[Erethian]

Not only does Warren Spector suck at math, the best selling $60 games of this gen sold significantly more than 20 million.

His basic point is right on the money, though. Console games are getting too expensive to make, with not enough people to buy it.

And it's already obvious that game companies are deciding to go down the route of charging more for each game, rather than expanding the audience.

[Des0lar]

Games are already 90$ in Europe so I don't see why they wouldn't jank up prices once again.

[phosphor112]

I think the prospect of contract asset artists should be considered... like you know how there is middle ware... well have that same concept. but for content?...

[Erethian]

I think the prospect of contract asset artists should be considered... like you know how there is middle ware... well have that same concept. but for content?...

Companies already outsource some of their asset generation.

[Suairyu]

So how about making games with a current-gen mindset, bolstered by next-gen power?

For example - less compression applied to their textures, go for silky-smooth framerates and oodles of AA etc.

There are cheap ways to make your games shine. Visual consistency is the key. If you can't afford lots of expensive effects and cinematic set-pieces, just take what you can afford to do and make it shine.

As a PC gamer who has played a lot of console to PC ports, reduced texture compression, better IQ and AA makes a game look almost a generation ahead in terms of graphical power sometimes.

[travisbickle]

Obviously somewhere along the line somebody is asking for too much of the 'game sales' pie, and I don't think it is the people who actually make the game.

[phosphor112]

Companies already outsource some of their asset generation.

I'm not talking about like... Forza hiring some B-Rate stuff.

I'm talking about developers that EXCLUSIVELY create assets... high resolution texture packs... what have you... It's something they are proficient at.

[Principate]

So how about making games with a current-gen mindset, bolstered by next-gen power? For example - less compression applied to their textures, go for silky-smooth framerates and oodles of AA etc. There are cheap ways to make your games shine. Visual consistency is the key. If you can't afford lots of expensive effects and cinematic set-pieces, just take what you can afford to do and make it shine. As a PC gamer who has played a lot of console to PC ports, reduced texture compression, better IQ and AA makes a game look almost a generation ahead in terms of graphical power sometimes.

He actually does have a real point though, if it were as simple as that double AA games in this gen wouldn't be all but dead. The mere fact of the matter is the vast majority of customers this gen have gone almost exclusively for the few blockbuster games leaving the reasonable budget games to almost die.

If this happens next gen which at this point seems very likely dev costs will be forced to increase whether they like it all not as the morons at the top exponentially increase their dev costs since their the only ones that can while still having a decent profit screwing over everyone else.

[hatchx]

WAIT A SECOND.


20 million x 60 = 1.2 Billion.

[Log4Girlz]

Even when you factor in the percentage publishers get, yeah his math sucks lol.

[Fafalada]

I'm not talking about like... Forza hiring some B-Rate stuff.

Most of the "B-Rate stuff" you talk about are studios exclusively creating assets. Ultimately most problems of outsourcing are in the processes(from quality control to testing to iteration process) not proficiency of hired workforce (although that danger always exists as well, of course). But people who are emotionally (or otherwise) invested in a product are more likely to be internal then external, hence quality bar for internal team is naturally higher.

Ultimately the problem is that modern AAA budgets are already in 100M range now - and production efficiency hasn't been improving to match higher expectations of whatever next-gen might be.

[saunderez]

His basic point is right on the money, though. Console games are getting too expensive to make, with not enough people to buy it.

Not enough people? There's more people than ever gaming on consoles! If they can't find a market now it never existed.

[Rez]

Surely that's a typo, right? He didn't actually say that, right?

maybe that didn't include marketing, or something? weird publisher deals?

*shrug*

although, I can't even imagine how a game's budget could be $200mil without marketing, so...

[Eusis]

WAIT A SECOND. 20 million x 60 = 1.2 Billion.

Try 20 million x 10, unless you count product and retail's cut as "development costs".

[KKRT00]

2008

Yep and he was talking about that time. Now CD Projekt is a different beast, even though they lose value on stock market ;p

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

I'd be happy with this gen's production values, but with higher resolution textures, nicer effects and shaders, and better IQ.

I don't see the need to hire dozens of celebrity voice actors, for example. They don't sell games, yet most big-budget games need them, for some reason.

[Dan Yo]

As a consumer, I'm scared about game costs come next gen too. Might mean a price increase.

Don't let them scare you with this crap. They're making money hand over fist off of us and always have. The games industry is the most profitable industry in entertainment and continues to break new records every year.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

He actually does have a real point though, if it were as simple as that double AA games in this gen wouldn't be all but dead. The mere fact of the matter is the vast majority of customers this gen have gone almost exclusively for the few blockbuster games leaving the reasonable budget games to almost die. If this happens next gen which at this point seems very likely dev costs will be forced to increase whether they like it all not as the morons at the top exponentially increase their dev costs since their the only ones that can while still having a decent profit screwing over everyone else.

Low and mid budget developers are *thriving* on PC.
The problem isn't more powerful hardware. The problem is mismanagement, waste of resources and overkill goals inflating budgets.

I'm not going to accept this kind of bullshit just cause they use 700 employees to work on Epic Mickey 2.
Dear "triple A" studios, learn to manage a goddamn reasonable budget, then we'll speak.
Selling a couple of millions isn't enough anymore? Stop investing tens of millions in marketing, start arguing with consoles manufacturers about less oppressing royalties and stop wasting money.

I will not accept any excuse to inflate software costs more in the next years, not when there are successful examples proving how that's not necessarily the better strategy.

[Eusis]

I'd probably feel similarly if our pricing were in line with the rest of the world's, but since in North America we pay a lot less than everywhere but maybe the UK I can't get too riled up over reasonably modest steps up in prices.

... But they STILL need to hack away at budgets first. It sounds like at this point it's not like $70 would make a lot of these games profitable, it's be $100 or higher which would be outrageous to jump to. I'm pretty sure that clever enough developers (or just those put under pressure to be careful) could still make pretty good looking games without breaking the bank, nevermind how they can find good actors that aren't stupidly popular/expensive.

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

I'd probably feel similarly if our pricing were in line with the rest of the world's, but since in North America we pay a lot less than everywhere but maybe the UK I can't get too riled up over reasonably modest steps up in prices. ... But they STILL need to hack away at budgets first. It sounds like at this point it's not like $70 would make a lot of these games profitable, it's be $100 or higher which would be outrageous to jump to. I'm pretty sure that clever enough developers (or just those put under pressure to be careful) could still make pretty good looking games without breaking the bank, nevermind how they can find good actors that aren't stupidly popular/expensive.

If they think that increasing prices will help them, they are living a delusion.
It's like with moot arguments about piracy: "if we prevent these people from downloading they will buy for sure", except people earn finite amounts of money.
Many gamers today already invest pretty much all they can realistically afford in their hobby.
Of course, many of us could eventually squeeze out money for one game more, or two, but that's pretty much it.
On the average, virtually no one is going to double the amount of money he spends for games just cause games are going to cost twice as much.

[Cheesecakebobby]

They say this every generation. And I've paid less on average for my games this gen than any other gen (though that's partly because competition between UK retailers and a rush to get surplus copies out the door before the game loses all its value means that most games will be less than half their original price within two months of release...)

[Danielsan]

Honestly, I'm not really worried and I don't really care. First and foremost development costs really shouldn't go up exponentially. Just look at PC games/versions like The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3. It doesn't cost that much more to use higher quality textures, a higher resolution and implement tessellation. And even if AAA game development would become too costly, I would simply not care. Most of my favourite games this gen are smaller downloadable title. Aside from Journey, none of them are graphical powerhouses that would require bloated budgets to develop.

[ScreenSplitter]

This is why I think the WiiU not being as ridiculously powerful as the PS4/720 might actually work in it's favour.

[derfybzh]

It screams like " We can't afford to make mediocre game because we'll get out of the business" to me .

Years to years sales seems to decline, what can they do ? Stay on the current gen and squeeze it to the last drop, or try to make good games on the next one ?

I don't understand why the cost is exploding, I understand that you loose money by trying to understand how new hardware works.

PC are already next gen, try to go the multiplat ways and leave to MS and SOny the cost of exclusive , if your game is top tier it will sale , if it's Epic Mickey ...

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

This is why I think the WiiU not being as ridiculously powerful as the PS4/720 might actually work in it's favour.

[Eusis]

On the average, virtually no one is going to double the amount of money he spends for games just cause games are going to cost twice as much.

Yeah, it's why they need to hack away first. I don't think I mind a jump to $70 too much, $65 at the least may be borderline necessary, but ramping costs up to double again just isn't going to work out, especially with diminishing returns kicking in. In fact diminishing returns makes me wonder if budgets as they are are ALREADY accounting for the largest hurdles and that next-gen prices should only be a modest raise, not unless they're going for some obscene level of polish and detail that most games simply don't need like realistic facial animation on generic NPCs.

This is why I think the WiiU not being as ridiculously powerful as the PS4/720 might actually work in it's favour.

It's kind of stupid that one side of the equation has to be stupid about presentation demands though, because if the speculated power for the next Playstation/Xbox system pans out they could probably just mildly up the visual quality and coast on 1080p/60FPS.

[HarryHengst]

It screams like " We can't afford to make mediocre game because we'll get out of the business" to me . Years to years sales seems to decline, what can they do ? Stay on the current gen and squeeze it to the last drop, or try to make good games on the next one ? I don't understand why the cost is exploding, I understand that you loose money by trying to understand how new hardware works. PC are already next gen, try to go the multiplat ways and leave to MS and SOny the cost of exclusive , if your game is top tier it will sale , if it's Epic Mickey ...

But the bestselling games arent that good? Call of Duty, Skyrim? If thats the best games have to offer i weep for its future.

[Fudgepuppy]

Developers should just start to think "does this concept require 70+ men to work?"

Not all games need to be AAA on all fronts. If you want to make an engaging character-driven story, then put alot of resources on voice-acting, animation and soundtrack.

Like David Jaffe said: "Not all games need to be the best looking"

[Valygar]

I think this is already happening in PC. It might be thanks to cross-platforming, but the PC hardware requirements have not really gone up in a long time.

Still, I think more powerful hardware allows to cut costs if you want to show the same graphic detail as you would in a less powerful hardware (you need to optimize less), so we will reach a sort of equilibrium.

It's not like somebody is forcing them to make expensive games.

[Vinterbird]

Developers should just start to think "does this concept require 70+ men to work?" Not all games need to be AAA on all fronts. If you want to make an engaging character-driven story, then put alot of resources on voice-acting, animation and soundtrack. Like David Jaffe said: "Not all games need to be the best looking"

If you want to create emotion you need to be at the forefront of visuals. Because the second you start going "why aren't the lips moving" when something is emotional or in any other way trying to convey emotion it breaks down the illusion of the game world.

If a developer is aiming for emotional impact they need to go full on abstract or top of the line visuals to not end up in that weird place where the visuals ruin the entire experience.

[amar212]

What game cost 200M$ to make?

That is lunacy.

Gran Turismo 5 production costs were approx 60M$ in 6-years span (approx. 10M$ per year) and it is still probably the most expensive production for a driving game ever and one of the highest budgets in the first-party SCE portfolio.

Part of above cost were made for 3 projects: GT:HD (free PSN demo back in 2006), GT5:Prologue standalone release (both PSN and BR retail at price of 45$ approx.) and final GT5 BR release at *usual* price.

Combined, GT5:P and GT5 sold in approx. 13M, which is net revenue estimated in around 552 million $.

(My "couch" breakown:
>200 million $ revenue for Prologue - estimated 3 miliion sold on regular 45$ price and 2.5 million sold at 30$ budget price
> 352 million $ revenue for GT5 (without DLC revenues) - estimated 3 million sold for regular 60$, 2 million for 45$ and 1.5 million for 35$ Greatest Hits or when bundled or whatever)

So, even such 6-year-span-developed game with AAA studio in works and 60M$ production arranged to outsell the costs with 9:1 ratio in net retail and excluding marketing costs.

If presumed marketing costs took another 60M$, that still leaves the ratio at almost 5:1 at net retail.

I see no point here whatsoever.

[Night_Trekker]

What game cost 200M$ to make? That is lunacy.

Read the article. He was speaking off the cuff and using a lot of hyperbole, which is very Spector of him.

[jump_button]

Easy savings here toss out all PR guys and Markets Research's

[Glass Joe]

I'm not saying that this sort of thing is going to happen next generation necessarily, but it will start (it's already started) and continue as the industry progresses.

To those who are saying not all games need to be great looking and that the developers who can't afford it shouldn't do it... Well, yes that's true. But don't forget the entire point of new hardware IS to create great looking games. Otherwise there would be no interest in a PS4. In order to compete with other games on that platform, there will be pressure to make it as nice looking as possible. Otherwise your AAA title becomes a B title (or a 7.0 rating) and the risk of being a "hidden gem" (aka ignored) goes up.

So, either there will be fewer games that are major showpieces or just fewer games in general. Or there will be a rush for more episodic content. Where suddenly your 12 hour campaign mode gets slashed to 6 and the other 6 you're used to are now part of a sequel. And/or "on disc DLC" up the ass.

From my simple perspective, it will take artists more time to draw assets because of the amount of detail that will be required to be competitive. Time = money = development costs. Adding that to learning the new technology, implementing new lighting and physics, larger maps etc, it's just gonna cost more.

I don't think consoles can be a 3 horse race forever, either. It's VERY rare that a game can sell 20 million copies and that's partly due to the market being spread over 3 platforms.

[Frankie Williamson]

Yep, and with so many developers needing to hit certain metacritic scores to get bonuses or whatever they can't afford for their games to take critical hits because they're "under utilizing" the platform.

The Metacritic thing is such bullshit. You don't get bonuses based on sales, you get bonuses based on what 90 or so man-babies wrote about your game. Just an awful God damn system.

[lefantome]

When a game costs REALLY lot is because of one of two reason:

-it's really ambitious
and/or
-the management sucks


It's hard to find a really ambitious game in his content these days... so guess what's the problem in most games?
It's normal development costs will rise, but not as much as you expect:
as you can see indie devs develop games which could have cost a lot years ago: now we have middlewares, shared engine and assets inside a company etc..
You don't need to develop your own engine for a game.

The costs are rising mostly because of marketing and secundary features in the game: expensive mocap, stars playing game characters etc..

take the example of L.A. Noire:

-2 ages of development
-bad management
-new really expensive technology (useless for the future)
-lot of stars involved.
-really expensive marketing because the game had to sell to cover its costs.


Warren, 100 people for epic mickey and 700 for epic mickey 2? you are part of the problem, not the victim.
It's like yu suzuki complaining about the next gen costs. LOL

[lefantome]

I'm not talking about like... Forza hiring some B-Rate stuff. I'm talking about developers that EXCLUSIVELY create assets... high resolution texture packs... what have you... It's something they are proficient at.

yeah someone should create a company which create assets and sell them.

why create a hundreds version of a door or a box or a simple gun?

Artists can foscus on the important assets of the game.

[Polk]

Warren, 100 people for epic mickey and 700 for epic mickey 2? you are part of the problem, not the victim.

Isn't this 700 people kinda false though? I mean there's no way in hell all those people works on the game all the time. Most of them probably worked on the project for 1-3 months on contract (made some textures/models) and move on to something different.

[amar212]

yeah someone should create a company which create assets and sell them. .

http://www.dhruva.com/newsite/index.html
http://www.rabcat.com/
http://www.glassegg.com/main.php
http://acmedc.com/company_whoweare.html

[lefantome]

Isn't this 700 people kinda false though? I mean there's no way in hell all those people works on the game all the time. Most of them probably worked on the project for 1-3 months on contract (made some textures/models) and move on to something different.

it's still a lot. 700/2-3 years?

I can't figure out why epic mickey would need more than 50 people in its core team.

[Sethos]

What? I'd say it takes more time to sit and spend countless hours compressing textures down to unrecognisable blobs, having to spend hours cutting away stuff that won't fit into the ram, giving artists a fairly low polygon limit for each model that adheres to the overall loft, fiddling with the game and doing extensive QA to find that sub-HD resolution that will make your game not dip under 30 FPS more than 3 times a minute.

[Woo-Fu]

I think this is already happening in PC. It might be thanks to cross-platforming, but the PC hardware requirements have not really gone up in a long time.

PC resolution has plateaued at around 1920x1200. Sure, there are displays with significantly higher resolutions but they're anything but common. It has been that way for awhile now. At the same time individual processor speeds plateaued and the focus switched to multi-core, initially with individual cores that weren't any faster than the single cores they were replacing. Lastly, Vista's stillbirth put a kink in the DX9 to DX10 transition holding things up even further. Long story short, PC hardware requirements haven't really gone up in awhile because there was nowhere for them to really go that didn't require developers---and more importantly the tools they use---to fully embrace/utilize multicore processors.

[Man-is-Obsolete]

Perhaps I am missing something here as well. Wouldn't more headroom, power, storage, ram, make development easier and thus save money?

[TucoBenedictoPacifico]

Perhaps I am missing something here as well. Wouldn't more headroom, power, storage, ram, make development easier and thus save money?

In many cases, yes.
But, hey, don't let common sense get in your way.
Let's doom and gloom simply because some companies in this industry can't get their shit together.

[Zoe]

Perhaps I am missing something here as well. Wouldn't more headroom, power, storage, ram, make development easier and thus save money?

Why did costs go up between the Xbox and 360 then?

[Eusis]

Why did costs go up between the Xbox and 360 then?

Probably because while some can view it as something to ease burden, others view it as a challenge to take on. Or just blow more and more on motion capturing and painstaking research, that's what helped make Shenmue's budget too ridiculous.

[mclem]

Perhaps I am missing something here as well. Wouldn't more headroom, power, storage, ram, make development easier and thus save money?

The costs of development don't generally come from fitting within hardware constraints unless the project is poorly-planned. Hardware limitations are established at the outset and so it should be possible to plan and work within the memory / polygon budget.

[gundamkyoukai]

While i expect cost to go up next gen some of that can be fix with better management .

[Man-is-Obsolete]

Probably because while some can view it as something to ease burden, others view it as a challenge to take on. Or just blow more and more on motion capturing and painstaking research, that's what helped make Shenmue's budget too ridiculous.

Correct and at this point motion capture has reached great heights that going into next gen less research will be needed in that area and devs will have an easier time putting their captures into the game because of more power and such. I just feel like a lot of this gen will help set the foundation for next gen and hopefully make it cheaper and faster to develop games.

However, it is really up to the quality of the developers. Too Human cost neatly $50 million to make and Uncharted games cost $20 million a piece. Disney has 700 people making epic mickey 2, and I can name tons of games that I have no doubt are better on nearly every level with less than 100 people making the game. So this whole cost thing is sort of self inflicted.

[Rebel Leader]

WAIT A SECOND. 20 million x 60 = 1.2 Billion.

but they don't get all of $60 (still enough though, I guess)


but not all games will sell current CoD sales