Heavy Rain Cost $16 Million to Develop and Made Sony Over $100 Million

Quantic Dream president Guillaume de Fondaumiere has revealed to Eurogamer that Heavy Rain cost just $16.7 million and generated over $100 million for publisher Sony.

Including Sony's contribution towards marketing and distribution the total spend on the game was $40 million meaning the PlayStation maker made back more than double what it invested. The last figures released for the game put the number sold at 2 million copies. 

"It's very profitbale" de Fondaumiere commented. 

Pointing to the success of Journey he said "We should stop thinking that innovation rhymes with unprofitable." de Fondaumiere said gamers played Heavy Rain with their partners and he hopes they will now go to game shops to buy Beyond: Two Souls when it launches in October. 

"Creating new experiences is also a way to expand the market," he explained. In 2004 de Fondaumiere met with Leonardo di Caprio who was interested in working in games but "He made us understand that from an image perspective, this wasn't going to work." 

By contrast, Beyond stars Willen Dafoe and Ellen Page, who appeared alongside di Caprio in Inception showing how the perception of games has been changed over the years, in part because of titles like Heavy Rain.

"We need, as an industry, to be probably more creative, and probably stop creating, every year, the same games over again," he said, adding "Maybe create new IPs. We need publishers of course to take the risk to create new IPs. But we also need the audience to [vote with their wallets].

"It's important that the entire ecosystem be more creative for this entire media to step up. What I would like to see is publishers taking more risks and have a balanced approach between the sequels they are financing year after year, and the new projects that they are developing, and this balanced approach will make for a more appealling industry overall.

"Today we are seeing a crisis," de Fondaumiere decalred, "we are seeing a market that is in decline." 

This is partly due to the economic crises of the past several years but also to "a ceratain creative crisis that is, in part, the reason why some gamers are playing less.

"We can only resolve that by offering new creations, new IP [and] also wooing a new audience to games," he concluded.