Game Industry Fights Rising Development Costs 111
An anonymous reader writes "Video game development budgets have been rising for years, and the recent launch of a new generation of consoles has only made it worse. Developers of AAA titles are now fighting to keep costs manageable while providing the technological advances gamers have come to expect. Just a few years ago, budgets ranging above $100 million were considered absurd, but now Activision is committing $500 million to a new IP from the studio that created Halo. Alan Roberts, technical director for Playground Games, says development teams keep expanding: 'Our in-house development team is roughly 20 per cent bigger than it was on last-gen, but we're doing even more with outsourcers this time in order to create content to the level of detail required by new generation games.' He adds that one way studios are trying to defray costs is to put more effort into building great tools for content creators."
virtual worlds (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
real money.
Uh, not only that, but an absolute fuckload of money, which is why I find this bitching about increased costs about as meaningful as a billionaire bitching about the price of lunch.
So sorry you gaming juggernauts can't maintain obscene profit levels forever. My tiny violin weeps.
Re: (Score:3)
real money.
No its not.
Re: (Score:2)
real money.
What? I thought it was US Dollars...
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
Now they'll finally have enough money to hire decent writers!
Re: (Score:2)
If you want decent writers, you'll have to skip the AAA environment in most cases and go to cRPG's.
In a way... (Score:2)
Now they'll finally have enough money to hire decent writers!
BattleField 4 (BF4)... (a sore spot)
Origin and Dice had the money, then dropped the ball in so many ways, that many are quitting BF4 or going back to BF3. Between the connection issues, bad color, unbelievable issues on a patch; things that would work prior don't anymore. It's become: christ! what the hell are up going to break this time.
Acquiring the name of BrokenField, even BattleField Friends is taking pot shots at the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] you can also read the discontent in the comme
Re: (Score:2)
Now they'll finally have enough money to hire decent writers!
BattleField 4 (BF4)... (a sore spot)
Origin and Dice had the money, then dropped the ball in so many ways, that many are quitting BF4 or going back to BF3. Between the connection issues, bad color, unbelievable issues on a patch; things that would work prior don't anymore. It's become: christ! what the hell are up going to break this time.
You mean EA and DICE.
I loved the Battlefield series, from 1942 all the way to BFBC 2. Even the bad games like BF:Vietnam and BF2142 weren't that bad... until Battlefield 3.
BF3 broke the gameplay shockingly, the weapon upgrades were horribly overpowered and you'd get XP no matter what you did, so basically someone who was bad at the game just had to keep sucking until they got the heavy barrel.
I played it for about 3 days and gave up. The final straw was a month later when I decided to give it anoth
Re: (Score:2)
Now they'll finally have enough money to hire decent writers!
BattleField 4 (BF4)... (a sore spot)
Origin and Dice had the money, then dropped the ball in so many ways, that many are quitting BF4 or going back to BF3. Between the connection issues, bad color, unbelievable issues on a patch; things that would work prior don't anymore. It's become: christ! what the hell are up going to break this time.
You mean EA and DICE.
I honestly don't know anymore. It was said EA would be Origin total change, you could go to EA.com and go straight to Origin it's not like that now so whatever. they've changed their minds guess the EA.com domain name didn't fetch that much.
I loved the Battlefield series, from 1942 all the way to BFBC 2. Even the bad games like BF:Vietnam and BF2142 weren't that bad... until Battlefield 3.
BF3 broke the gameplay shockingly, the weapon upgrades were horribly overpowered and you'd get XP no matter what you did, so basically someone who was bad at the game just had to keep sucking until they got the heavy barrel.
Played BFBC2 cause my clan was, and I just didn't care for it, put a lot of time into it as well. I gave it to my son to see if he liked.
I was CoD all the way. Played the hell out of CoD 4 have hundreds of custom maps. Ran a MW2 server through AlterIWNet, Black Ops was
Re: (Score:1)
Battelfield 2 was (and still is) good. It was a nice improvement over Battlefield Vietnam which made it on par with Battlefield 1942 in terms of gameplay. It took many of the gameplay features(?) introduced in BFV and put them into better game.
The one thing I never liked about it was the lack of ammo crates and first-aid cabinets on maps. You had to get team mates to come heal you. It also added the commander role which was good if an experienced player took the role and had a good team calling for supp
Re: (Score:1)
Dice? As in our new corporate overlords? As in the people keep trying to foist the crap that is Beta on us and not listen to us when we say is sucks?
Well, based on what I've seen, it's no wonder if they were involved in a game it turned out as shit.
Fuck Dice. Fuck Beta.
Slashdot used to be good before the new corporate overlords, and it's been in decline since.
Re: (Score:2)
Dice? As in our new corporate overlords? As in the people keep trying to foist the crap that is Beta on us and not listen to us when we say is sucks?
Well, based on what I've seen, it's no wonder if they were involved in a game it turned out as shit.
Fuck Dice. Fuck Beta.
Slashdot used to be good before the new corporate overlords, and it's been in decline since.
No, and I could see this one coming. Dice EA and Dice /. are two separate unrelated groups. Dice EA stands for Digital Illusions CE.
http://beta.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
"Thank you Mario, but our Princess is in another castle" is as much story as I need...sometimes not even that much (e.g. PS3's Journey, of which the entirety of all text and dialog that appears in the game can be quoted with the single word, "Journey"). Anything more may be nice, but is rarely necessary.
Re: (Score:2)
That applies if your game is somehow different or original (like Mario!). If your game is the seventh in a series and fourth to use the same engine, and just adds new maps (which aren't even a new challenge), you should at least add a story to it to make it worth people's money.
Of course, if people keep buying, why bother?
Re: (Score:2)
I did not intend to imply that, since I do agree with you, but given the way I phrased things, I can certainly see how that would be inferred.
Re: (Score:2)
Now they'll finally have enough money to hire decent writers!
unfortunately money makes them hire a cadre of writers who write the same universal bullshit. because doing otherwise is "too much risk".
and if the writer doesn't understand the engine the story gets butchered in the process anyways and you get dragon age II - or the writer just follows the points given to him, like "the ending depends on what the player chooses during the game" and decides to just make the choice happen 1 second before the game ends, because that's technically during the game.
Re: (Score:2)
Number includes marketing budget (Score:1)
Ridiculous summary with regards to the $500 million dollar figure. It includes the development AND MARKETING budgets!
Re:Number includes marketing budget (Score:5, Insightful)
Ridiculous summary with regards to the $500 million dollar figure. It includes the development AND MARKETING budgets!
Basically this. Destiny spent an estimate $360 million in Marketing and $140 million in Development, which is over a 2:1 ratio. CoD2:Modern Warfare 2 has a respective $150:$50 million or 3:1 split (Source [wikipedia.org]). When game companies are spending a small relative fraction on the actual development, there's a problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Not necessarily. They could make the greatest game ever, and if people have not heard of it, they'll go broke.
With games as large, complex, and art-heavy as they are today, you need to reach a huge audience at $50-$60 a game.
Spend on the game, not on spin (Score:4, Insightful)
It is however a strong indication of misplacement of priorities.
If you overspend on great marketing but produce a turd of a game, it will still fail. Case in point- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game) [wikipedia.org].
OTOH if you produce a great game but spend minimally on marketing, it can still succeed through word of mouth, etc. Case in point- Minecraft [wikipedia.org].
I rather doubt that any game falling into the category of "greatest game ever" or even a great game will fail without paid marketing so long as its accessible to players. Gamers tend to be quite vocal in sharing about games they're in love with.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. The problem is determinism. You can't find a team which guarantees delivery of AAA+ titles without fail and on schedule. But you can easily patch a so so game into selling millions with the right propaganda.
Not so much (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They spend like this because it's what gives them the best financial return. Not really a problem except perhaps it's the way our civilization (sic) is structured.
Re: (Score:1)
Haven't you heard? Programmers are a cost center. Filthy takers robbing those hard working executives of their bonuses and stock options. Fuck those liberal communist terrorist crooks for preventing me from working them more than 100 hours a week.
Those good boys in marketing? They're the important ones. They bring in the money! I was just chatting with Mark last weekend while snorting coke off a hooker's tits at our private ski resort. "If only we could somehow cut out those useless shit programmers and dev
Re: (Score:3)
Obligatory Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/articl... [theonion.com]
Re: (Score:2)
no, you simply outsource the development to where-ever is cheap.
American business doesn't need workers, they need executives to manage the important stuff: marketing, advertising, strategy, intellectual property, patents. That kind of stuff where the big bucks are.
Re: (Score:1)
That much is true, especially if you already have a fan base. The downside comes when you try to sell the next game after delivering something that barely deserves to be called a game, let alone a good one.
Re: (Score:2)
Well at least the coders and artists are still working for table scraps.
Procedural generation anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems a lot of the budgets goes into more shiny graphics, not necessarily into more sophisticated game play. Perhaps it is time to try something new, such as procedural generation of more game assets.
A good example would be Limit Theory, a space game currently in development where only the user interface is designed the traditional way. Ship models and asteroids are created by procedural generation. Here is the latest development update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2albJYS-wI [youtube.com]
Still looks a bit blocky, but considering the game had a $50.000 dollar goal on Kickstarter and the developer feels more than comfortable with the $187,865 that were pledged, the value for money is going to be impressive.
A slightly larger team with a budget of perhaps a few million should be able to do amazing things with that approach. Assuming the team members are as talented as Josh Parnell ;-)
Re:Procedural generation anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems a lot of the budgets goes into more shiny graphics, not necessarily into more sophisticated game play.
I don't know about "shiny" but when you can include more detail and larger levels then obviously that is far more taxing on artists and developers. Then if you give artists the freedom to specify the sort of highend effects that new generations of hardware are capable of you need extra development resources to make that happen. Increasing the power of the hardware is only one part of having next-gen titles, figuring out how to apply that power to bring game concepts to reality is another. Sure you could employ people to work at getting character animation right or you could hire a motion capture studio and actors to get it close to perfect and if you have the budget for that sort of thing then why not?
The high end of those budgets does include marketing as well - not just development - and I would say most of that is the marketing budget given the sort of campaigns that are being run to promote AAA titles these days.
Re: (Score:1)
There's also nothing to be fixed.
Competition at work. Obviously to make the most shiny game make the most money or they wouldn't be trying. So we get the most shiny expensive developed products.
If they can't compete there and can in some other area we get better games there too.
Some games sell for cheap and there's a market for those to.
And the "oh games was better in the old days" is likely complete bullshit because the new ones seem to allow more stuff, even if one tried to make an old style game it may b
Re: (Score:3)
I would qualify that and say that might make the most money.
But AAA titles have flopped, just like big budget Hollywood movies.
It is, however, entirely possible to still produce crap with a large budget, just like big budget Hollywood movies.
Sometimes, the people in control have no idea of what really makes a good product, they just take a checklist of everything from every other successful title and cram it in.
I think $500
Re: (Score:1)
Waterworld is a cool movie.
I want a ship of his style.
Another example I forgot (Score:3, Interesting)
I-Novae studios are doing something similar, AFAIK with a bit more budget and limited to terrain generation:
https://www.inovaestudios.com/Technology [inovaestudios.com]
This may be a better example of what a large game studio might go for. Overall a bit more conventional than Limit Theory, and needing more manpower, but still a big win in not having to model the terrain by hand.
Re: (Score:2)
Procedural generation doesn't solve the problem of, "What should this thing look like?"
For that, you need actual like, oh artists.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, perhaps it is the generation that can't understand procedural [programming] that is the issue ...
[/sarcasm]
Re: (Score:1)
Likely rather more and better implemented options and bigger more interesting environments.
The problem I have with the procedural is that there will be harder to make a good story, connection and make them make sense.
Say I explore a cave and meet people (guess WoW may make more sense) or drive around in a city doing quests (I don't know how GTA plays today but ..)
If it was procedural it would just be do this and that and all over with less connection, if it was planned though the bigger structure would make
Re: (Score:2)
I noticed the graphics thing way, way back. Playstation 2 brought it to my attention. Back then, I made the unqualified assertion that a video game's budget was some 10% graphics and 90% game on 2D sprite platforms; but on 3D platforms it was rising to mostly graphics and little game. The theory was simple: any idiot can get a pencil and learn to draw, then sketch things repeatedly; any idiot can learn to make pixel art, then pump out pixel sprites in minutes; but any idiot who learns how to model 3D s
Re: (Score:1)
What? That's exactly the way in which Limit Theory is headed o.O The GUI is completely procedural and node-based, far more advanced that most GUIs. Everything from the layout algorithms to the data presented is customizable by the player...
LT has been praised time and time again for ground-breaking UI. TBH I think you're a bit alone in your opinion :/
What advances? (Score:3)
Re:What advances? (Score:4, Interesting)
IMO, the greatest video game of all time is Star Control 2 (1993)
Great nominee but I'd go with Mail-Order Monsters [wikipedia.org] (1985), personally.
Re: (Score:2)
Superio graphics, AI and audio don't make a kick-ass game. IMO, the greatest video game of all time is Star Control 2 (1993)
Great nominee but I'd go with Mail-Order Monsters [wikipedia.org] (1985), personally.
A friend and I have been going back and playing some older games just because, and it's still remarkable just how few people it took to create some of those iconic games. Or some of those lesser-known gems. Some examples:
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's many other games that are better than Star Control 2, but it was a hell of a game. Speaking of which, for those that never played it you can get it for free here. [sourceforge.net] Since the source was placed into the public domain. In my book, Planescape: Torment ranks as number one, Starcon2 as number 2.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree, but there are certainly tours through beautiful worlds I'm happy to take. I recently finished Assassin's Creed IV on the Xbox One. It was freaking gorgeous. You could see individual blades of grass blowing in the wind. Amazing.
I think there's room in the gameosphere for both low-tech, fun games and AAA, beautiful games.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop outsourcing...? (Score:1)
How about stop coding on the cheap, release the game when it is ready, and release a "release-quality" version. Not an early beta. Not a late beta. Not a "preview". A quality version.
Want to make money? Focus on the long tail. Not POS DLC, but true expansions. Look at NWN 1 for how to do it right.
Want terrain left and right? We have had procedure generation for ages... and Everquest: Next is based around that. I had a prototype of it for a MMO with unlimited territory to explore back in the '90s.
Re: (Score:2)
How about stop coding on the cheap, release the game when it is ready, and release a "release-quality" version. Not an early beta. Not a late beta. Not a "preview". A quality version.
the problem is, coders generally want to get paid. you know, like work a job and get a salary. If you can find a bunch of coders and artists who will make a game on contingency, and get a cut of the eventual receipts, then this could work. but I won't work there.
The More They Spend The Less I Want (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Right. Cause they spend $400million on DRM and $100 million on everything else. Uh huh. Sure.
You should really buy my game! It is amazing! (Oh, and I have to kick you in the nuts every time you boot it...)
Could be why they need a 3:1 marketing budget.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm find with traditional DRM since the old school NES Cartridge is DRM, but not this Project 5 Dollar theft, and not this Always Online nonsense.
Always online games are giving way to free-to-p[l]ay games. I've been playing Star Trek Online a bit lately, yeah I like to wait until a game is well established and has lots of bugs worked out. And it's still full of bugs :) But it only cost me download time. Sure, I have to be online to play it, but at least there's some kind of reason why that should be true.
Re: (Score:3)
Or just some financial accounting trick/fraud to lessen or completely avoid taxes through some "outsourcing" tax haven parent company with "very expensive services" like many other multinational companies love to do.
Sure they are! Coming up with DRM that lasts a full day before getting cracked is expensive!
Re: (Score:1)
Build your 3D game mechanics with no textures, no sound, no dialogue, no content of any kind. Just use primitives for actors and procedurally generate everything else using colors and triangles/polys/meshes only.
So what have you built? Nothing, all you have is primitives in 3d space that you interact with (which is mind-numbingly trivial to build), how do you know if the interaction is properly engaging?
Then prove out all the temporal and spatial interactions between objects, using real world latency.
The required interactions are going to be dependent on the story and art and the latency is going to be dependent on the performance of the game which you don't know.
Permit customization of every action variable to be part of the iterative temporal goals of the player (customer).
You don't know what these are yet. What would all the action variables be for this generic concept that has no story and no design?
If you take an exist
Minecraft (Score:5, Insightful)
The best part about Minecraft's success is that in this period of neverending one-upmanship of glitz and glam in video games, Notch delivers a great game on practically gameplay alone.
Of course, there are plenty of other indie successes out there (Torchlight I/II), but Minecraft's target demographics is archetypal for gamers while it is the third most successful [wikipedia.org] game in the world (the top two target a wider range of demographics).
Re: (Score:2)
Minecraft really is a game, yes.
AAA bullshit (Score:1)
Who invented this AAA label, and what the fuck does it even mean? ASSHOLE-ASSHOLE-ASSHOLE?
Woe be to self-inflicted wounds, (Score:3, Interesting)
I have worked in the game industry since the late 90's. This is a smokescreen. It is, internally, a well-understood principle that your games needs a minimum of $70k today for marketing *alone*.
That does not include development at any level.
Beyond that, I am confident in saying that *at least* 50% of actual development costs are wasted due to poor management, marketing-driven-design, and a general lack of focus.
When the game industry decided to raise the retail cost of their games to $60, (with the reason of increased development costs) at that time it was already a sham.
Now that this article has come out on their struggles against the costs of development, I want to make one thing clear to everyone who has the chance to read this:
1) When a development studio goes out of business due to lack of funds, it is, every time, due to poor management and internal irresponsibility with funding.
2) The claim of rising development costs is nothing more than greedy stake-holders crying for more profit.
3) It does not cost that much to develop games today, as aside from marketing/advertising, it costs less than a million dollars to develop even the most technically challenging project today.
I had a lot more to say, but I'm too angry now. And that I won't post non-anonymously, I can't really provide anything more than this comment and my anger.
Re: (Score:1)
A related piece of info is that the gaming industry is known for overwork. In one well-publicized case with EA, they started crunch on day one.
Why do we have 40 hour work week? Empirical testing a century ago showed that it was the most efficient amount of work to extract for manufacturing. As we creep above 40 hours, weariness begins to accumulate, which results in decreasing productivity and increasing mistakes. After a few months of 60 hour weeks, less will be produced than if the same team had worke
Good games give players interesting choices (Score:4, Insightful)
Games are about interactive gameplay, not hi-def graphics.
Good games challenge the player with interesting choices, and do not attempt to cover up a void of interesting choices with reams of meaningless dialog in very pretty non-interactive cutscenes and the like.
Re: (Score:2)
If that's what they care about, they are not real Gamers. Simple as that.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, not a true scots... er gamer.
Re: (Score:2)
Games are about interactive gameplay, not hi-def graphics.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Interesting Theory! (Score:1)
Maybe cut out the overabundant cutscenes. (Score:2)
The studios might save a few dollars. Making these has got to comprise a double-digit percentage of development costs because games are filled with them nowadays.
I play a game to play the game, not watch countless movie-clips.
Some games today have so many cutscenes that it seems the gameplay was added just to show off the 'fab' cutscenes.
Re: (Score:2)
Voice acting... ugh (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a huge waste of time and money imo. No friend I've gamed with ever really gave a flying frack about fully voice acted dialogs. Though I only beta tested, since I didn't like the game, Elder Scrolls online for example -- there was SO much pointless voice acting, with well-known to famous actors (like John Cleese). How much money did they spend on that? Most people just click through thinking 'yeah... yeah... give me the #$%! quest already'. They apparently spent a small fortune developing it, and aft
Re: (Score:3)
Your friends who are gamers essentially form a self-selected group where your opinions either are similar, or become similar via conversations about those opinions.
I don't need famous people, but it does need to be on the far side of believable. If you sound like you don't care about your quest, I'm likely to just chop you to bits and consider I'm doing you a favor.
Also, may I suggest that if you repeatedly find "cliched, overused, derivative crap" you probably need to play fewer games. I say this because
Re: (Score:2)
I also think many game companies have become obsessed with 'oh shiney!' tech
What does that even mean? You really think going to best effort to fulfill the vision of the art designers is the just idiotic cliche of "oh shiny"? Some art designs don't require putting effort into realistic graphics, sound, physics, voice acting, motion capture, etc... (WoW, Limbo for example) but some do (Doom 3, Crysis for example), and yeah I know those games are just so mainstream.
Re: (Score:2)
When gamers complain about unnecessary voice acting, I often wonder if they're reacting more to the poor writing and storytelling within a game. There's no need for voice acting if the dialogue is written poorly - it will only exacerbate the issue. Likewise, there's no need even for good writing if there's no interesting or coherent narrative to hang it off of, or gameplay that actually supports that narrative. This makes the dialogue, however well written, feel like a separate and therefore unnecessary
Re: (Score:1)
If it's done well, then yes, voice acting can enhance a game. But if writing and storytelling are weak, you might as well go back to displaying the text only and save a few bucks. Same for bad voice actors.
I call BS... (Score:2)
Somehow they have convinced themselves that advertising dollars is part of development costs.
Trailers (Score:1)
Canceling pre-rendered and absolutely unrelated to actual gameplay trailers with bullshit that you can never actually do in-game - that would cut costs at no loss
They think money makes a game good... (Score:2)
Wrong priorities and self-inflicted wounds (Score:3)
The problem is that the industry is spending the money on wrong things - massive marketing, shiny graphics, motion capture for animation ... Unfortunately, most of that is extremely expensive and laborious. I really don't need my next stupid shooter game to have motion captured animations of every monster done by AAA Hollywood mocap specialists at several thousands of $/hour.
And as the "next gen" has to be bigger, better, shinier than the "last gen", the costs spiral out of control. Another consequence of this blockbuster mentality is that only few innovative "AAA" games get made, because nobody wants to take risks with such budgets - but how many times can you redo Doom?
It is possible to make and release games cheaper, even big titles (just look at the Witcher series). The companies and publishers need to start to work smarter, not just pour more money at the problem. However, when the most complex AI in games are finite state machines and motion capture is considered as "AI" (true quote from one major studio exec), every bit of content is hand modelled, textured and baked instead of some sort of automation or more clever game design, when the "next gen" game innovation stops with rendering more nose hair and dirty pores (or bigger boobs) of the main protagonist than the "last gen", then I am really sceptical ...
Oh and cut out the middle men and stop reinventing the wheel for the sake of greed (Origin by EA anyone?). You will cut your expenses by a factor of 2 right there.