Yeah that would be Dead Space 1, which surpassed RE4.
Dead Space had pretty basic combat and enemies. There was a reason you could beat the game using just the plasma cutter (and it was the preferred weapon too).
Yeah that would be Dead Space 1, which surpassed RE4.
DS2's MP was pretty barebones. I wouldn't be surprised if a very small amount of that 60M went to MP. DS2 was constantly changing areas and every time they shifted locations they did it by flinging Issac there with a grandiose set piece. You can tell they spent a bunch of money on that campaign.
Graphics aren't the only reason game development is more expensive.
How does that happen?
Uncharted 2 had a ~15 hours high quality singleplayer campaign with some of the most impressive graphics and performance capture of its time + addition of a Multiplayer mode + a COOP mode + Naughty Dog size which is not small at all.
HOW DID DEAD SPACE 2 COST 40 MILLION MORE???
It makes no sense to me.
But then again, Tomb Raider 2013 budget was like the entire Uncharted trilogy... which seems so crazy for me too.
Can we stop with the 60$ bullshit, no complete games cost 60$ now, 4m for a multiplats game is just disappointing, thats it.
Hellblade is more visually impressive for the time of release and a comparable length and the dev said they only needed to sell 300k copies to break even iirc.
Dead Space 2, a pretty by the numbers sequel sold 4 million and wasn't able to break even. Something went wrong.
The reason studios are there is because the talent pool is there. If you move your studio to the middle of nowhere youll get a lot less people to hire and even less willing to relocate.
Since Horizon hasn't even sold the gangbusters 4 million copies (and it is gangbusters) does that mean Horizon likely wasn't profitable?
Anyhow, not being profitable at 4 million is fucking ludicrous.
Publishers need to open studios in other areas of the country. You could cut your costs a ton by doing so. Running a studio in Texas or Georgia or Ohio would be so much cheaper.
Ive had people who work in notable development roles at Sony tell me that $80 million is about the floor for getting a top shelf AAA game out the door these days.I need to see some receipts. I can believe it costing more, but it seems like you arbitrarily chose a budget
We literally had a game like this release a week ago. The bigger is the amount hands trying to get a piece of the pie and unnecessary features like the multiplayer that dead space 2 has.And this is why we see like a fraction of the AAA games that we used to see released.
The market's refusal to go above the $60 price tag killed games like this.
Peoples refusal to allow publishers to price games above $60 is one of the main drivers behind loot boxes and other things to try and drive AUSP up.
In pure dollar terms $60 today is cheaper than $60 10 years ago but gamers in genrenal throw a fit when they try and raise prices.
Seriously, how can a market bitch about publishers trying to raise game prices to match budgets that are increasing (purely through inflation, exclude all the hd asset work) and also bitch about publishers dropping in loot boxes and other monetization strategies to offset that.
I cant figure out how people think this industry is supposed to survive when its customers dont want them to make any money.
Even before Nintendo even stepped in. The original never sold well on either PS2 or Xbox, but 2 and 3 happened surprisingly quickly regardless and made some huge steps forwards. Different times I guess when publishers still could make these kinds of games on a small budget with the bare minimum of sales required. Hence the little nugget in the spoiler about it not being a comparable 'AAA' type series, which undoubtedly also helps the series. And I'm with you, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.Fatal Frame has a nice sugar daddy in the form of Nintendo, though with how the games progress, they can get away with repeating a lot of content and assets to help keep the costs way down. It's a completely different scale of economics compared to Dead Space. Hell, I wouldn't at all be shocked if all the Fatal Frame games combined wouldn't cover half the budget of Dead Space 2.
The most talented developers don't want to live in middle america. If they were forced to move there, they would just go to the 100s of other companies looking for software developers.Game devs need to open offices in middle America to have more reasonable budgets.
Dead Space had pretty basic combat and enemies. There was a reason you could beat the game using just the plasma cutter (and it was the preferred weapon too).
To add to that, the talent is only there because the studios are there. There are plenty of talented indie developers who live in other parts of the country and are able to develop good products. There is nothing special about San Francisco that produces more artists and programmers than other places, there are talented artist, programmers, designers, etc. everywhere. They are only in San Francisco right now because they have to be there to find work.That's true but it's becoming extremely clear that something about the Bay Area scene is incompatible with AAA game development if developing Dead Space, Battlefield and a Henig Star Wars game isn't self-sustainable. I've been an advocate for an exodus away from San Francisco for a long time and I'm more than willing to watch the Bay Area tech scene die if these are the budgets we can expect from a relatively unambitious title that would've cost a fraction elsewhere. Especially if they're going to implement scummy business practices and implement things like microtransactions and cutting content for the season pass to try and recoup bloated development and advertising costs.
Something has gotta give and they're out of their fucking minds if they think I'm going to buy loot boxes because they can't afford to operate otherwise.
150k per person is super conservative in the bay area. I know developers making 125k on salary alone. Let's not even talk about overhead, equipment, health, benefits, etc.$150k/year sounds insane to me. But I neither live in the Bay Area or USA.
Rough estimate but...
4 years x 150k/year expenses per person x 100 people = $60M
EDIT: Just saw that it was 2.5 years of development, so maybe something more like...
2.5 years x 150k/year expenses per person x 160 people = $60M
...or maybe $150k/year expenses are me being conservative on dev costs. California real estate is expensive and artists/programmers have a lot of options there, so maybe salaries and overhead are more competitive and push it closer to $200k/year per person average costs.
The short answer is, $60M doesn't go very far when you're running a large operation.
Ive had people who work in notable development roles at Sony tell me that $80 million is about the floor for getting a top shelf AAA game out the door these days.
I guess its not impossible that Guerrilla is notably under other high end studios, but it strikes me as improbable.
If the game doesn't sell right away at $60 that's actually quite possible. In retail the the margins for the publisher drops tremendously going down from $60.So they made less than $15 per copy sold? Even allowing for a lot of copies being sold at a discount I thought it would be higher than that. Nevertheless, if this is a justification for trying to fleece consumers rather than address the industry's own bad practices it's a pretty weak one.
Its important to note that this is a Dutch studio and I doubt they are nowhere near in the 150k range.Ive had people who work in notable development roles at Sony tell me that $80 million is about the floor for getting a top shelf AAA game out the door these days.
I guess its not impossible that Guerrilla is notably under other high end studios, but it strikes me as improbable.
Horizon's also been in development since what, 2011? Six years development time for a AAA open world RPG (that's also a new IP) seems like it would cost significantly more than $47 million USD, especially when you factor in the time Guerrilla spent developing a new engine in parallel.
Two years of hundreds of people at San Francisco Bay Area salaries and benefits plus all the outsourcing needed to support it.
Not many AAA studios left in the Bay Area these days you'll notice. Crystal Dynamics outsources half their game development to Montreal as one of the few remaining ones.
Every publisher does this, and especially in other countries where hiring is subsidized, and even cheaper than Texas/Ohio/Georgia.
https://www.ea.com/about
That budget isn't actually too high. Shame that they couldn't make money from it. Making a comparable game today would probably cost at least 100.
The MP was likely a fraction of the cost of the SP. Especially considering that it was made from SP assets. Do a breakdown really quick of each department and explain how they mishandled the budget?I like how everyone saying this the reason we deserves loots box and shit and yet are not questioning the 60 million marketing budget and tacked on mp? Why in games are we always the ones footing the bill for company miss handel money and then not even pay there employees and then throw them in tax havens when a movie bombs we dont say ticket price needs to go up to compensate for there lack of budgeting.
According to what metric?It is too high. 60 mio for the game, 60 mio to promote it. Thats insane for this game.
60 U.S. dollars * 4 million =
240 million U.S. dollars
it only cost 60 mil
I don't get it .
It is too high. 60 mio for the game, 60 mio to promote it. Thats insane for this game. Witcher 3 cost 30 mio. Zelda BotW would have been profitable if it sold 2 mio. If you have to sell 5 mio untill you make profit you probably shouldn't make the game to begin with, if it's not GTA 5.
The most talented developers don't want to live in middle america. If they were forced to move there, they would just go to the 100s of other companies looking for software developers.
60 U.S. dollars * 4 million =
240 million U.S. dollars
it only cost 60 mil
I don't get it .
1) Hellblade was released 6 years after, which means 6 years of technological improvements, and significantly lower costs for an engine license.
2) Because of those technical differences, Hellblade was worked on by an order of magnitude fewer people than Dead Space 2 (I believe the number was 15 or so).
3) Ninja Theory is based in the UK, which has a significantly lower standard of living than San Francisco
Nothing "went wrong"
60 U.S. dollars * 4 million =
240 million U.S. dollars
it only cost 60 mil
I don't get it .
Nirolak, do you know why publishers dont open some studios in the mid west?
You can live comfortably in Oklahoma on 40k a year, thats not an exaggeration.
The MP was likely a fraction of the cost of the SP. Especially considering that it was made from SP assets. Do a breakdown really quick of each department and explain how they mishandled the budget?
According to what metric?
Dead Space was a commercial success, with EA CFO Eric Brown confirming 1 million sales in 2008 across three platforms. On August 3, 2010, EA announced the game has sold 2 million copies.
Getting flashbacks...This sounds super dodgy to me.
A horror game that was slightly adjusted to market trends AND was very heavily marketed. It wasn't mismanagement. It was an incredibly ambitious game.Thinking a horror game could recoup $120m+ was mismanagement.
They had their proof from Dead Space 1 selling 2 million copies. Which was apparently a commercial success. So what on earth were they thinking for Dead Space 2?
Sure. Just make games with smaller scope until, with technology advancements, you can efficiently fund bigger games.
Publishers these days are just constantly trying to one up themselves, with bigger (empty) worlds, more "content", flashier graphics (that go stale after a few years because the art is weak), and pervasive online infrastructures (that close off access to parts of the games when servers inevitably go down).
That, oft meanigless, fluff needs hundreds if not thousands of (paid) employees to produce, market and ship. No wonder they're risk averse, have unreasonable sales expectations, they kill off studios after one faux pas and they keep adding stupid, costly crap in full priced games.
The best part is that they've cornered themselves during the years, by feeding the gamers' mentality with the constant need of better graphics and bigger worlds in order to sell their games. They've done this to themselves and now they wonder why 4 million copies isn't enough. Meanwhile Nintendo, indies and level-headed mid-tier developers are quietly making their profit.
The consumer blaming, especially by consumer themselves, is revolting given the circumstances.
Ive had people who work in notable development roles at Sony tell me that $80 million is about the floor for getting a top shelf AAA game out the door these days.
I guess its not impossible that Guerrilla is notably under other high end studios, but it strikes me as improbable.
How does that happen?
Uncharted 2 had a ~15 hours high quality singleplayer campaign with some of the most impressive graphics and performance capture of its time + addition of a Multiplayer mode + a COOP mode + Naughty Dog size which is not small at all.
HOW DID DEAD SPACE 2 COST 40 MILLION MORE???
It makes no sense to me.
But then again, Tomb Raider 2013 budget was like the entire Uncharted trilogy... which seems so crazy for me too.
How in the fuck did it cost that much to make?