Astral Dog
Member
What would be some good examples of "mid tier" Indie titles? Trine 2 proyect CARS and puppeter? it seems to me that most indie titles still lack something, to replace mid tier games
There's definitely some worry within Hollywood that it isn't all that sustainable.
I wonder what's the budget for infamous second son, sucker punch team size are not that big.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but there is a particular type of movie that tends to do well: Basically dumb high budget action movies that have lots of shit happen. 300: Rise of an Empire is a good example of this; utter shite, but none of that matters because all people expect is a big high budget action movie. It will sell, just needs a big budget.
Does Epic consider Nintendo's big Wii U titles to be AAA?
I was thinking about this recently. I am not sure about their budgets, but to me Nintendo games seem like highly polished mid tier games. They don't craft lavish set pieces or hire voice actors, they just make meaty games built around simple concepts. The main source of cost of a Nintendo game is development time, not the size of the project.
What would be some good examples of "mid tier" Indie titles? Trine 2 proyect CARS and puppeter? it seems to me that most indie titles still lack something, to replace mid tier games
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but there is a particular type of movie that tends to do well: Basically dumb high budget action movies that have lots of shit happen. 300: Rise of an Empire is a good example of this; utter shite, but none of that matters because all people expect is a big high budget action movie. It will sell, just needs a big budget.
If this means we are heading back to the gc/ps2/xbos era then yes please.
Is The Witcher 3 "mid-tier"? They don't have hundreds of millions budget do they?
It's a AAA budget for their country, Poland has a much lower cost of living compared to traditional countries with development houses.
Epic probably thought Bulletstorm was AAA, where in fact it wasn't, so I'm OK with this.
Or maybe the first party funded indie developed games like Rapture,Rime, etc, Are they now considered "AAA" because they are getting funding from a publisher?
I'm curious whether this sort of trend holds up for the whole of this generation though. With something like DA3, is part of the reason its taken longer and has more resources/larger team due to the fact that its also the first BioWare game breaking ground with Frostbite? So when Mass Effect or whatever new IP BioWare is working on takes development priority, the leg work and systems developed for DA3 can be borrowed for whatever new games they're making, potentially saving time and resources? Same goes with Frostbite overall at EA, or a lot of other publishers using their own engines.
It also seems like on PC at least, you still have some sort of mid tier games that maybe once would have been considered AAA. Something like Pillars of Eternity seems to have a lot of the same production values of a Baldur's Gate 2. For it's time, I would have considered BG2 a "AAA" RPG. Yet now, only something like Skyrim or DA3 will be considered "AAA."
Just seems incredibly risky for these "AAA" publishers to be scaling back so much and putting all of their eggs in so few baskets. If something like DA3 were to flop where does that put EA? I guess with such fewer titles being released, the expectations for these "AAA" titles gets raised as well. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, that's for sure.
If they are getting funded by Sony, they are by definition not indie any more.
They are not AAA either, it isn't an either/or situation.
It would probably be mid-tier by mid-life PS2 standards.
PS4 mid-tier would be more like $15-$25 million games.
This doesn't account for the completely ridiculous amount of time people now spend playing particular games. What we are seeing is fewer "AAA" games but more content being poured into the ones that people are buying. I think somewhere along the way the value proposition of games that you don't play for months on end has gotten hurt by having the same price as multiplayer games, rental services like GameFly, Youtube Channels, etc.Less AAA games = less time playing AAA games
Indie games are nice bite-size snacks in between the AAA main courses.I have to admit this is why I am relishing the indie games hater patrol. They are going to be so miserable this gen.
It'll be the opposite. Less overall software for you to buy.If this means we are heading back to the gc/ps2/xbos era then yes please.
AAA will be in the minority? Compared to indie titles it already is lol. But that's what happens in an industry that's in contraction.
Edit: to the above poster... No mid tier is not making a return as far as anyone can tell. Indie and f2p is what's gaining traction because you can sell those outside of the console market as well
I think that this cycle will just repeat, with "indie" slowing becoming bigger and being invested in and then low and behold they become AAA devs.Indie games are nice bite-size snacks in between the AAA main courses.
Indie games are nice bite-size snacks in between the AAA main courses.
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!"
This is what i mean for eg a Gust game would now become a indie game when it was a mid tier game during the PS2 gen.
The indies market is everything under AAA and people need to see it like that .
It won't shock me if a Gust game or Tales game cost even less this gen compare to last gen .
Some of this seems like companies contracting Namcosis and having incredibly strange expectations when they have years of data available to tell them how many copies a certain type of game will sell. When you see companies disappointed with sales of games like Tomb Raider or BioShock Infinite, I wonder what the hell the publishers thought these games offered that would make them sell like games that feature a lot more content.Right, there is definitely a ceiling raising effect on indie games currently.
The main question is how high that goes, and if that ceiling is high enough to cover basically anything of worth from the mid-tier.
Like, say, if ZeniMax decides to kill off The Evil Within due to poor financial status, can someone make high quality games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, or The Evil Within on an indie budget, or is that genre largely gone at that point (or reduced in quality/scope the the point it isn't really the same anymore).
Right, there is definitely a ceiling raising effect on indie games currently.
The main question is how high that goes, and if that ceiling is high enough to cover basically anything of worth from the mid-tier.
Like, say, if ZeniMax decides to kill off The Evil Within due to poor financial status, can someone make high quality games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, or The Evil Within on an indie budget, or is that genre largely gone at that point (or reduced in quality/scope the the point it isn't really the same anymore).
Totally agree with this. Indie games have been pigeonholed into something they're not anymore. I get just as excited at seeing an interesting new indie game as I do a AAA one, the line between them is basically nonexistent.I can't agree with that. In the end I just see them as games, some AAA games I spend a few afternoons with them before throwing them aside (Tomb Raider, South Park), while others I spends weeks or months with them (Civ V, Dark Souls). Likewise with Indie games, some I spend a day with (Gone Home, Amnesia), while others I spend months with (KSP, Endless Space and Natural Selection 2). There's a whole lot of meat out there in regards to indie games, they're taking up the majority of my time right now.
I think the issue is more that they're all public companies and thus have a mission to grow, have to handle opportunity cost (making a $50 million game that makes $500 million is better than a $30 million game that makes $150 million if you're using the same staff), and are concerned about certain games becoming unprofitable due to rising standards combined with the lowering sales of non-mega-blockbusters at retail.Some of this seems like companies contracting Namcosis and having incredibly strange expectations when they have years of data available to tell them how many copies a certain type of game will sell. When you see companies disappointed with sales of games like Tomb Raider or BioShock Infinite, I wonder what the hell the publishers thought these games offered that would make them sell like games that feature a lot more content.
Yes it's not implausible that someone could make one as a digital title.With things like kickstart and better tech it going to be even harder to tell what the ceiling is.
That is not taking account big size companies making download only games which going up the ceiling also .
I remember when people told me budgets wouldn't inflate this time. Good times.
Right, there is definitely a ceiling raising effect on indie games currently.
The main question is how high that goes, and if that ceiling is high enough to cover basically anything of worth from the mid-tier.
Like, say, if ZeniMax decides to kill off The Evil Within due to poor financial status, can someone make high quality games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, or The Evil Within on an indie budget, or is that genre largely gone at that point (or reduced in quality/scope the the point it isn't really the same anymore).
Studios might go bankrupt before their flop even sees release, maybe even before it's announced, and we'll have no idea what happened.I was gonna ask if this means one solid flop could ruin a studio, but I think that's been happening for a while already.
Could you explain how you arrived at that number?Here's an interesting piece of relevant info: you would have to sell 700,000 copies of a Fire Emblem entry on the Wii U to break even on raw development costs alone. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen or played an FE game, but, normally, games in its genre deal in budgetary conservatism. For them to have to sell that much tells me that even with their ability to effectively manage costs, they can't sidestep the financial realities of having to develop on more and more powerful hardware (whether it be handheld or home console).
I read a interview from guerrilla games that ps4 budgets wouldn't be much more than ps3. Was that just a 1st party developer protecting their console?
It'll be the opposite. Less overall software for you to buy.
Could you explain how you arrived at that number?
Fire Emblem: Awakening has sold extremely well on 3DS, but there will be many people who dearly want to see the franchise come to the Wii U. According to Nintendo's (not Intelligent Systems, as we previously stated) Hitoshi Yamagami, such a version would need to shift 700,000 copies to cover the cost of development.
I have to admit this is why I am relishing the indie games hater patrol. They are going to be so miserable this gen.
What's the difference between a "traditional" mid-tier game and something like this?
I'm more than fine with less AAA games.
well, that's certainly depressingThat's a question you would have to ask Hitoshi Yamagami; it's his figure.
*Hitoshi Yamagami is a Nintendo producer who overseas the development of RPGs.*
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=804813what game is this? looks neat
Right, there is definitely a ceiling raising effect on indie games currently.
The main question is how high that goes, and if that ceiling is high enough to cover basically anything of worth from the mid-tier.
Like, say, if ZeniMax decides to kill off The Evil Within due to poor financial status, can someone make high quality games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, or The Evil Within on an indie budget, or is that genre largely gone at that point (or reduced in quality/scope the the point it isn't really the same anymore).