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Epic: About 1/3rd as many AAA games in dev this gen, but each with 3 times the budget
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Option A: 2/3 fewer devs are even ringing up Epic to get a quote, never mind using UE, but those who do are projecting far higher sales. Everyone else remains the same.
Option B: interest in UE isn't very different from interest in engines in general, and it's pretty fucking easy to gauge the state of a market you lead.
Canis lupus
Member
Indie games will have to provide the experiences AAA gaming provide, the majority of the people are not interested in indie pixel art games, they want graphics heavy games, the reason they go out and buy a new console for, AAA experiences like Fifa, CoD, GTA, Skyrim and the likes. I've seen Sony getting a lot of flak for giving away low budget indie games on PS+ for PS4.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
A sadly very accurate post. Gamers are significantly responsible for creating a catch-22 here; at the very least if devs did scale down, there'd be a very real market contraction in the player size.
I'm honestly more than okay with that happening. If it's art, it has to be about more than just chasing the lowest common denominator.
Not every opinion is a valid one. Thankfully Sony recognizes this fact.
FFS why does indie == pixel art. Have a look at the indie games available on PC, this is a completely outmoded line of thinking. Indie games mightn't have motion capture and overused prerendered cut scenes but they are far beyond pixel art.
Return on investment is also a big problem. Smaller games usually have much lower income ceilings, and big publishers want to see big paychecks coming in. You need the mass market for that, which requires a big AAA game. For every Minecraft there is, you have 7 Assassin's Creeds or Call of Duties.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
And most of them look really uninteresting so far. This is just sad
Reminds me of early Hollywood:
"our films aren't making money, what do we do?"
"up the budget, that'll fix it!"
more like take ideas from others and do a "remake".
Amazeballs
Member
Forsaken82
Member
Serious question... What was the last indie game you played?
To Far Away Times
Member
Same here. Common sense and looking at previous generations could predict this pretty easily.
It's the stigma against indie games and the lack of marketing they receive. I'll admit I was never a fan of indie games until about 2 years ago. This is something that needs to change, but publishers unfortunately go for the safe money every time.
I remember people on this forum not even a full year ago laughing at me when I brought up how every generation has much larger budgets than the previous-- why would this generation be any different?
"Oh, but they already have the content at high enough detail, it won't take any extra work!"
"Oh, but the tool pipeline is so much more mature, it'll save so much time!"
I should go look up the people that were jerks to me and send everyone one of them a big bowl of crow soup.
"Oh, but they already have the content at high enough detail, it won't take any extra work!"
"Oh, but the tool pipeline is so much more mature, it'll save so much time!"
I should go look up the people that were jerks to me and send everyone one of them a big bowl of crow soup.
The generation got off to a good start and there are possibilities for hardware price cuts to stimulate demand next year if they start to see more difficulty. There'll be a lot of consolidation and if it gets to the precipice then we might see Sony and MS paying more towards 3rd party marketing costs. Don't know about how viable the next generation after that will be though.
Indie is just a mid-tier developer in the making.
First you make your big break-out title through self publishing. Then you wind up hiring a few more guys for sound and programming, then you ascend to a more managerial position in the company, soon you are hunting for publishers and agencies for marketing... Boom. You're a mid-tier developer.
dragonfart28
Banned
Kinda makes owning a next gen system pointless if existing hardware can handle indies.
I'm with you, I got back into PC gaming about 2 years ago and have been astounded by the increase in quality, breadth and scope of indie games. I don't think the indies need the publishers, the publishers are concentrating their own market to a point where there are going to be openings to fill and it won't take millions of dollars of marketing to do so.
Nydius
Member
IMO the case of 38 Studios could be a case study in how the AAA title push spiraled out of control. By the time Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came out, 38 Studios had amassed something like $130 million in debt and all they had to show for it was their single player title and a slightly workable alpha of Project Copernicus (Amalur the MMO).
Everyone from Government of Rhode Island to EA themselves bought into the belief that 38 Studios were going to be able to pump out successful AAA titles every two years, including a successful AAA MMO. Rhode Island pumped 75 million into 38 Studios based on this very premise. For EA, this was going to be direct competition to The Elder Scrolls (or soe they hoped). When KoA:R sold poorly (despite being well received) and 38 Studios started sinking under the weight of their poor financial decisions, everyone acted shocked - shocked!.
I often wonder how 38 Studios would have fared had they not gotten swept up in the "AAA title" craze.
Everyone from Government of Rhode Island to EA themselves bought into the belief that 38 Studios were going to be able to pump out successful AAA titles every two years, including a successful AAA MMO. Rhode Island pumped 75 million into 38 Studios based on this very premise. For EA, this was going to be direct competition to The Elder Scrolls (or soe they hoped). When KoA:R sold poorly (despite being well received) and 38 Studios started sinking under the weight of their poor financial decisions, everyone acted shocked - shocked!.
I often wonder how 38 Studios would have fared had they not gotten swept up in the "AAA title" craze.
0ptimusPayne
Member
Do you guys/gals think B-tier titles can make a comeback if they're priced more competively? Or do you think that publishers are forced to price games at $60+? I wouldn't mind paying $40 for B-tier budget games, but $60 each time can be a tough pill to swallow for me.
They would, if priced accordingly. Has to be no more than $40.
The problem is that it's untested and a risk. No one wants to be the first to take an untested risk.
babyghost853
Member
I just wish there wasn't a divide between "indie game" and "AAA". Games are games, some are great, some are shite. And that is true weather the game is AAA or indie. We have a disturbing trend these days where so called "gamers" dismiss games because they are "indie crap" or "AAA garbage", and it makes me sick to see it. I'm actually happy Sony has chosen to focus on indie games with PS+ so far, as many of these great games would have went unnoticed.
Well I have a pretty decent PC also. I'm just not into indie gaming and I won't go into the reasons why so I don't shit up the thread. But I have a PC, iPad and iPhone if I really want to get into indie gaming. I buy the consoles for the big exclusives. Halo, Uncharted, God of War...those type of games. And I also love R* open world games like Red Dead Redemption and GTA V, so I need a console for stuff like that.
Not only that, but EPIC THEMSELVES were touting this gen as only slightly more expensive, if not cheaper.
Yup. And most people with some level of common sense knew that was BS as well. There is a nice curved chart somewhere that shows exactly the trajectory of development costs and where they're likely to go (way up). Just because consoles are closer to standard mid range pcs doesn't mean costs go down or stay the same. They continue on their trajectory, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which are expectations from the increasingly insular and smaller young male demographic)
It was tested a bit last generation, namely with Banjo Nuts and Bolts. That bombed so Microsoft never touched it again.
Hopefully this means we'll see that mid-tier bracket come back. It'll mostly be indies, but not necessarily exclusive to them (Ubisoft's Child of Light). I'm way more interested in playing Mind: Path to Thalamus, The Witness, Rime, and Routine than I am the next big-budget, on-rails AAA title.
And they were right, the costs of doing business are lower than they have been for 10 years. Engines are cheaper than ever, console dev kits are cheaper, tools have never been better, multiplatform development is easier and more straight forward than it has ever been. You can make games more cheaply by far than last gen. This however has no real relation to AAA budgets. Budgets are going up because big publishers all want to have the biggest and best games, they want GTA, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty sales. And they think if they match the budgets they can get those sales. Which causes one-upmanship and a vicious cycle.
Like I said, it just makes it worse - they're making specific choices about who they want to please and who they're ignoring to begin with, so the market is already relatively limited, while dev (but not marketing) costs remain similar. Cutting prices to the bone has been tried with the $40 tier last gen and obviously hasn't worked.
Indie is just a mid-tier developer in the making.
First you make your big break-out title through self publishing. Then you wind up hiring a few more guys for sound and programming, then you ascend to a more managerial position in the company, soon you are hunting for publishers and agencies for marketing... Boom. You're a mid-tier developer.
and which publisher is currently in the business of publishing mid-tier games? There's a handful japanese houses, 2 or 3 european pubs like deep silver and that's pretty much it.
I doubt we'll see the return of the mid tier at retail anytime soon. If you look at how mid tier games performerd last year.... it's not pretty. Dark Souls is the only exeption that comes to mind right now.
Canis lupus
Member
Mercenary Kings
A few indie devs might've moved beyond pixel art games, doesn't mean the majority isn't like that though. I know the most popular indies that are coming out and I'm excited for them, (The Witness, Transistor, Rime, Star Citizen), but they are few and not as in great quantity as the amount of pixel art games coming out. Well the ones that catch my attention anyway, the recent high profile kickstarter projects for example, Heart Forth Alicia, Pixel Noir, Cosmochoria, Dragon Fin Soup, Duelyst= pixel art.
FYI, I'm not saying these games are bad, (looking out for many of them(Heart Forth Alicia<3)) I'm saying if AAA disappear, indies will not be able to fill in the void, atleast not yet.
Interficium
Banned
Predictably, NeoGaf has resorted to the old "GAMEZ ARE TOO EXPENSIVE TO MAKE" narrative that is so popular here.
Read between the lines.
One of the major reasons why team sizes and budgets are up and number of releases are down is because many studios are creating some of the most complex game engines ever to use throughout this generation. These are huge engineering tasks which are initially very expensive but will amortize themselves over time as the studios reuse the engines for this generations sequels. Many of the studios behind the AAA games Epic is talking about are creating proprietary engines (Destiny, Watch_Dogs, Division, etc) instead of using UE4. That's bad for Epic's business.
It is advantageous to Epic to further the narrative of bloated AAA budgets and out-of-control team sizes, because the primary value proposition of their main product, Unreal Engine, is that it saves the game developer time and money that would have gone into making their own engine.
Read between the lines.
One of the major reasons why team sizes and budgets are up and number of releases are down is because many studios are creating some of the most complex game engines ever to use throughout this generation. These are huge engineering tasks which are initially very expensive but will amortize themselves over time as the studios reuse the engines for this generations sequels. Many of the studios behind the AAA games Epic is talking about are creating proprietary engines (Destiny, Watch_Dogs, Division, etc) instead of using UE4. That's bad for Epic's business.
It is advantageous to Epic to further the narrative of bloated AAA budgets and out-of-control team sizes, because the primary value proposition of their main product, Unreal Engine, is that it saves the game developer time and money that would have gone into making their own engine.
Salvor.Hardin
Banned
It's hilarious that in a forum where Ubisoft gets near unanimous hate for not matching their reveal video, that gamers have the gall to blame publishers and developers for trying to make games with higher production value and taking on the higher associated costs.
The market for mid-tier budget games doesn't exist, not because of publisher bias, but because most gamers don't really care for those games any more.
But please, continue trying to shift the blame on EA and Ubisoft.
Were already seeing a bit of this, I think. It's just not the same B-tier that we can compare to B-tier games (or AA) games years ago. What is B tier or AA today carries even greater financial risk.
I think stuff like Trials Fusion and Garden Warfare sit in that category. It's up to publishers how flexible they are with their price points, but I don't think we'll see many AA games like there used to be. More gamers and a new generation of gamers that are able to get their fill from cheaper (indie/F2P) titles make it increasingly hard to justify the $60 AA, and I think it brings everything down in price a bit as a result.
The problem is, AAA justifies power. If that goes away, the impetus to upgrade is weakened, and that's not healthy for console sales.
That's where consoles are in a bit of a bind right now. The price of the PS4 and Xbox One are tied up largely in hardware that's only really of use to a minority of the games that are on the way. When people reach the point of asking "If I stick with PS3 and/or 360, just what am I missing out on?", there's an issue.
How many indies need the PS4?
Now, the raising ceiling is an absolute factor that should be taken into account, but I think hardware decisions are suffering from having been driven by the huge, big-name third parties' desires, not the desires of the average developer.
Of the big publishers, I do think Ubisoft is approaching this in the smartest fashion.
SkeptiMism
Member
First of all, stop with the neogaf = hivemind thing. It's stupid and for your information, it's also a bannable offense.
Second, I don't think you have a clue about AAA development. Look at how Ubi develops their games for example. They have so many studios working on their games. It's not because of the engine but among other reasons because their games are made so that players can do pretty much anything they want.
The budget of AAA games have increased every generation and it's just stupid to spin this as just Epic talking PR.
That's easy. Forced or chosen PS4-XB1 exclusivity to try and drive up the interest.
I don't see the problem because, even if AAA games are the minority in number of releases, they still are the majority in sales, revenues and income.
As the PS4 sales show, you don't need dozens of AAA releases to drive hardware advances.
Also, indies may not need PS4 hardware, but neither do AAA games. They both benefit from it though.
If you have to force it, you're failing to justify it.
M°°nblade;109447426 said:
Enough income?
The entire selling point of AAA titles is just *how* large-scale, expensive, cinematic they are, not least because they're competing with other games that are similarly big, pricey, and movielike. Indies aren't really judged on the same metric, and - critically - can be profitable when selling to a much smaller audience.M°°nblade;109447426 said:
AAA's have to shout to get noticed, because everyone else who's producing AAA is shouting just as loudly. It's a catch-22. If everyone were to reduce their demands, everyone could benefit from it. But there's a fear that if only one company lowers their arms, they'll get their sales cannibalised by the others. AAA needs the PS4 so it can shout even louder in the hopes of pricing others out of the marketplace.
And in amongst all this, the audience they're selling to isn't particularly growing. The well of consumer money to draw from isn't growing as fast as the costs are. That's not healthy.
Gamers aren't responsible for the falacies of the industry though. Typical major release is pretty much guaranteed to be scoped 2-3x bigger than what eventually releases, if users were responsible (ie. demanding that scope in the first place) the software wouldn't sell, because it literally always fails to meet the initial ambition. But regardless of whether that content&features gets cut or released, money is spent making them.Madness said:
How the hell are gamers responsible for setting the scope of a project? We don't even know the thing exists until its announced. The phrase "overpromise and underdeliver" comes to mind and that has nothing at all to do with gamers. Maybe if devs and publishers stopped treating this like a giant pissing contest they wouldn't be in the position they're in right now.
Pollux
Member
What game is this?
Trent Strong
Banned
This is not good. I'm worried.
There's another question of whether the cost justifies the results. I mean the resultant games dont seem to be profoundly greater than their forbears. Not that there's many of them to entirely judge. But most games the gameplay experience is much the same as ten years before. There just linear experiences with a better polish. Ryse and Infamous Second Son which is more like Infamous 2.5. If that's all they can come up with, using these greater budgets and time then there better off dead. Let the Indies take over.
By that you mean you assume that a decrease in number of AAA releases automatically results in a decrease of income per release which sounds highly doubtable.
Not necessarely when you decrease the number of releases at the same time.
Being large-scale, expensive or cinematic has got little to do with the PS4 as a platform.
You don't need PS4-level hardware to launch an ambitious project since obviously 'AAA' gaming has been around for 2 or 3 generations. You just raise the bar for what AAA quality means for consumers. But that goes for indie games as well according to their own metrics.
If publishers want to focus on fewer AAA releases with higher marketing budgets because they target higher projected sales, why not? This is nothing new, we've seen it last generation and just like last generation, I don't understand why people go into panic mode. The publishers who make these kind of games have (or should have) enough economists to do proper risk assessment. They don't need special protection.
MutonCommander
Banned
The ongoing collapse of the AAA market doesn't bother me one bit. In fact, I welcome it.
That's how console operate to me. The manufacturers forcing\gating stuff because they need to push their hardware\services.