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CMDBob · May 18, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqaMzoq0omM

I'm glad that more games that devs want to make and people want to play are appearing thanks to Kickstarter, and it is funny how the risk averse companies are scared of dependable titles that earn good but not great money instead of the games that suck up money and hardly ever pay off. Ah well!

Nick_C · May 18, 2015

There's something extremely sastifying in telling the same pubs that have helped to make AAA game development the sad state it is today to fuck off because they were wrong about what people wanted the whole time.

Tizoc · May 18, 2015

How different were the budgets of games made during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s compared to the budget of games made in the past 10ish years?

zogged · May 18, 2015

Makes me wonder if del Toro is gonna end up looking towards crowdfunding to finally get his horror project off the ground. After 2 fails with publishers I can't imagine he'd be keen to try it a third time.

Hatchtag · May 18, 2015

zogged said:
Makes me wonder if del Toro is gonna end up looking towards crowdfunding to finally get his horror project off the ground. After 2 fails with publishers I can't imagine he'd be keen to try it a third time.

Yeah, that del Toro seems low on money these days. Hopefully he can scrape up enough to get by.

Jonnax · May 18, 2015

Venetian Masks?!?! Yez. I'm excited.

A great thing about the modern games industry with digital distribution is that that essentially anyone with a game can get themselves published to a large audience. It's great.

Steroyd · May 18, 2015

Tizoc said:
How different were the budgets of games made during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s compared to the budget of games made in the past 10ish years?

Almost a pointless question to ask because we'd be pretty much comparing a guy (or girl) making a game on their computer in a basement versus the 300+ people studios that we have in the current climate.

The sad thing is you don't need that scale to make a game that can get popular.

z1ggy · May 18, 2015

Jim is right, publishers just want to sell unrealistic number of games...Instead of blowing up budgets, they should aim to sell 300k~1 million copies...

ciddative · May 18, 2015

Loved the Pretenders line - always lots of great little image gags in these.

Also what an ending!

And fuck Konami

Stumpokapow · May 18, 2015

Tizoc said:
How different were the budgets of games made during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s compared to the budget of games made in the past 10ish years?

NES-era games were routinely made by 1-2 people in 4-6 months. So we'll say at most a person-year.

Today games take 200-300 people 2-3 years. So we'll say at most 900 person-years.

This with inflation, increasing professionalization and the creation of a management class, and increased external expenses for promotion, advertising, localization, voice acting, asset outsourcing, etc.

SatelliteOfLove · May 18, 2015

This is another great Jimquisition summarizing part of my "Gen 7 was a destructive superstitious madhouse". Been saying this for YEARS.

Hatchtag said:
Yeah, that del Toro seems low on money these days. Hopefully he can scrape up enough to get by.

He's said in an interview after that brewhaha went down that it's more about his heart being hurt regarding the matter.

NastyBook · May 18, 2015

My money is ready for Unliving Vacuum.

tebunker · May 18, 2015

z1ggy said:
Jim is right, publishers just want to sell unrealistic number of games...Instead of blowing up budgets, they should aim to sell 300k~1 million copies...

Well the reality boils down to ROI more than anything. That $100 million spent on 1 game is expected to return more than $100 million spent on 5 games. However where this falls apart is with regards to catalog sales and goodwill and who knows if one of the 5 may blow up to be a huge success. The other part being that it is technically cheaper to make 1 game vs 5 games because you can specialize and focus all marketing on one title.

So while it is shitty from a fans perspective you can see why it happened from a business perspective.

Honestly we can just blame publicly traded companies for this. They have to answer to shareholders and not customers. Which seems backwards and long term it is, but such is the way of the world right now.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · May 18, 2015

Tizoc said:
How different were the budgets of games made during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s compared to the budget of games made in the past 10ish years?

In the 80s, a lot of games basically had modern indie game budgets. Not even necessarily large indie game budgets.

Chrono Trigger was pretty much a AAA game of the early 90s and as far as I can tell, it had a staff size of around 70 people working for about 2 years. Chances are, most of the staff wasn't working on the game for the entire time though.

Slayven · May 18, 2015

CMDBob said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqaMzoq0omM

I'm glad that more games that devs want to make and people want to play are appearing thanks to Kickstarter, and it is funny how the risk averse companies are scared of dependable titles that earn good but not great money instead of the games that suck up money and hardly ever pay off. Ah well!

Too be fair they are risk averse because they are playing with their own money. Kickstarter has very little risk for the devs that use it.

SpacePirate Ridley · May 18, 2015

So positive, sooo good (but of course, always cautious).
Im sure Jim would love to have each week something positive to talk about.

Demon Lizardman · May 18, 2015

I just think that devs should've spend a shitload of money of every game they make.

Jim Sterling · May 18, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
NES-era games were routinely made by 1-2 people in 4-6 months. So we'll say at most a person-year.

Today games take 200-300 people 2-3 years. So we'll say at most 900 person-years.

This with inflation, increasing professionalization and the creation of a management class, and increased external expenses for promotion, advertising, localization, voice acting, asset outsourcing, etc.

It is worth nothing, however, that these budgetary inflations are all the choice of the publisher. In a world where Minecraft is one of the biggest hits of the world, and Valve's squeezed big hits out of one dated engine for years, there's enough proof that games don't need to be as expensive as they are - or at the very least, not ALL games need to be that expensive.

Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

Raging Spaniard · May 18, 2015

Theres a few things to consider, people see the success of the Yokaah or Bloodstained Kickstarters as "proof" that this is what people want and that Konami/Microsoft are dumb for not making these games. In reality, theyre not really dumb.

If Broken Age, Bloodstained or Yookah sell a million COPIES, then yeah, thats when publishers notice. But the kickstarter numbers amount for about 30 to 50 thousand copies which as far as a publisher sees it? Thats nothing.

Geg · May 18, 2015

I hope there can be a "fuck Konami" in every video for a while

Kintaro · May 18, 2015

Jim Sterling said:
Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

As a retailer for the past almost decade, I would argue that consumers had a pretty big hand in killing off "middle shelf" games themselves as well. Especially at retail.

Rflagg · May 18, 2015

Geg said:
I hope there can be a "fuck Konami" in every video for a while

I can get behind this

Good stuff like always, I will forever be thankful kick starter exists,even if no other good game gets made through it(they will) because it pretty much saved obsidian.

silvermember · May 18, 2015

z1ggy said:
Jim is right, publishers just want to sell unrealistic number of games...Instead of blowing up budgets, they should aim to sell 300k~1 million copies...

once you reach a certain size, you can no longer participate in smaller markets. Your shareholders expect big numbers, hence why they invest in your company. If you do not provide big numbers expect to be canned. This is true for most businesses.

Which is why sometimes companies split off into two like HP did.

The other reason is that the market demands games with great voice acting, great graphics, etc. All of those things are not cheap to do in most counties. The point being gamers want it all and that cost a lot of money.

yatesl · May 18, 2015

What happened to the guy who normally made these topics?

It feels weird not seeing their avatar next to the post.

The Broken Ska Record · May 18, 2015

Jim Sterling said:
Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

Absolutely this. I loved B-tier releases. Sure they didn't have the fancy looks or shiny exterior, they were just fun games that could be pretty unique.

At least it feels like indies are filling in the gaps of current publishers.

diffusionx · May 18, 2015

The Broken Ska Record said:
Absolutely this. I loved B-tier releases. Sure they didn't have the fancy looks or shiny exterior, they were just fun games that could be pretty unique.

At least it feels like indies are filling in the gaps of current publishers.

Indies *are* the "b-tier" releases. Except, instead of publishing hiring people and paying them money to make them, developers are on their own. Good or bad thing? A little of both, I would say.

fader · May 18, 2015

Jim Sterling said:
Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

*cough* CAPCOM *cough*

silvermember · May 18, 2015

Jim Sterling said:
It is worth nothing, however, that these budgetary inflations are all the choice of the publisher. In a world where Minecraft is one of the biggest hits of the world, and Valve's squeezed big hits out of one dated engine for years, there's enough proof that games don't need to be as expensive as they are - or at the very least, not ALL games need to be that expensive.

Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

Publishers are not a unified group of people that work together, if they did it would be illegal, so your last statement is meaningless. Secondly, the people buying habits kill the middle shelf games, publishers are going to make what sells not what a fringe fraction of the population buys. Thirdly, player expectation of games significantly increase, players want fancy graphics, high quality voice acting and all the bells and whistles, which acts like a barrier of entry to many middle shelf developers.

When a middle shelf developer fails to match the quality of provided by AAA reviewers end up destroying and trashing the game and nobody buys it.

Finally, not every game can be minecraft, just like not every game can be WOW. Minecraft is a very unique idea at its time that thanks to a combination of luck got bigger than its creator had imagined.

The Broken Ska Record said:
Absolutely this. I loved B-tier releases. Sure they didn't have the fancy looks or shiny exterior, they were just fun games that could be pretty unique.

At least it feels like indies are filling in the gaps of current publishers.

This is not unique to the video game industry. Most disruptive innovations (think Netflix, facebook, snap cat, oculus rift) are done by entrepreneurs, while larger companies are focused on sustaining innovation (think ps4, it is simply an improvement of ps3). Eventually the larger companies find value in the entrepreneur's creation and buys them out, example facebook buying oculus rift.

The point being it really isn't unique to gaming, it happens in EVERY industry.

Elandyll · May 18, 2015

Unliving Vaccuum.

Ok.

Let's go Visceral!

BumblebeeCody · May 18, 2015

I wonder if Sakurai will ever middle finger Nintendo and finally make another new game that is a progressively worse Smash Bros. I'd like to see him do something else.

fader said:
*cough* CAPCOM *cough*

True but Capcom games are fun.

Sijil · May 18, 2015

Honestly I don't mind going back to mainly AA budgeted video games, if it meant more quality games like Pillars of Eternity or Wasteland 2. I wonder what kind of budget did Baldur's Gate 2 and Fallout 1/2 relied on? How much would that be right now?

Also I think we will see more and more AA or crowd funded games with stellar graphics considering how Cryengine 3 and UE4 engines are moving towards cheap monthly subscription models, Unity 5 becoming more impressive.

I'm not going to say AAA is going away or anything, I still would love some AAA games with all voice acting and full cinematics, like Batman but the rising costs of making these games and the pressure to sell by the millions to recoup losses and make profit have made most publishers risk averse. Which explains the appeal of mobile, cheap to produce with high profit potential.

Triggerhappytel · May 18, 2015

Tizoc said:
How different were the budgets of games made during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s compared to the budget of games made in the past 10ish years?

It's something which really interests me but there's no a lot of reliable information on it. Back in the SNES era games were developed by small teams by comparison (I remember reading that Super Mario World was developed by about 30 people) so you're probably talking about a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a big game back then compared to tens of millions of dollars these days. For instance, Uncharted 2 allegedly cost $20 million, Beyond: Two Souls cost 27 million I believe, God of War III was $44 million and Halo 3 was $55 million.

InsaneZero · May 18, 2015

BumblebeeCody said:
I wonder if Sakurai will ever middle finger Nintendo and finally make another new game that is a progressively worse Smash Bros. I'd like to see him do something else.

True but Capcom games are fun.

Unlike most of the other examples in this thread, Sakurai had full creative control over the Smash games. Breaking away from Nintendo doesn't really give him any real benefit here, since he already had the freedom to do whatever he wants (like Kid Icarus for example).

Breakfast at Noon · May 18, 2015

^^ been screaming for AA for ages now, with Sony backing indies and the ps4 been "easy" to develop for i was hoping for a rise in the AA.

flohen95 · May 18, 2015

BumblebeeCody said:
I wonder if Sakurai will ever middle finger Nintendo and finally make another new game that is a progressively worse Smash Bros. I'd like to see him do something else.

True but Capcom games are fun.

Sakurai's been independent since almost 10 years and has, as far as we can tell, no obligations towards Nintendo whatsoever. So his continued work with them, especially on Smash Bros., would make me think that he actually likes working with Nintendo and on the series.

TheSpoiler · May 18, 2015

BumblebeeCody said:
I wonder if Sakurai will ever middle finger Nintendo and finally make another new game that is a progressively worse Smash Bros. I'd like to see him do something else.

True but Capcom games are fun.

I'd say Capcom is at least trying to figure out how to not be total asshats. Their recent releases are far better than certain titles in the years before this one. And their funding expectations are down to "reasonable" rather than "outrageously stupid".

patapuf · May 18, 2015

I don't get why people wish for the EA's and Activions to make small games when there's so many small devs and publishers making small games.

That the retail space is dominated by the big titles is because of a mix of marketing, customer behaviour and margins per game sold. It's not like it's any different in other creative industries.

When say, UBI publishes and small game, it doesn't get the marketing/retail treatment of a big game either.

dukeoflegs · May 18, 2015

ManThatYouFear said:
^^ been screaming for AA for ages now, with Sony backing indies and the ps4 been "easy" to develop for i was hoping for a rise in the AA.

We've had AA or even A games in previous generations, but like Jim said in a previous post, that level of game was eradicated by the AAA industry pushing on the general consumer that anything below AAA is a waste of you time and money.

Version 3.0 · May 18, 2015

Kintaro said:
As a retailer for the past almost decade, I would argue that consumers had a pretty big hand in killing off "middle shelf" games themselves as well. Especially at retail.

True, of course, but let's face it: the majority of customers are buying what they're told to buy, by either marketing or word-of-mouth (meaning friends list, these days).

It's a chicken-and-egg scenario. Did social tools create the "hive mind" of modern AAA gaming, or did the publishers? They reinforce each other, to be sure. And only so many games can be part of the hype machine.

However, when games "only" sell a half or quarter million copies, they were largely abandoned last gen. That's a viable market with controlled costs and reasonable expectations, but publishers by and large didn't see it that way, and abandoned it to chase the multi-million selling market.

Then you have games like Demon's Souls, which I constantly point to, where the small developer and publishers were thrilled to see it hit those kinds of numbers - and it compares favorably to even the most expensive games on the market in any facet - technically or by amount of content.

Version 3.0 · May 18, 2015

Triggerhappytel said:
It's something which really interests me but there's no a lot of reliable information on it. Back in the SNES era games were developed by small teams by comparison (I remember reading that Super Mario World was developed by about 30 people) so you're probably talking about a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a big game back then compared to tens of millions of dollars these days. For instance, Uncharted 2 allegedly cost $20 million, Beyond: Two Souls cost €27 million I believe, God of War III was $44 million and Halo 3 was $55 million.

We always get these comparisons. Sure, game development was cheap once upon a time, it's true. But the idea that game development is now prohibitively expensive is not true. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. There are plenty of games in development that don't have those kinds of astronomical budgets. In fact, the majority of them don't.

Why compare Super Mario World to Halo 3? Why not compare it to New Super Mario Bros?

And why look at the most expensive games as examples? There's another extreme on that scale. Axiom Verge, which recently released to critical acclaim, was developed by one person. I don't know how much it cost, but I doubt it was millions of dollars.

Man God · May 18, 2015

BumblebeeCody said:
I wonder if Sakurai will ever middle finger Nintendo and finally make another new game that is a progressively worse Smash Bros. I'd like to see him do something else.

...he literally did just this after Kirby's Air Ride. He came back for Brawl under his own label.

Regiruler · May 18, 2015

BumblebeeCody said:
I wonder if Sakurai will ever middle finger Nintendo and finally make another new game that is a progressively worse Smash Bros. I'd like to see him do something else.

He's already quasi-freelance. And I think he does smash because he wants to do it, or at least he feels a personal obligation to do it.

I don't think he's needed for the series anymore, but I doubt he's being forced to do it.

RurouniZel · May 18, 2015

Jim Sterling said:
It is worth nothing, however, that these budgetary inflations are all the choice of the publisher. In a world where Minecraft is one of the biggest hits of the world, and Valve's squeezed big hits out of one dated engine for years, there's enough proof that games don't need to be as expensive as they are - or at the very least, not ALL games need to be that expensive.

Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

The analogy I like to use is baseball; AAA Publishers these days act like every game should only consist of home runs and grand slams, benching any player who dares to only hit a single or double. However while HRs and GSs are super awesome most games are won on singles/doubles and no baseball team worth it's salt would expect HRs or GSs at each at-bat. As such, they only give huge pay to supposed "superstars" but only bring a couple of them on a team, filling out the rest of the roster with non-superstar professionals that are no less needed to win games.

aliengmr · May 18, 2015

This is why I support Early Access. Its not perfect, but when it works its a damn fine way to develop a game. The direct relationship between the developer and fans makes a better game in my opinion.

I also agree that budgets have become inflated to such a degree that it forces publishers to chase the largest audience, which, in turn, increases the marketing budget and so on. Its a cycle that does very little to improve games.

Ban Puncher · May 18, 2015

Creator -> ~~Company~~ -> Consumer

TheSeks · May 18, 2015

Jim Sterling said:
It is worth nothing, however, that these budgetary inflations are all the choice of the publisher. In a world where Minecraft is one of the biggest hits of the world, and Valve's squeezed big hits out of one dated engine for years, there's enough proof that games don't need to be as expensive as they are - or at the very least, not ALL games need to be that expensive.

Publishers themselves killed the idea of the "middle shelf" game, because they seem to only understand pumping millions of dollars into something and expecting ten times that amount to come out.

Pretty much. Indies are pretty much the "garage band" of the early 80's game development culture now.

Fbh · May 18, 2015

Raging Spaniard said:
Theres a few things to consider, people see the success of the Yokaah or Bloodstained Kickstarters as "proof" that this is what people want and that Konami/Microsoft are dumb for not making these games. In reality, theyre not really dumb.

If Broken Age, Bloodstained or Yookah sell a million COPIES, then yeah, thats when publishers notice. But the kickstarter numbers amount for about 30 to 50 thousand copies which as far as a publisher sees it? Thats nothing.

I'm pretty sure Bloodstained and Yookah will sell a lot more than 30 or 50 thousand copies.

Shovelknight was a more modest kickstarter (they got around 350k IIRC) and didn't have a name like IGA attached to it. But it sold 180k in its first month, 300K by December of last year and one can only asume that number is now even higher after being released on Ps4 and X1.

And stuff like Pillars of Eternity has also been selling great. I didn't find the sales numbers but based on comments from the devs and some earning they have talked about I think it's safe to say it sold 200K+ during the first month

Garlador · May 18, 2015

"Nobody wants Adventure Games".
We Kickstart Broken Age.

"Nobody wants Mega Man."
We Kickstart Mighty No. 9.

"Nobody wants Final Fantasy Tactics."
We Kickstart Unsung Story.

"Nobody wants Banjo-Kazooie."
We Kickstart Yooka-Laylee.

"Nobody wants traditional Castlevania."
We Kickstart Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

It's cathartic, really, to see the things so many of us have clamored for, things big publishers told us were unpopular or not profitable, becoming successful despite their adherence to the contrary.

Ultimately, I have no idea why publishers continue to look at Call of Duty and League of Legends and Angry Birds and other titles and decide to chase after an audience that already has their obsessions instead of working with the audiences they already have.

Anyone remember when 2K games claimed that the FPS XCOM was coming because traditional old-school turn-based strategy wouldn't sell? And then, after massive backlash, decided to make a strategy XCOM as well, and it vastly outsold its FPS counterpart?

Remember when Dark Souls 1 was celebrated for crossing a million copies sold (unlike Tomb Raider being "disappointing" at not selling 4 million in one month)? Remember when Nintendo said they were proud of Xenoblade selling 500,000 copies?

Big-budget publishers blow my mind sometimes. You'd think they'd rather have 10 games selling 1 million than 1 game selling 5 million, but they won't dare do that.

Valtýr · May 18, 2015

For as problematic the Kickstarter and Early Access model can be, I would rather it than the bloated cynical big budget publisher goliath model that we've suffered through for the last decade or more.

Meia · May 18, 2015

silvermember said:
Publishers are not a unified group of people that work together, if they did it would be illegal, so your last statement is meaningless. Secondly, the people buying habits kill the middle shelf games, publishers are going to make what sells not what a fringe fraction of the population buys. Thirdly, player expectation of games significantly increase, players want fancy graphics, high quality voice acting and all the bells and whistles, which acts like a barrier of entry to many middle shelf developers.

When a middle shelf developer fails to match the quality of provided by AAA reviewers end up destroying and trashing the game and nobody buys it.

Finally, not every game can be minecraft, just like not every game can be WOW. Minecraft is a very unique idea at its time that thanks to a combination of luck got bigger than its creator had imagined.

This is not unique to the video game industry. Most disruptive innovations (think Netflix, facebook, snap cat, oculus rift) are done by entrepreneurs, while larger companies are focused on sustaining innovation (think ps4, it is simply an improvement of ps3). Eventually the larger companies find value in the entrepreneur's creation and buys them out, example facebook buying oculus rift.

The point being it really isn't unique to gaming, it happens in EVERY industry.

The problem in general is games like CoD or systems like the Wii breaking into the mainstream, aka people that weren't playing games originally. Suddenly publishers were the ones seeing how much MORE money they could make(by tapping into this new source of income) if they make their game just a little bit more like CoD, or make their systems just a little bit more like the Wii, and how can we apply that to IPs we own. Before you know it, BOOM Dead Space 3.

You're right though, it's not something that's unique to the game industry. Creative bankruptcy is rife with the movie and tv industry too(which leads to reality TV and superhero movies/remakes(why develop a whole new idea when you can "adapt" one that already exists!)). Problem is however that unlike the other industries, when the mainstream goes back to ignoring games again, the gaming landscape will already be decimated because the people that actually give two shits about the medium will be upset that they were ignored. But hey, here's Kickstarter to save the day, possibly.

Still say one of the smartest things Jim said in an earlier vid(which he again says here for the first time in a bit) is how publishers would rather make no money than ALL of the money.

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