How true is this about the gaming industry?

[Sasuke Uchiha]

While on another board I responded to someone who was saying that a game that takes more than 5 years is unprofitable my response to this was,

"You only need to look at how they did DAO to figure out how to manage that. If a game takes longer than the current console generation's life then you don't plan for that, you plan for the most powerful platform available in this case PC then you port the best version you can to whatever the latest consoles are, that's how it worked for DAO, that's technically how it should work for every game ever, but companies like to bid for extra attention so being able to argue "BioWare's new IP works best on our system because we are the best." allows a company to garner more favor from the consumer, which means they will pay extra to developers/publishers like BioWare and EA if they develop with their console in mind, meaning a lot of times devs will develop for the highest bidder then port to the other remaining systems when they are done. It's a dirty business but money is money I guess."

how close or far off am I, keep in mind I'm just a consumer looking at the business from the outside in.

[DanArt]

By unprofitable we are talking about the man hours put into it. Not the individual hours. I know people have projects to work on and they say they have nothing but that is not the case at all. Usually when it takes a long time ( at a company ) they are working on other projects to keep the money train going.

Look at cave-story that was more then five years ago and it was one guy working on it little by little. He released it for free. Why? Because while it was his goal he had other things in mind. If I did something then I would consider getting work or making something that will in the long run generate money.

It is like you know a certain kind of consumer is located on that specific platform. Why not venture to that specific platform? I know why because the consumer you want does not own or have the impluse to deal with that platform

[Sasuke Uchiha]

That's a good question, and I wish I could answer it but I don't really know what kind of profit the guy had in mind.

[TotalSnorefest]

Also consider things like loss-leaders. The upcoming Zelda title has been in development for a solid 5 years by now and who knows if they will ever make back the financial investment? See also Xenoblade Chronicles X. On the Wii U those might never make back their money, but they might make enough people want a Wii U to still make it profitable for Nintendo.

I don't think you're far off, but I imagine there's a lot of considerations being made beyond profitability of a single project, especially in the home console scene.

[Carabas]

What is DAO?

[Sasuke Uchiha]

What is DAO?

Dragon Age: Origins

[Inhuman X]

Not totally accurate in that a lot of big budget AAA titles have taken more development time. Fallout 4 for example began development in 2009 and just released this year. Half Life 2 took six years I think. Both are huge money makers. Though no one can argue against the idea that that development studios would love to focus more on content creation than engine work to cut development time down.

[Carabas]

Dragon Age: Origins

I'm actually playing that at the moment. For the zillionth time.

I am really not good at acronyms...

[Sasuke Uchiha]

I'm actually playing that at the moment. For the zillionth time.

I am really not good at acronyms...

No problem, in all fairness acronyms even with context can fool people.