Cost of Game Development is 'Crazy' Says EA

GamesIndustry.biz has the word from Alan Tascan, general manager of EA's Montreal studio, who has gone on record saying that development costs are 'crazy' in this next-gen world. From the article: "When asked whether he'd agree that it's larger companies like EA which are driving bigger game budgets, Tascan replied, 'I think a lot of [other companies] are spending even more money. It's people who want that, it's not EA per se ... I said to some of the guys here, "The gamer is not buying lines of code; you have to promise him enough entertainment for him to put his hand in his pocket and buy the game." It's a lot of money, so you need to give him a show, and we're just here to deliver the show.'"

Cry me a river...

[Joe Snipe]

You think it's pricey to make games? I have to pay $699 for the console to play them!

This has been bothering me for a while.

[Canthros]

The cost of game development has skyrocketed over the last thirty years. In the last ten years or so (the period during which I have actually been paying attention), I'd say that it's arguable just how much benefit this has produced for the game industry or their customers.

Maybe they should be focusing on making the games fun to play, instead of entertaining to watch?

Blah

[MeanderingMind]

What is EA doing? Paying each football player to come into their motion capture studios to perfectly imitate the way each runs? Taking hi res photos of their faces to perfectly texture them?

There's a cost for HD games, and it isn't cheap. However, I think EA is calling sour grapes because companies like Capcom, Team Ninja and Square-Enix are able to make games that are stunning, fun, and wildly profitable while EA doesn't make the grade in any of those.

The sad truth of Spore is that it will be a great game, but in so being it will allow EA to continue their overbloated and inefficient methods.

Says who?

[antek9]

I'm sure EA can cut down on development costs like they did for some years by releasing sequel after sequel, not counting spin-offs.

EA might just be whining because they have to start from somewhere near scratch with a new architecture like the CELL within the PS3 (which unlike the Wii is not just an update of a former system); something that more respectable developers do for any new game that tries to make a new idea become reality.

EA also has more fixed costs in the licensing department, I guess. It won't be so cheap incorporating all those sports celebrities, real team & player names, car brands and technical specs and what have you. But that's up to their own conceptual decision, crazy as it may be.

If I want a show...

[karrde]

I'll go watch a movie.

When I pay for gaming entertainment, I want a game, something fun. This is why I bought a Wii. Companys can focus on the fun factor and not have to blow me away with showy graphics.

Re:This has been bothering me for a while.

[Phydeaux314]

Why do they have to be mutually exclusive? It's possible to make games that have an entertaining plotline and decent graphics quality. I mean, Half-Life was by no means "groundbreaking" as far as graphics go, but it was still pretty - and fun to play. Hell, it was based off of a modified quake 1 engine! I think the problem lies in the development time. When a game is rushed to the door to meet an arbitrary deadline, quality suffers. 8 years ago, a normal game development cycle was about 2-3 years, tops. We all laughed at dakitana for taking 4 and a half, saying that's what killed it. Now, it seems, all the "insightful" or "groundbreaking" games spend at least that long in development. Oblivion, Half-Life 2, etc. are all good examples of this. It boils down to this: If you have enough time, you can work on eye candy AND on playability. Save the $500,000 on licensed technology for whatever and do it in-house. Not only is it easier to suit it to your needs, but it's more unique.

Re:No Problem

[eln]

Licensing.

Re:Cry me a river...

[fistfullast33l]

I have no pity for EA. All they've been doing is complaining lately. Heck, two months ago EA was complaining that the PSP is a horrible [slashdot.org] platform [arstechnica.com]! They seem to be the only ones having an issue with it, however, as all their games have either been buggy [ign.com] on release [ign.com] or just plain slow and choppy (Sims 2 I'm looking at you). I say stop complaining about costs, shrink your development team sizes, get your products under control, and release some quality games and you'll see your costs decrease. EA really annoyed me with their support of the PSP to the point where I'm not buying any of their games at this point. The only exception I might make is Spore, but that's it.

Re:No Problem

[stoolpigeon]

I really don't understand where the money goes for the annual sports game like FIFA ## & Madden ## (although I've not actually played Madden). The graphics and gameplay show only extremely minor improvements year on year, yet they claim development costs of many millions.
 
So where does the money actually go?
 
 

the nfl didn't give them an exclusive contract for peanuts

Re:Cry me a river...

[stoolpigeon]

right - you can only look at the cost of production in light of the revenue generated. pro athletes make 'crazy' money because fans pay 'crazy' money for tickets and merchandise. but i'm not sure he was complaining as just saying he didn't think the current situation was sustainable.

Re:Being a Spelling Nazi

[itsdapead]

Umm, it's "per se". I realize this is how different flavours of languages propagate over the ages, but I'm all in favor of keeping English as unified as possible.

I think you'll find per se is Latin :-)

Re:How does this compare to movies.

[fistfullast33l]

I agree with you. Most movies do cost more to produce. Some would say that movies are mass-marketed to a wider audience. However, everyone has heard that the games industry is second in sales only to porn. They beat the music and the movie industries. Such is the cost of stardom - if your business is big it's going to cost more to play. People know you're making money hand over fist and they're going to want a piece of that pie. And once you're required to meet and exceed expectations, quality is going to have to increase as well, which costs money. I say shut up and make a decent game. They finally reduced the size of packaging and digital distribution is on the horizon - hell it's already here. That will save them a boatload of money.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost of game development is so insane because these companies are making formulaic games. They want more triangles, more models, more levels, more sound, but when you strip it all down, you're left with nothing but a flashy version of Doom, and game companies need to start to realize this. Yes the next iteration will cost more, because you're doing more of THE SAME THING.

Re:Cry me a river...

[erbbysam]

You think it's pricey to make games? I have to pay $699 for the console to play them!
and even then the next-gen consoles are 'loss leaders'.

Games have always been hard to produce the only difference between then and now is that they have more pixels to work with which means more graphics to create, not necessarily more gameplay. Gamers, in general, have been spoiled by the great control of games like 'Halo' and 'God of War' and the length of games like 'DeusEx', I think that this is just EA crying about how difficult it is to compete in the cutthroat industry that they have a firm grasp on.

How many times do we have to hear it?

[LiquidHAL]

Generic comment about how games should be fun and developers "aren't getting it"

Re:If I want a show...

[xtmno4]

Agreed.

A gaming console is a specific computer made for the sole purpose of playing games / enjoying yourself. To that end, they should provide things that a standard PC is not really made to do, which is why I like the Wii. Yes, you can make the Wiimote work on a PC, but no game developer is going to try and market a PC game towards that. By creating one standard and interactive device for gamers to play with, Nintendo has given the Wii a good amount of backing for developers to market to. To that end, I see Nintendo doing well with the Wii.

Sony and Microsoft have a battle ahead of themselves, with each other. Both offer a system with some online capabilities, and similar game sets. The problem with both is that they don't really offer anything that a standard PC can't offer. People have had USB controllers for a long time, and have played games with them. The only real thing they offer is the online marketplace / community, but that can be somewhat easily done on a PC. What the two companies need to realize is that the 'hardcore' games that take a ton of hours to complete would be best suited for a PC anyway. On a PC you can run Ventrilo, Winamp, AIM, a web-browser, etc, all at the same time you play. That way, you can have you fun in the game, and add whatever else on top of it you want.

Because they are similar, and in my opinion in trouble, Microsoft and Sony have some work ahead of them. I feel that if Microsoft wants to continue to do well into the future, they would do best to shift to the PC gaming market. They already have an operating system they could work with, it just seems to make sense. I think if they continue as they currently have, they will do alright in the next gen (after 360), but die after that.

I think Sony will be too stubborn to change gears and will continue to try and push more hardware and expense into a box that people won't find fun. I believe that they might try to make a PS4 eventually, but it will fail miserably.

If either company tries to mimic Nintendo and make the console more interactive and offer more than a PC can, they will find a hard road. Nintendo already has the marketplace for that. It is much like the iPod and the Zune. The Zune may offer the same things as the iPod, plus a little bit, but it is just too late.

If game developers would simply make fun and interactive console games for things like the Wii, I think they would see the best success. If you want to develop a blockbuster of a game/movie, it would be best marketed to a PC, because you have a bigger audience, and less proprietary garbage to deal with.

Sorry to make it so long, but it is hard to show the picture I see with only part of it.

Hmmm... I wonder if buying up all the rights...

[Assmasher]

...to the leagues, team names, and players EVERY YEAR so that nobody else can use the player's actual name or the team's name in their games is maybe one of the reasons their games cost so much? Hmmmm? ;)

Re:Cry me a river...

[Osiris Ani]

Games have always been hard to produce the only difference between then and now is that they have more pixels to work with which means more graphics to create, not necessarily more gameplay.

So the physics model for Pong wasn't really all that different than that of, say, Quake 4? The greater complexity and raw power of more modern systems allow for more expansive gameplay beyond the pushing of pixels and shaders. The AI, the level of interaction with the environment, and the immersive qualities of the audio fields are only a few of the ways that games have evolved since the offerings available during my childhood.

Relegating the changes to mere visual aesthetic modifications completely discounts the capabilities that the technology allows as well as the pure academic research that led to each of these advances. From a tech-geek standpoint, your assertion is almost offensive.

Re:define 'crazy'

[91degrees]

Okay - 30 developers, 100K each, 2 years would be $6 million. These are fairly typical ballpark figues but there other costs as well. Dev teams range from half that size to about 3 times that size, employee costs are probably fairly variable and depend a lot on location. Development times are usually at least a year and rarely more than 3 (BOCTAOE). So lets say between $3 million and $60 million.

Re:How does this compare to movies.

[Duds]

There is a different though.

A blockbuster film has a cinema run, then a PPV TV run, then a DVD run, then a network TV run and a really big movie will have tickover DVD sales for many years and will continue to sell at a reasonable trickle on Hd-DVD and then whatever future formats we have. For instance, Blade Runner is STILL selling on DVD now, 20 years after release, it's still making money. The original dev costs of these films when moved to HD-DVD from DVD will be minimal.

A game comes out, it sells for a month and largely dissapears completely except for a possible blip when reduced in price (which is something movies will get anyway). At best 5 years after the game release there's a new format and making a proper version for that will be near to or more expensive than the original game dev was.

So comparing budgets to prices to "unit sales" isn't terribly helpful.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

BFME doesnt break ~any~ ground

Re:Cry me a river...

[Moofie]

EA is reaping what they have sown. I have not any sympathy. /former EA employee

Re:Some Groundbreaking EA games

[Chibi Merrow]

Well since the Grandparent first referred to EA as a developer first, I think it might be interesting to look at your examples...

Archon - Free Fall Associates
M.U.L.E - Ozark_Softscape
The Bard's Tale - Interplay
Starflight - Binary Systems

Notice a pattern? Not a single one of those games was developed by EA. EA just distributed it. That would be like giving RCA credit for Elvis Presley's singing. Which was the grandparent's point, as far as developers go they're not looking to be innovative or original. They're aiming squarely at the frat boy market. And there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't come back and cry to us later about how tough the market you're in is.

The fact they've published some other people's work that was innovative really doesn't make up for their Cronus like approach to the studios they work with in recent years...

Re:Meh.

[Moofie]

"EA fits both categories, they have highly experimental games coming from studios they own like Maxis."

That's a pretty serious oversimplification. EA bought Maxis, and then tried to kill The Sims. Any "highly experimental" game that comes out of EA is an accident, not an experiment.

Re:Meh.

[0xdeadbeef]

They're not starving artists, they're a company that needs to pull a profit to keep people employed and to (hopefully) develop new and better products.

You do realize this attitude is antithetical to their whining about the conditions of the market? Oh noes! Making money has gotten hard now that our competition is emulating our successful strategy! It's not fair!

I say pile on the cheap-shots. Only undeserving douchebags employ loser-talk while they're fucking the prom queen.

Re:Cry me a river...

[jackbird]

How about the difference between Quake 4 and Quake 1? Is that really a decade of progress?

Does Dead Rising allow the same richness of interaction with the environment that any Infocom text adventure did?

Great advancements are being made in gameplay today (the Wii controller being a very visible example among many), but there's a lot of rehashed shiny same-old as well. Sort of like how there are some great films being made today, but a surprising number of outright remakes of old B-movies with better VFX.

Re:Meh.

[suv4x4]

That's a pretty serious oversimplification. EA bought Maxis, and then tried to kill The Sims. Any "highly experimental" game that comes out of EA is an accident, not an experiment.

Actually mine was the right oversimplification, and your is putting a human face on a corporation, which we know it's not.

The momet Maxis was purchased by EA, it's part of EA corporation and that's all. From that point on, it's business as usual. If EA's strategy is wrong, they won't profit, won't be on the market. They don't cut strange deals on blank CD media, consoles and don't sue 80 year old grandmas for pirating Need for Speed.

They profit in only one way: people like and buy their games.

Re:Nintendo

[fistfullast33l]

Bring someone up on multi-core programming and I'd bet they'd find programming for a single core a bitch too.

I'm going to disagree with you there. They might find it a bit limiting but I doubt they'd complain too much. First, the simplicity of one core makes it far simpler to code for one core - there are many issues you just don't need to worry about. Second, there really isn't anyone whose being "brought up" on multi-core programming. Most developers are trained on single core (if they learn anything about processor programming at all) and it's only those interested in distributed programming and the like that would move to multi-core. You can't crawl before you walk, or something like that.

Here's a nutty idea: invest in fun not licenses

[tenzig_112]

The gentleman from EA is right to blame consumers for the cost problem. We like to buy expensive-looking games even if they turn out to be not all that fun. Game design has taken a back seat to shelf appeal, and we've done it to ourselves. Meanwhile, high profile games are becoming less and less fun to play. How many FPS games do we really need? You might as well slap a "100% recycled content" sticker on every game sold in the US.

How much money does it actually cost to develop a fun game? Contrast that with costs of licensing movie characters or (worse) putting your entire production staff on the task of reworking animations for yet another Madden sequel. I'd argue that the real cost here is risk. Rather than assemble a number of small teams to make a bizarre game that could turn into a franchise, EA opts (more and more often) to play it safe by spending scads of cash on a sure thing.

Then again, maybe he's pining for the old days when he could order up a cash cow sequel much cheaper.

Either way, the next time you throw down your controler in dusgust at that $50 worth of deja vu you just purchased, we have only ourselves to blame.

Re:ea sucks

[east coast]

Everyone who doesn't have a negative opinion of EA doesnt know jack about games.

Like I am having trouble believing that you are not some sort of shill for EA.

I didnt actually play the games you mentioned.

Thanks for the input. I can tell this is a fairly insightful set of remarks... You never played the games I mention but you know they have to suck (and I do to) simply because they're from EA? Fantastic. BTW: I never played most of the games you mentioned either, but I know enough to hold my tongue about making broad statements about an entire company because I like a few of their products. I did play the demo for BF2 and found it to be only moderately entertaining. I never had any of the problems you describe, but it was only a demo.

I don't play sports games but I have heard them roundly condemed by everyone who does.

Yeah, I hear this about Maden all the time... That's how it manages to remain one of the biggest selling game titles of all time, because the same people ("everyone" according to you) who hates the game buys it when the new year's version comes out. Again, I've never played the game.

Thanks for the rant and the insults.

Re:Cry me a river...

[misleb]

How far back are you going when you say "then?" Because I'm pretty sure that the AI in Space Invaders, for example, is trivial compared to most modern games. Games HAVE increased in complexity significantly over the years. There is so much that a game developer has to work on these days. AI, network mutiplayer issues, complex physics models, gameplay balancing, etc. The only really difficult part about developing games in the past was making them fit in very tight spaces because memory was always tight. Not that i am trivializing that process, but come on. What half decent programmer couldn't put together a "Pong" clone in less than a week? These days game development cycles measure in months and years with large teams of programmers and designers. There is much more than just extra "pixels" in there. It is like comparing a major motion picture to a photograph.

-matthew

Re:Cry me a river...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can really see Dead Rising's photography gameplay mechanic working as a text adventure.

"take picture of zombies" versus running and jumping around the environment dodging enemies to get the exact right shot of a zombie horde massacring a civilian before they finish ripping limbs off and turn on you. It's clearly more complex gameplay.

I'm looking to break in as a game developer...

[AmazingRuss]

...and as such am fairly desperate for that first job. However, because of their reputation as a sweatship, EA is not somebody I'd want to work for.
I can't see why any hotshot developer would work for them, either.

Other outfits may be sweatshops, too, but EA is a known sweatshop.

Re:No Problem

[HeavenlyBankAcct]

Trust me, it takes just as long to re-factor and "fix" legacy code that's been hacked and re-hacked for years as it does to write it from scratch. Speaking from experience here, the iterative nature of titles like Madden and FIFA leads to a more difficult, bloated production cycle than you'd expect. Think about it -- You're a new developer working on a project and you get handed a library of code that's been 'resused' and 'modified' under 'tight time constraints' (aka "hacked") for YEARS. You have to spend time familiarizing yourself with this spaghetti mess, and as such, your productivity declines. Your managers see this occuring across the board and throw more people at the problem. Now you have four or five people who are unfamiliar with the project working on it, adding in their modifications, and making their own 'modifications' under 'tight time constraints' (aka "hacks"). What do you think ends up happening the next year when a whole new batch of people are thrown onto the project? I'd suggest turning to your dog-eared copies of The Mythical Man-Month [wikipedia.org] before you attempt to divy exactly what is going on behind the scenes at EA, and probably a lot more of the bigger developers out there. The cost of game development gets "crazy" because these huge companies are falling into the common trap where they've become convinced that the answer to any development problem is "MORE RESOURCES." The concept of working in a streamlined environment has long since been abandoned in favor of a "big business" mentality where the whole somehow is percieved as greater than the sum of the parts.

Re:No Problem

[Tim Browse]

Trust me, if you want to blast the suppliers of development tools for games consoles, then you're way off base aiming at Microsoft. There are other manufacturers who are much worse. Anyway, for the Xbox, the version of DX was frozen for quite a while (v8.1, I think) - it might have been updated, but I don't think so. That's kind of the point of a console - it's a fixed platform. You don't need to "retest/redevelop games every year".