Week 1: Straight Into the Fray

Welcome back everyone! While I’ve been waiting for responses for any potential on-site placements (fingers-crossed!), I’ve jumped into starting the quantitative research portion of my project. And right off the bat, one of the issues I was expecting to happen came through immediately: since these are private companies, and because the titles I am looking at are pre-2010 and Japanese, the custom to publish fiscal data regarding a specific game isn’t really available online at the moment. So, I opted to leave this issue for next week, when I can decide the best way to approach the budget. Instead, I gathered other data, like initial release windows, initial sales metrics, gross revenue, and developer statements.

Out of these, gross revenue is the most interesting statistic, as it, like the budget, is not publically released data, though it is easier to surmise. This was a matter of estimating lifetime sales data using estimates across various platforms (like SteamDB or other aggregate sources) and applying a multiplier based on the various versions of the game available at different price points. Reading through a new article I found (https://generalistprogrammer.com/tutorials/game-development-cost-analysis-complete-budget-guide-2025) by the GeneralistProgrammer, as well as Richard Harris’s “Game Development Process: Mastering the Art of Game Creation“, I was able to learn more about the work and effort behind the creation of a game title. I also managed to read a little bit of the paper (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teler.2023.100100) on the Video Game Industry as a business venture, which gave me some insight on the economic prospects of the creation (and by extension, recreation) of a video game. 

And, my efforts did come to fruition: I did find out some fiscal data with effort and a little bit of digging. The most interesting case I’ve encountered is actually that of Persona 3 Reload‘s lifetime sales data. For context, companies typically don’t publish their sales statistics (it would be bad for business), but these companies (specifically Japanese companies) do occasionally hold public press conferences and board meetings to discuss investment prospects to shareholders, often releasing the slideshow online later. What was so interesting about the one I looked at (SEGA Sammy Management Meeting 2025) is that the producers of this slideshow actually made a formatting blunder that became useful for this project. In an archived version of the document (which you can view here [page 25]), it’s actually possible to highlight the grey box and copy and paste the sales data for SEGA’s data for certain titles since the fiscal year of 2023. This document inadvertently reveals that Persona 3 Reload has a staggering 2.07 million copies sold in its lifetime.

Anyways, I have now compiled the necessary data aside from the estimated budgets for each game, which I will continue to work on into Week 2. Luckily, I have been reaching out to several individuals and organizations regarding an on-site placement, and I will be updating status as soon as possible! I’ve also begun to draft up some polls to distribute for the qualitative side of my project in preparation for next week.

Thanks for keeping up, and I’ll see you again next week!