07-01-2003, 03:41 AM
In a former life when I was budgeting for in house resources to work on a project the loaded labor rate we used was $150k/yr. Resources in California are expensive, so $200k/yr might be fairly close. If the resources are contract it might be a bit cheaper.
No matter what commitment you might make to the boss, there is never only one peson working on a patch.
Let's say you've only got the one guy actually working on the code, fine. You'll still need people to QA it, documentation, IT support and so on.
The cost for "small patch" adds up pretty quickly if you're wroking on it for any length of time. Several hundred thousand is not beyond the pale for a patch of this size that has taken this long.
I forget the formula for translating sales dollars needed to support the cost of a project, I think it was on the order of 10 to 1, $10 in sales to cover $1 expense. So, let's assume that 1.10 uses $500k of resources - that would mean $5 million in sales to cover that cost - they're not selling anything for 1.10, so it would be eating into revenues from other projects.
Long and the short - goodwill, PR, customer relations are one thing, but you cannot make a reasonable business case for a small company like Blizz to invest big bucks in a patch for a game that works and has been on the market for 2 plus years. The game buying public are fickle, very tolerant of crap and have a short memory - there is no business driver for Blizz to devote any resources to 1.10.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see 1.10 released, I just wont be surprised if it got sh*tcanned and that was the reason for the sudden departures today.
No matter what commitment you might make to the boss, there is never only one peson working on a patch.
Let's say you've only got the one guy actually working on the code, fine. You'll still need people to QA it, documentation, IT support and so on.
The cost for "small patch" adds up pretty quickly if you're wroking on it for any length of time. Several hundred thousand is not beyond the pale for a patch of this size that has taken this long.
I forget the formula for translating sales dollars needed to support the cost of a project, I think it was on the order of 10 to 1, $10 in sales to cover $1 expense. So, let's assume that 1.10 uses $500k of resources - that would mean $5 million in sales to cover that cost - they're not selling anything for 1.10, so it would be eating into revenues from other projects.
Long and the short - goodwill, PR, customer relations are one thing, but you cannot make a reasonable business case for a small company like Blizz to invest big bucks in a patch for a game that works and has been on the market for 2 plus years. The game buying public are fickle, very tolerant of crap and have a short memory - there is no business driver for Blizz to devote any resources to 1.10.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see 1.10 released, I just wont be surprised if it got sh*tcanned and that was the reason for the sudden departures today.
Some people are like slinkys, not really good for anything but you just can't help but smile when you see them tumble down the stairs.