darkSpyro

Title, for Regulars, Lightcores, and Giants.

I'm curious.

Probably less to make tham we pay for.

It costs a LOT of money for molds.

I'll guess and say $2.50 for regular, $3.25 for lightcore, and $6.00 for giants. Just guessing

I reckon About $1 each, The RFID chip is probably the most expensive part. The shear volume of parts and materials would give them significant price breaks.

It'd have to be something cheap so that they'd be able to double or triple the money on each one sold. Using the original $8 price range for the figures, probably like $4 in SSA. I'd also say that by Giants, they've been able to produce them much faster/more efficiently so it'd probably about $2 for a regular figure.

Lightcore and Giants would probably have to factor in the cost of the LED lights, which aren't expensive, but they're more "complicated" to produce than regulars. Maybe something like $4-$5 per figure.

Quote: mantez

I reckon About $1 each, The RFID chip is probably the most expensive part. The shear volume of parts and materials would give them significant price breaks.

Winner.

On a per cost basis, I'm not certain.

For a mold prototype, I know for fact that the initial, resin-stage prototype to the Transformers Movie 2007 Leader Class Optimus Prime figure cost approximately ten thousand dollars to manufacture. This figure featured LEDs, a sound/voice box, automatic gear-works, and rubber tires. Please note that this price did not cover the costs of the hard copy prototype, or the follow-up test shots. Conversely, Skylanders have no moving pieces, and, from interviews with Activision, Toys For Bob, ect, it sounds as if prototypes are created in house via a 3D printer, instead of the traditional hand-tooling at a factory. While a Skylander sounds far cheaper to create, this is off-set by the computer programming side, which needs to synch up with both functionality and appearance in-game. Considering how frightfully expensive CG Modeling can be, especially on something that will most likely inherently need to be tweaked on a constant basis due to shifts in design (for instance, like how Zap was changed from the cyclops/snail like creature to a dragon) I'd say that the cost might very well wind up evening out to a possibly similar final price.

Research, development, and tooling is where the money is at. The cost to print out these Skylanders in China is probably a few cents each.

Quote: Tequiza

Research, development, and tooling is where the money is at. The cost to print out these Skylanders in China is probably a few cents each.

It's more than a few cents, but certainly not up to $6 for Giants. Remember that they sell them to retailers (who also need to make money on them), so Activision isn't getting the retail price for these figures. Regardless of what their true cost is, they are printing money with these accessories.

Quote: Himewad

Quote: Tequiza

Research, development, and tooling is where the money is at. The cost to print out these Skylanders in China is probably a few cents each.

It's more than a few cents, but certainly not up to $6 for Giants. Remember that they sell them to retailers (who also need to make money on them), so Activision isn't getting the retail price for these figures. Regardless of what their true cost is, they are printing money with these accessories.

I'm a manager in a factory. I do this type of thing for a living. If they aren't making 1000% profit per item, they are losing money.

this is activision we're talking about, they know exactly how to squeeze every last penny of profit out of something.
there are probably chinese sweatshops staffing starving orphans that paint and put these things together for less than a dollar at bulk volume.

ACTIVISION IS PURE EVIL
but they absorbed toys4bob and they make good games i am conflicted

One thing to consider is that when you buy a Skylanders figure, you aren't just paying for the figure. You're naturally paying for the design of the figure, the materials, the molds, shipping costs, but you're also paying for the games that those figures can be used in.

The online world, portable titles, Farmville clone, and of course console games are partially paid for by figure sales. Even the titles that you have to pay for have bigger budgets due to the fact that they could project income from figure sales. The result is a better quality game than what you would have otherwise had.

Quote: Beanasaurus

One thing to consider is that when you buy a Skylanders figure, you aren't just paying for the figure. You're naturally paying for the design of the figure, the materials, the molds, shipping costs, but you're also paying for the games that those figures can be used in.

The online world, portable titles, Farmville clone, and of course console games are partially paid for by figure sales. Even the titles that you have to pay for have bigger budgets due to the fact that they could project income from figure sales. The result is a better quality game than what you would have otherwise had.

True, but those costs spread over the 250 million+ so I'm still guessing they are making 80%+ margin per figure with fully loaded costs. EASILY.

Quote: Beanasaurus

The online world, portable titles, Farmville clone, and of course console games are partially paid for by figure sales. Even the titles that you have to pay for have bigger budgets due to the fact that they could project income from figure sales. The result is a better quality game than what you would have otherwise had.

oh good lord no. the online game is a mediocre little thingy in flash. cheap and easy from a chinese dev i bet
the console titles aren't that special. they're good games but they aren't high enough production value to justify a subscription-like system which is essentially what you're describing.
activision is just really good at making lots of money and not paying much for it. they took a gamble with skylanders and now they're making two sequels in as many years, probably using the exact same engine and repeated art assets. cheap and quick to make.

i'm not sure where the figure sales actually go. i THINK they go mostly to T4B which is great, and activision gets most of the console game sales.

also look out because once the market is saturated with skylanders sequels and spinoffs, sales will drop. and the INSTANT sales start dropping off activision will fire everyone in T4B and disband the company. same thing happened with the guys who made guitar hero, and a couple other activision hits

Quote: Osbor

Quote: Beanasaurus

The online world, portable titles, Farmville clone, and of course console games are partially paid for by figure sales. Even the titles that you have to pay for have bigger budgets due to the fact that they could project income from figure sales. The result is a better quality game than what you would have otherwise had.

oh good lord no. the online game is a mediocre little thingy in flash. cheap and easy from a chinese dev i bet
the console titles aren't that special. they're good games but they aren't high enough production value to justify a subscription-like system which is essentially what you're describing.
activision is just really good at making lots of money and not paying much for it. they took a gamble with skylanders and now they're making two sequels in as many years, probably using the exact same engine and repeated art assets. cheap and quick to make.

i'm not sure where the figure sales actually go. i THINK they go mostly to T4B which is great, and activision gets most of the console game sales.

also look out because once the market is saturated with skylanders sequels and spinoffs, sales will drop. and the INSTANT sales start dropping off activision will fire everyone in T4B and disband the company. same thing happened with the guys who made guitar hero, and a couple other activision hits

actually, Swap Force will be using an all new graphics engine.

Depends on which cost you mean, since there are probably hundreds of ways to break it down.

But I assume you mean how much does it cost to get the figures on the shelves at the store? That would mean the R&D, production, materials, labor, QA/QC, overhead, shipping, retail labor, retail overhead, and any other misc associated costs, such as retail theft and damages costs, sales, and clearance.

My guess is pretty close to retail price, maybe a profit margin (for the retail store) of about 10% per figure after all is said and done (including lost profit due to sales and clearance, and etc.).

Quote: mantez

I reckon About $1 each, The RFID chip is probably the most expensive part. The shear volume of parts and materials would give them significant price breaks.

RFID chips don't cost very much anymore. $0.05-0.10 or soIf we assume Activision makes about as much profit on these as other toy sellers we can assume Activision makes about 15% profit margin on each figure. Retailers probably make 15-20% profit. Using these figures we can backup the costs:

Giant Figure
Retail price: $14.99
Retailer purchase price: $12.49 (14.99 / 1.2)
Activision cost: $10.86 (includes all RD, distribution, etc)

Answer: $10.86 to make and deliver to stores

Quote: jjgames

Quote: mantez

I reckon About $1 each, The RFID chip is probably the most expensive part. The shear volume of parts and materials would give them significant price breaks.

RFID chips don't cost very much anymore. $0.05-0.10 or soIf we assume Activision makes about as much profit on these as other toy sellers we can assume Activision makes about 15% profit margin on each figure. Retailers probably make 15-20% profit. Using these figures we can backup the costs:

Giant Figure
Retail price: $14.99
Retailer purchase price: $12.49 (14.99 / 1.2)
Activision cost: $10.86 (includes all RD, distribution, etc)

Answer: $10.86 to make and deliver to stores

Not a chance in hell they spend eleven bucks to make a Giant. No freaking way.

Quote: jjgames

Quote: mantez

I reckon About $1 each, The RFID chip is probably the most expensive part. The shear volume of parts and materials would give them significant price breaks.

RFID chips don't cost very much anymore. $0.05-0.10 or soIf we assume Activision makes about as much profit on these as other toy sellers we can assume Activision makes about 15% profit margin on each figure. Retailers probably make 15-20% profit. Using these figures we can backup the costs:

Giant Figure
Retail price: $14.99
Retailer purchase price: $12.49 (14.99 / 1.2)
Activision cost: $10.86 (includes all RD, distribution, etc)

Answer: $10.86 to make and deliver to stores

Are you the CFO of Activision?

Somehow I think you are way off on this price. I am thinking it's more along the lines of 1-3 dollars per figure. I can order online in bulk sophisticated toys for as cheap as 60 cents per figure, fully painted and packaged. That's buying in the 1000's. Now buy in the 100,000's of figures. That's gonna break down pretty cheaply. And you don't think that companies get deals on their shipping costs to stores? I assure you they're shipping pretty cheaply. I say 3 bucks a figure max. Just my 2 cents.

I'm going to agree with xerokills. Piggy-backing off of it, I'd say Giants are 3$ while regulars are probably 2$. The actual painting is most likely done in a sweatshop so they'd be paid a very small amount per figure.

I'm going to make an educated guess (using everyone's research) to claim Activision makes an 85% profit with the 10% going to retail and 5% going to production.