How much of profits do developers get?

[Saucycarpdog]

Just a little question I can't seem to get off my mind. I know that revenue for each game sold is distributed among several people, but I've never found how much the developers themselves get.

Can anyone help me out?

 

[ryai458]

About 21% of origonal retail price.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Each and every one gets 300 ? and a Mars bar.

 

[omicron1]

There was a cool graph about this a while ago; I can't find it now, though.

I remember a few things from it:
~$7 goes to the platform owner - Microsoft, Sony, etc. (Guess why MS isn't so interested in PC games!)
About half the money ends up at the publisher, and of that maybe a third or a quarter reaches the developer. The rest goes to the retailer, the physical media cost, etc.

 

[Irridium]

Depends where you buy it from.

Take The Witcher 2 for example, if you buy it from the store, the profits get divided and distributed to the store you bought it from, the publisher, the developer, and a few others. Most of the time the developer gets very little.

If you buy it off, say Steam, it gets divided between Steam, the Publisher, and Developer. A bit more evenly split, but it depends on the terms you set with the publisher/Steam.

If you buy it off GoG.com, most of it goes to the developer, while some goes to the publisher. I think, all may go to the developer.

So in short, to make sure the developer gets the most profit, try to buy directly from them.