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[gimymblert]

1500 frames, usually a traditional animator (from what I was told) make 19 images per days = 80 days for one animator = 17 weeks.
That's a lot of work if you don't get paid

[cplhasse]

150k for a SINGLE dlc character?

you could fund 10 indie games with that much money

$48,000: Staff Salaries - 8 people for 10 weeks
$20,000: QA Testing
$2,000: Hit-box Contracting
$30,000: Animation and Clean-up Contracting

it takes 8 people 10 weeks to make one single character? not to mention the contracting for hit-box (wat) and animations and voice acting. and 20k for testing?

the rewards are pretty cool and all, if you're a fan, but this "give us money for a dlc character" truly seems like a mask for "give us money so we don't have to find new jobs".

I don't think they're lying about their production costs, they just chose to make a game with a very labor intensive art style. Thousands of hand drawn frames is a lot of work.

[saturdaymorning]

so the goal was met in less than a day.

also yeah, animation process is pretty crazy.

[deathtotheweird]

if funded, the character is completely free to anyone backer or not.

this doesn't appear to be completely true.

If we successfully fund Squigly and anything else, they will be released free to everybody, on all platforms for a limited time.

DLC is egregious enough as it is, now we have indiegogo campaigns where developers are asking for 150 thousand dollars to make a single DLC character. Not to mention it's going to take 8 people + multiple contractors 10 weeks to finish? I know there's a lot of worked involved but that much? Assuming they have 2 contractors and work 8 hour days and 5 days a week that's 4000 hours of work. for a single character.

But give them 15 thousand dollars more and somehow they are able to make a story mode and stage for the new character. The figures just seem made up to me.

At least many of the reward tiers are reasonable, at least the ones under 100 dollars. It just seems like a waste of money.

[cplhasse]

What specific cost doesn't add up? They're pretty transparent about it.
If you look at how much they're paying themselves isn't not very much at all either. 600$ a week for living in LA doesn't sound like much to me.

[deathtotheweird]

20k for qa testing
32k for consulting animation and hitbox (?)

this is a studio that made a fighting game. why do they need to consult other people for hitboxes and animation, did they not hire one? and why does it take 8 people to make one character?


according to them 150k is barely enough to fund one character but an extra 15k is more than enough to do a story mode and an extra stage.

Even if their figures all add up I personally don't think DLC is a good use of that money and time. Like I said, many Kickstaters for indie games ask a tenth of what they're asking and they're asking to fund an entire game. DLC is lame, why didn't they just kickstart another game? Surely another game would help their company out a lot more than one single DLC character that they plan on giving for free anyway.

[HöllenKobold]

Kukino adds that each character took between sixteen and seventeen months to be done by 10 designers together along with Nona who revised them.

This is from SNK Playmore's KOFXII, and they even used more shortcuts than Skullgirl's team considering their use of 3D modeling and et cetra.

Fighting games are very impractical to develop for.

[Alevice]

Yeah,  story mode doesn't require intensive asset development the way the hand drawn characters do, even a stage dpoesn't have the mammoth amount of animations a game like dark stalkers and skullgirls have.

[AshfordPride]

What is happening with Skullgirls coming to PC?  Last I heard we were getting it on Origin, now it's Steam.  Oy. 

[gimymblert]

20k for qa testing
32k for consulting animation and hitbox (?)

this is a studio that made a fighting game. why do they need to consult other people for hitboxes and animation, did they not hire one? and why does it take 8 people to make one character?


according to them 150k is barely enough to fund one character but an extra 15k is more than enough to do a story mode and an extra stage.

Even if their figures all add up I personally don't think DLC is a good use of that money and time. Like I said, many Kickstaters for indie games ask a tenth of what they're asking and they're asking to fund an entire game. DLC is lame, why didn't they just kickstart another game? Surely another game would help their company out a lot more than one single DLC character that they plan on giving for free anyway.

Here is the deal, your awesome animation is not just animation but also 1500 frame of hitbox animation. Those hitbox and fighting move must be balanced against all other character for the character to be worth it, but it's holistic, one change in one move can change the whole balance of the entire game.

They need one or multiple high level player to look for adjustment of the hitbox, so it does not lead to exploit or unfair advantage, or just plain readability problem.

It has a huge effect of your animation, you need to redo them, which is expensive.



That's why I defend 3D, it's less expensive.

[saturdaymorning]

a couple others relay some thoughts on the cost of making a fighting game character

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-little-fighting-game-that-could/1100-4587/

[ANtY]

$2,4k monthly salary for 8 ppl

considering that they're doing nothing since everything is outsourced

[HöllenKobold]

it's not nothing. they're the ones implementing, designing, and coding everything.

[deathtotheweird]

shouldn't take 8 people to do that though

[ink.inc]

animating takes a /lot of work/

[deathtotheweird]

yeah but they're outsourcing the animation

so you have 8 people left coding one single character

that doesn't seem like an efficient use of resources

[ham and brie]

I don't think they're outsourcing all the animation work. And obviously if you're outsourcing that means there's work involved in managing that.

Seems reasonable for a team of people trying to get it done in a matter of weeks and make careers with their talent.

[deathtotheweird]

spending that much time, effort, and money on DLC just seems questionable to me.

[gimymblert]

Well it's hi quality animation, it's not a 100 frames fighters

[ANtY]

spending that much time, effort, and money on DLC just seems questionable to me.

if fans are funding it then I'd go for it too I guess

just seems a little fishy to me