I literally read this one time: "Street Fighter IV could have been 2D if Capcom cared. It did't cost anything to make with cheap 3D graphics because the characters were already designed in SF2."
Jesus Christ.
I literally read this one time: "Street Fighter IV could have been 2D if Capcom cared. It did't cost anything to make with cheap 3D graphics because the characters were already designed in SF2."
I literally read this one time: "Street Fighter IV could have been 2D if Capcom cared. It did't cost anything to make with cheap 3D graphics because the characters were already designed in SF2."
I agree, although the downside is that getting those jobs is notably less reliable. That is, there are a good number of engineers who do not end up getting those 100k/year jobs. The good ones do, but not everyone.
One of the reasons so many people find medical school so appealing is that it's so safe (unless you fail out, of course). If you complete medical school, even with mediocre grades, you're very, very likely to land a job with a six figure salary. I already detailed the downsides, but that upside of safe, reliable and dependable job prospects is something that many people find very appealing.
The problem is people like you, who totally deserve your bans, speaking like you know anything at all, refusing to believe that the people who work in that industry might actually know what they're talking about when they talk about how that industry works.
That sounds like /v/ levels of trolling.
Apparently you're banned, but I'll respond anyway.
It's not your fault. And I said the industry is largely to blame in an earlier post, by lying about budgets. And that Kickstarter and the mod scene has grossly distorted people's perceptions of what game development costs.
The problem with your analogy is that a doctor probably wouldn't try to tell a mechanic how terrible their estimates are, how they're bad managers and inefficient, and how there is clearly some ulterior motive at play. They would shop around and go with the guy that was the cheapest and seemed the most reliable.
A more apt analogy would be a panel of doctors yelling at GM because they don't understand how it can cost several billion dollars to design and manufacture a new model of car. And especially one they find so ugly!
That is basically what is happening here and in the comments of Joystiq, Kotaku, etc. and that's acceptable behavior, apparently, because it's the internet.
All right, I'm gonna go through this one more time.
Before I start off, though, let me give you a little background. With the exception of Ravi himself, there is almost certainly no one on GAF who is more qualified to talk about voiceover in games. Not only am I literally a voice actor in Skullgirls (AND League of Legends, and several other games), but I run my small indie studio, which made a game with over 1,400 lines of fully voiced dialogue, certainly more than Bastion and likely more than most, if not all, indie games out there.
The question, of course, would immediately come up: how much did I spend on Sequence voiceovers? The answer is, truthfully, about $2,200, but this is an incredibly misleading number. Several...well, most...of the actors in Sequence were my friends, who worked for free. My friend Geoff, the audio engineer, mastered and edited over 1,400 lines *for free*. And of course, all the work I did...directing, picking takes, inserting into the game, modifying for time, and let's not forget, writing all the lines themselves...was unpaid. The studio was out of some guy's house; he charged me $40/hr, but it was mainly for the microphone. We recorded in a living room, for the most part. The quality wasn't horrible...I doubt many people were yelling at the screen...but from a professional standpoint, it was pretty rough.
I still feel bad about doing this, and I love my friends dearly for helping me. I had no choice; I couldn't pay more money, everything was out of pocket, I was a 23-year-old struggling to live in Los Angeles paying the bills via SAT/ACT/GRE tutoring. But *I can never do this again*. A professional studio, making a game that isn't just a project of passion but a proper, commercial endeavor that's meant to help support actual full-time jobs, *CANNOT JUST NOT PAY PEOPLE A FAIR WAGE*. It's insulting and, frankly, illegal. If EA told you to come in a do a shitton of work on Mirror's Edge 2, would you do it for free? No. You wouldn't. Your skills and time are worth money, and you expect to be compensated accordingly. In my next game, There Came an Echo, I've already paid the VOICEOVER STUDIO ALONE (Soundelux Design Music Group) over eight thousand dollars for their services, nearly $7,000 in SAG/AFTRA fees, and suffice to say, Wil Wheaton's acting isn't free either. I did this because this is what it costs, this is the price of entry, for the highest quality voiceover services in a game that absolutely requires those services to reach its highest potential.
Ravi (who I know personally, by the way, and is sacrificing a lot for himself and his team even with the 150k) isn't doing that. Ravi is making the best use of his money. He's hired Cristina Vee to direct...with whom I was hanging last night, by the way, and she was utterly appalled at this shit...who charges an utter pittance compared to hotshot Hollywood VO directors who wouldn't do any better a job, they're using an independent voiceover studio and a single sound engineer to run the whole setup, which is pretty shockingly professional for the cost. And I'm sure they have someone in-house doing all the editing, mastering, and placement for the VO lines, which is extremely time-consuming.
Two voice actors, a director, a sound engineer, studio costs, equipment costs, and a pretty massive workload back at the office...and you people are bitching about four thousand dollars? Honestly, fuck off. You have no idea what you're talking about, you want quality for pennies, you want people to work for free, or fucking pizza, or something. It's demeaning. I can't speak for animation...Noogy's got you covered on that...but I can speak for this.
Keep doing what you're doing Ravi; I just somehow convinced my GF to throw another $30 by telling her she could sell the hat for double the profit in a few months.
Sticking a second, duplicate TF2 hat in at, say, the $75 level might be an interesting experiment
Okay, then please do.
Yep, using other people's tech and not giving them credit. It's the dream, really.
Really appreciate RagingSpaniard and Feep dropping some science in here, BTW. We seem to be turning the tide, somewhat!
We're investigating more TF2 hats and DotA2 items - Big Band hat and sax-back, Leviathan hook for Pudge and coiled Leviathan shield for someone else.
But I don't think we're going to charge for them, just use them as additional incentives for the $30 tier.
I even saw someone earlier compare making a character in Skullgirls shouldn't be much harder than customizing your own wrestler in a WWF game. It's nuts.
It's sort of like when Bungie showed how they were bug-testing Halo 3, and the guy would just stand and jump 30 times on every place on the map because it could cause the game to crash. Like that whole process to me was just "wtf".
Maybe the devs would if they all weren't so lazy and publishers so greedy.Again, this is why devs very rarely post openly on GAF.
GAF really likes to brag about how all these devs read it! But no one seems to understand why they don't post on it.
Great post. I can easily see all of that costing way more than $4,000. This kind of ultra-breakdown is the sort of thing people (including me) need to see before voicing any sort of opinion on this matter. Yeah, it takes my company less than 100 bucks to do a voice-over for something, but that's using salaried employees for sound editing and mixing, non-professional talent, and zero direction. When you consider that LabZero is contracting professional talent, costs really shoot up.All right, I'm gonna go through this one more time.
I even saw someone earlier compare making a character in Skullgirls shouldn't be much harder than customizing your own wrestler in a WWF game. It's nuts.
To be fair that person was being sarcastic, but in this thread the lines get blurred a lot
I just realized who Noogy is...!
Interested in some animation work?
You might have to:
Try EVERY move of that new one against EVERY others characters.
Multiple times.
In a combo.
Why not depending of health percentage?
The position?
Is the enemy defending? Crouching? Already hitten?
I was posting this in response to someone saying their friends felt cheated by MvC3 DLC, but I'll just drop it here:And as a QA tester, I'll add that:
Ya, you have to do that. Everywhere. on Every map. With every characters.
So now a fighting game? I never did one, but just to imagine one second just the shear mountain of work ONE more to a roster add, you might be surprised.
Just out of my head like that...
You might have to:
Try EVERY move of that new one against EVERY others characters.
Multiple times.
In a combo.
Why not depending of health percentage?
The position?
Is the enemy defending? Crouching? Already hitten?
What if you spam every move?
What if there hurtbox collision? Is there priority to set? (I don't know how that game work)
Does the hitbox work correctly? Against every move remember! EVERY.
And now repeat that on all stages.
And If there is multiple color skin, may god help the QA testers.
20'000$ for all that in a month? Seriously, I'm impressed.
(Oh and, Repeat all that for every build or patch the develloper do. Yep.)
Yeah, QA is a much bigger deal than people seem to think. In the past when I've been hunting for jobs, I've had people say "Hey, you like games, here's a job as a game tester, why don't you apply?" and I said "Because I don't want to hate video games."And as a QA tester, I'll add that:
Ya, you have to do that. Everywhere. on Every map. With every characters.
So now a fighting game? I never did one, but just to imagine one second just the shear mountain of work ONE more to a roster add, you might be surprised.
Just out of my head like that...
You might have to:
Try EVERY move of that new one against EVERY others characters.
Multiple times.
In a combo.
Why not depending of health percentage?
The position?
Is the enemy defending? Crouching? Already hitten?
What if you spam every move?
What if there hurtbox collision? Is there priority to set? (I don't know how that game work)
Does the hitbox work correctly? Against every move remember! EVERY.
And now repeat that on all stages.
And If there is multiple color skin, may god help the QA testers.
20'000$ for all that in a month? Seriously, I'm impressed.
(Oh and, Repeat all that for every build or patch the develloper do. Yep.)
I just realized who Noogy is...!
Interested in some animation work?
He is. Ive been following him since his work on Jazz Jackrabbit 2's intro and its expansion pack. All around incredible guy with massive talentDamn, lol
Noogy is not only a beast animator/ master of everything, but he's also incredibly nice and humble. It was an honor to meet the man who made such a great game, all by himself.
Not only that, but Edward Bosco and Lucien Dodge, who voice Eddie and Caleb in Sequence, are two of the lead characters in Dust: An Elysian Tail, as Ahrah and Dust!Haha, I love the stuff you guys are doing on Skullgirls, and actually met some of the artists (not sure they were animation leads or cleanup) last year at PAX. Yeah, we should talk. PM me!
BTW, did you know we share some voice talent? Kimlinh Tran, who did Ms. Fortune, also does a character in my game named Fidget!
Yep, small world And obvious reason why we want these vocal talents to receive the respect they deserve. It's hard work, and even I didn't completely appreciate what goes into good voice work before becoming a game developer.
Not only that, but Edward Bosco and Lucien Dodge, who voice Eddie and Caleb in Sequence, are two of the lead characters in Dust: An Elysian Tail, as Ahrah and Dust!
BTW, did you know we share some voice talent? Kimlinh Tran, who did Ms. Fortune, also does a character in my game named Fidget!
I for one can't wait to get Skullgirls on PC.
edit: and Dust
edit²: and There Came an Echo
So what, precisely, can a developer do to convince you that their production costs are reasonable? As far as I can tell you're giving them no recourse. The breakdown of costs in that manner is literally what accounting is: you separate the costs in to individual pieces so that the IRS can have a more accurate, transparent view of your business transactions. If that doesn't work for you, then what are developers supposed to do? Honest question. Generally speaking, the way people justify expenditures is by breaking them down in to individual components so you can transparently see where the money is going. It's as if you're saying "I personally cannot understand how these financials work, but it sounds stupid to me."
I've already said this before in this thread, but look -- I get that these figures are depressing, as there are real world consequences to the high cost of modern game development. It causes all sorts of problems for game developers, and the high costs are one of the reasons that so very many developers have gone under in the last 5 years.
It isn't pleasant to think about, I understand. But if you just don't want to think about it and refuse to account for the financials even though the developer is breaking down the costs for you, then you probably shouldn't be in this thread.
One interesting tidbit, going back to the CG vs hand drawn thing..
Think about something like Zangief's pile driver. The opponent has to be animated in a complicated spin that conforms to Zangief grapple.
.
I for one can't wait to get Skullgirls on PC.
edit: and Dust
edit²: and There Came an Echo
Ms. Fortune and Fidget are the same person?
Well I... well actually I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Sidenote: "We need more sheets around the mic" should become the new "tighten up the graphics on stage 3".
Yeah, QA is a much bigger deal than people seem to think. In the past when I've been hunting for jobs, I've had people say "Hey, you like games, here's a job as a game tester, why don't you apply?" and I said "Because I don't want to hate video games."
Also why that series The Tester makes me laugh and/or roll my eyes.
I wish people actually read the article....
It was very informative, and maybe some of the worst posts in here wouldn't have been made if I dunno, they read the article the thread is about?
Sidenote: "We need more sheets around the mic" should become the new "tighten up the graphics on stage 3".
I can tell you how much our indie games have cost in real dollars and in "virtual" dollars.
bullshit, I'm a YouTube superstar *facerolls on keyboard, emits verbal diharrea*I wish people actually read the article....
It was very informative, and maybe some of the worst posts in here wouldn't have been made if I dunno, they read the article the thread is about?
total: <30k
This thread should be renamed "Verbal Smackdown: The Thread"
Now imagine that you're not even working on a decent project. Pretend you're working on let's say, Littlest Pet Shop.Yeah QA testing isn't really a fun job. Spending 8 hours a day working at a game, not playing it, but working to find bugs how to reproduce them and if they got fixed check it.
And who knows maybe you get to work on an awesome game, but I guarantee you after 2 weeks of QA testing you won't be able to play that game once it has gone gold.
Funny thing about QA testing it isn't just gameplay or balancing. It is also about trying to find the limits of the game: can I make the game crash by spawning a bunch of objects/ items/ npcs?
And once you have done that: do it again for all the other languages the game supports. Also make sure the game is ready for submissions and abides by the TCR/ TRC / lot check requirements.
For the 3DS version there was maybe 10k in external costs (SDK, age ratings etc), and about 5 months between getting the SDK and the game passing lotcheck ≈ $8k (it wasn't really anywhere near 5 months of actual work, but I was very lazy during this period, and there were various waiting times)
total: <30k
Would you mind me asking how much it has brought in?
Thanks for sharing.
Were you able to work a normal job in that time or was it all dedicated to making the game?