How much do you think Namco would make you spend to make them and, subsequently their songs, in S4U?
(I'll assume we're talking specifically about this game)
Not sure about the first one. Considering the popularity of the game along with required skill of putting the iM@S 2D artists' style into acceptable 3D modeling and the high standard of living of the country, it's probably high.
On the second, though, I'm more or less guessing that, like in other voice acting roles, seiyuus are paid with a talent fee depending on the role/song/performance. In theory it's more or less the same for the girls' seiyuu when they sing the songs for in-game. (Before anyone asks, M@STER versions of the songs means another recording and thus new fee)
As another thought, how much would new characters in general cost?
For a whole new game? More or less as much as any other character. Our main characters would cost the same for voice acting and singing (And seeing as they do a visual novel's worth of voice acting plus singing an indefinite amount of songs, it's gonna be high). Character models is another thing to consider. For S4U-only DLC characters (which would be a dream at this point) just remove most of the pay from the standard fee for voice acting (since there'll probably be a bit of dialogue for an intro and whatnot).
On a side note, the price for Kotori, the presidents and Jupiter are probably cheaper since they have lesser appearances and roles.
If iM@S is expensive, it's justified.
The only price reference I have is BlazBlue (a 2D fighting game). DLC characters cost... about 8 or so dollars? Definitely around that range. Hypothetically, if these DLC characters are strictly for S4U only, then they'd probably cost a little more, maybe a 15 dollar range (except more because Microsoft Points are overpriced loool). My estimated fantasy price considers the work put into modeling the DLC characters and clothing and obviously the voicing for the songs.
But hey, from what I understand, I believe animating sprites for Blazblue probably costs more than simply making new 3D character models (which they probably already have a mold for). Maybe that fact would actually lower a DLC character's price. Orrrrrrr Namco will be money-mongers and will just overprice. lol
First up, welcome!
Actually, I have to stand against the belief that spriting costs more than modeling. Spriting, specially for recent sprites, is just a matter of drawing frame-by-frame actions (And some people can cheat their way out of their many animation details). Why I say modeling (mainly compared to iM@S) is more expensive is that you even if they use only one mold all of the cast, to change it to match a character's hairstyle, height, three-sizes, etc... would take time (models of that variety could have over 1,000,000+ polys. And then there's skinning and the clothes. I'm sorry. I'm being a nerd again (And I only heard of most of these stuff. An actual modeler might express this in better and more painful detail).
