example let's just make it an even $20. Now the royalty rate a developer actually gets is different from gig to gig, from developer to developer (many various factors involved), but for now let's use the example of 10%. So, if HL had a 10% royalty rate, that's $2 off of every unit sold that they see. Do the math, and at 2 million units sold, that's $4 million dollars profit right there. Now granted there's recoupment costs that the publishers takes out of that so the actually seen money will be a bit less, but that's still way more than $200k. And, remember, that this example is based on HL getting a 10% royalty rate (I'm pretty sure it's higher than that). For another example, let's just say thay had a 25% royalty rate. Out of $20 profit for each box, that's $5 a unit. Do the math with 2 million units sold, and that's $10 million in profit they just made. It goes up pretty quick doesn't it :).
John Carmack knows this (he's been in the industry a long time now :) Plus John Carmack has always been one to support the growth and development of the industry. I've never really seen him try to decieve the public (in fact, he's always done his best to inform the public), so I'd say his credibility good :). The fault of the original logic was the way they were putting their numbers together (2 million units sold, 10% of the number of units sold equals the number of dollars earned........not quite right :). I think it's safe to say that a couple of million is equivalent to a 'FAR more' :)