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[Opiate]

They probably inflated cost to get more cash.

I totally don't believe it would cost that much

"I will not read the analysis explaining in detail where these costs come from. I refuse to believe things cost as much as they do."

Look, I get that it's depressing to see how much modern games cost to make. It has real consequences. This helps explain, in large part, why most companies are becoming so risk averse and relying increasingly on well known franchises. It explains why the number of games being released has gradually but relentlessly decreased. It helps explain why Sony has had such disastrous financial results this generation (and EA, and others). The costs associated with high level game design place intense pressure on how companies and developers operate, and mostly in very negative ways.

I understand that it is easier to simply pretend these problems don't exist, and that these games don't cost as much to make as balance sheets say they do. But ignoring reality doesn't fix problems, and I strongly advise everyone (not just the poster I'm quoting here) to come to terms with the increasing costs of game design and the consequences those costs entail.

 

[Kai Dracon]

The Indiegogo fund drive is funding the characters it mentions it's funding. If the drive is overfunded but stretch goals aren't met, then the money would go towards other ways of improving the game and adding content to it, like adding taunts, new stages, etc.

Barring that, other features are a separate thing. The PC version has nothing to do with this, for instance. There's no reason for the team to work on future designs for free when they might not come out. That's a lot of work for a maybe. Their time would be better spent actually doing something productive.

Thanks for the clarification.

Aside: a lot of people freaking out at the numbers seem to be using "common sense".

The problem with common sense is that it doesn't work so well when you lack understanding of the subject.

I could look a GPU die and say "that little thing looks to me like it couldn't cost more than a thousand dollars' worth of time to line up all the little bits and stamp one out."

My statement would be utterly meaningless and a complete asspull because I have no f**king idea how the hands-on design of a GPU proceeds, how long it takes, and how the die is arranged.

Edit: Once more Opiate transforms into the living embodiment of his tag.

 

[Barkley's Justice]

dont ship physical rewards

 

[Vyse The Legend]

I think the math makes sense. But, that doesn't mean the math still isn't insanely ridiculous.

 

[Branduil]

I think the math makes sense. But, that doesn't mean the math still isn't insanely ridiculous.

Bravo. It takes special effort to contradict yourself in just two sentences. Does it make sense, or doesn't it?

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

My company uses a room the size of a walk-in closet, a moderate metal microphone, a screen in front of that microphone, and a small 1'x1'x1' box made out of cut out egg-crate foam. Total cost? Less than 100 dollars on Amazon. Voice quality? Just as good as any other thing you'll hear in a video game. You really do not need to rent a studio if you just use some elbow grease.

Exactly. For an indie game, blowing 4k on a few one liners and grunts is absolutely insane. The team should always be looking for cheaper alternatives, especially on their budget.

You know what's better than spending 4k? Spending 2k and getting the exact same result.

 

[Branduil]

Exactly. For an indie game, blowing 4k on a few one liners and grunts is absolutely insane.

You know what's better than spending 4k? Spending 2k and getting the exact same result.

I can't even tell the parody posts from the real ones any more.

 

[Tain]

lol, the harsh reality that maybe Passage and Skyrim mods cost less to make than GTA5.

 

[nickp]

"I will not read the analysis explaining in detail where these costs come from. I refuse to believe things cost as much as they do."

Look, I get that it's depressing to see how much modern games cost to make. It has real consequences. This helps explain, in large part, why most companies are becoming so risk averse and relying increasingly on well known franchises. It explains why the number of games being released has gradually but relentlessly decreased. It helps explain why Sony has had such disastrous financial results this generation (and EA, and others). The costs associated with high level game design place intense pressure on how companies and developers operate, and mostly in very negative ways.

I understand that it is easier to simply pretend these problems don't exist, and that these games don't cost as much to make as balance sheets say they do. But ignoring reality doesn't fix problems, and I strongly advise everyone (not just the poster I'm quoting here) to come to terms with the increasing costs of game design and the consequences those costs entail.

Very well said.

 

[Kusagari]

I think common sense here is right.

They could justify however the fuck they want their $150.000, that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. $150.000 for one characters is way to much, they are clearly not optimizing their budget.

When you are an indie team struggling for money you have to be stupid to design a game that requires $150.000 for a single characters.

And yet the article is full of people that have worked on fighting games saying 150k is CHEAP.

 

[PreyingShark]

dont ship physical rewards

You realize that those had a lot to do with how they got so much $$ so quickly, right? >_>

 

[beril]

Exactly. For an indie game, blowing 4k on a few one liners and grunts is absolutely insane.

You know what's better than spending 4k? Spending 2k and getting the exact same result.

It's not really an indie game. That's probably what's confusing people.

 

[Exis]

Upon reading this thread I have bought SkullGirls via PSN. I will donate to Indiegogo in the morning and I am not a huge fighting game guy.

 

[Yabdbadbdadbda]

the twist is the character is already completed and they need all this money to fund another of their fancy company vacations

 

[joe2187]

Very well said.

Opiate
Depressingly Realistic
(Today, 06:39 PM)

 

[Branduil]

the twist is the character is already completed and they need all this money to fund another of their fancy company vacations

They're probably snorting caviar off of a geisha as we speak.

 

[Kai Dracon]

And yet the article is full of people that have worked on fighting games saying 150k is CHEAP.

They're lying.

It's probably a full blown conspiracy.

 

[FStop7]

So...did you even read the article?

Dude, it's Pachterballs.

Pachterballs.

 

[Dreavus]

I don't understand why people keep coming back to "it's that much for just one character?"

That quote from Seth: "The characters are the game in fighters".

I think declaring that 150,000 is too much for "just a character" is misleading in itself. This isn't super meat boy with tons of characters that all do something slightly different, but ultimately, aren't the important part of the game (hint: the levels are). A new character is a brand new facet of the game for a fighter. There kinda isn't anything else. Are people expecting to see a set of 2D platforming levels along with Squigly for it to seem "worth it" or something?

 

[wildfire]

A very salient point. Thank you Dreavus.

 

[lolmark]

They're making $600 a week.
Totally inflated.

That's too much damn money. They should be eating off the $1 menu at McDonald's and shackled to their damn work space.

 

[Branduil]

That's too much damn money. They should be eating off the $1 menu at McDonald's and shackled to their damn work space.

McDonald's? What is this, Goldman Sachs? They'll eat their 50-cent ramen and they'll like it.

 

[Owensboro]

I don't understand why people keep coming back to "it's that much for just one character?"

That quote from Seth: "The characters are the game in fighters".

I think declaring that 150,000 is too much for "just a character" is misleading in itself. This isn't super meat boy with tons of characters that all do something slightly different, but ultimately, aren't the important part of the game (hint: the levels are). A new character is a brand new facet of the game for a fighter. There kinda isn't anything else. Are people expecting to see a set of 2D platforming levels along with Squigly for it to seem "worth it" or something?

Also, people seem to be forgetting that Squigly isn't just another Shoto. She's a character with a very, very different playstyle. This isn't a copy paste job of Ryu people.

 

[honorless]

Some other interesting details from Ravidrath, buried in various comment replies on the article:

It would take us between 6 and 10 times as long to do the animation in-betweening and clean-up ourselves. Contracting that stuff out saves us a TON of money because we don't have to pay salaries to the whole staff for that time, and the assignments are per-frame.

We distribute a character's ~1500 frames of animation across between 70-100 people, typically, so we can get it done in 1-2 months.

1. No, the staff will be working full-time making this character. We have to do a ton of work to support the outsourcing efforts.

During the development of the core game, our internal art staff routinely worked 80-100 hour weeks. And that's with the 70-100 animation contractors we use supporting us.

2. We wouldn't be paying these salaries if we weren't making this character because we're still in the (very) formative stages of being a new studio. We don't have an office or other projects at the moment - everyone's working from home, for the most part, tracking everything online. This is something our team is actually very good at.

3. A full 40% of the money we're requesting is going to what we needed to do to get the money and get the content onto people's systems. Hugely inefficient, but it's not like we had a choice.

Our art staff is working full-time for the entirety of the project. Just because we outsource in-betweening and clean-up doesn't mean they aren't doing anything. On the core game, they were working 80-100 hours a week for the majority of the project.

Also, keep in mind, we're talking 1500 frames of animation, divided into three layers each. So that's 4500 art assets. It would take SIGNIFICANTLY longer to produce this amount of art without outsourcing, and that's more time we're paying salaries. 2D animation is a LOT of hard work, and distributing it widely is the only way to get it done in a reasonable timeframe.

And we could do hitboxes ourselves, but the designers' time is better spent actually implementing the character and balancing the game, which are things that only he can do. And, again, the less bottlenecks you have from salaried employees, the cheaper everything is.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

This is bat shit insane, it's incredible what kind of comically bloated monetary value people are willing to place on their time and efforts. Nothing about adding a character to this game even comes close to having this much worth. This is something I would expect a single artistically inclined modder could do his spare time for $0--not 8 "professionals" 10 weeks with most of the work contracted out.

So it costs less money to do a heart transplant surgery ($130,000 out of pocket if the heart surgeon waives and/or reduces his fee, which many do if the patient has no insurance) and save a life than it does to create a single character in a somewhat underwhelming 2d fighter. Obviously the cost relationship has nothing to correlate with each other, it's the ultimate apples vs oranges remark, but it really does highlight how bloated this figure is.

The problem I think comes from the fact that planning and budgeting just isn't done properly in the video game industry. And when I see producers who get that job title simple because they were community managers and QA testers for a few years and then get promoted to a producer role...it's kind of like..."the fuck?"

 

[Ultimadrago]

One of the animators for the game, Bahi JD, has done animation for the anime Kids on the Slope and currently works for the anime Studio 4C.

All I see in this .gif anymore is "Small Man".

 

[Haly]

I wonder how much P4A cost to make in comparison, with ArkSys cheaping out on so many frames.

 

[Nags]

Very interesting read.

 

[Keikaku]

"I will not read the analysis explaining in detail where these costs come from. I refuse to believe things cost as much as they do."

Look, I get that it's depressing to see how much modern games cost to make. It has real consequences. This helps explain, in large part, why most companies are becoming so risk averse and relying increasingly on well known franchises. It explains why the number of games being released has gradually but relentlessly decreased. It helps explain why Sony has had such disastrous financial results this generation (and EA, and others). The costs associated with high level game design place intense pressure on how companies and developers operate, and mostly in very negative ways.

I understand that it is easier to simply pretend these problems don't exist, and that these games don't cost as much to make as balance sheets say they do. But ignoring reality doesn't fix problems, and I strongly advise everyone (not just the poster I'm quoting here) to come to terms with the increasing costs of game design and the consequences those costs entail.

Pretty much this.

There are some things that NeoGAF is great for but being realistic about videogame budgets and the realities of game development are not among them. Every thread about the costs of video game development is full of ridiculous armchair devs. If people tried to develop games the way the some people on GAF say they should, every game would be made by people making under $600/week regardless of their job description, artists would be paid even less than they already are and voice acting would be done by whoever you could pull into the studio.

As someone who's now working as a 3D environment artist in the industry it's depressing as hell to read these threads and see opinions like this.

 

[dragonfart28]

Must've cost a bomb to create old man guy for the PS4.

 

[Lijik]

I don't understand why people keep coming back to "it's that much for just one character?"

That quote from Seth: "The characters are the game in fighters".

I think declaring that 150,000 is too much for "just a character" is misleading in itself. This isn't super meat boy with tons of characters that all do something slightly different, but ultimately, aren't the important part of the game (hint: the levels are). A new character is a brand new facet of the game for a fighter. There kinda isn't anything else. Are people expecting to see a set of 2D platforming levels along with Squigly for it to seem "worth it" or something?

This is an excellent point that I had thought of earlier but couldnt word nearly as well. Great post

 

[Aquamarine]

They probably inflated cost to get more cash.

I totally don't believe it would cost that much

Well believe it. Those figures are completely realistic.

 

[Mutanthands]

So it costs less money to do a heart transplant surgery ($130,000 out of pocket if the heart surgeon waives and/or reduces his fee, which many do if the patient has no insurance) and save a life than it does to create a single character in a somewhat underwhelming 2d fighter. Obviously the cost relationship has nothing to correlate with each other, it's the ultimate apples vs oranges remark, but it really does highlight how bloated this figure is.

The problem I think comes from the fact that planning and budgeting just isn't done properly in the video game industry. And when I see producers who get that job title simple because they were community managers and QA testers for a few years and then get promoted to a producer role...it's kind of like..."the fuck?"

Your comparison makes absolutely no sense at all, and highlights nothing. How much does it cost to run a grocery store? Staff a police department? Make a TV show? Guess what, doesn't matter, because the needs and fixed costs of each business vary greatly, to the point that straight comparisons are useless.

 

[ChamplooJones]

Very interesting read.

Indeed. For those of us who want to make games in the future info like this is vital.

 

[Keikaku]

Must've cost a bomb to create old man guy for the PS4.

I don't know if you're trying to be facetious or not but, yes, it probably did cost a lot. Between paying for a team of hardware and software engineers to work through the pipeline for getting assets onto a new gaming system and the artists to design, sculpt, texture, rig and animate that single, ridiculously high-poly head...well, I don't think you could do that on the cheap.

 

[EnochP]

Despite the opinion of "experts" such as Seth Killian and the developers themselves, it amazes me how they're all being ignored because the figures don't sound right to a bunch of couch developers. I wonder if you guys also think highway workers are making six figures since it costs millions of dollars to construct those roads.

Thank you thread for convincing me to donate $100 to the Skullgirls drive. I was thinking about only putting in 30 before I read this thread. Stay ignorant.
http://i.imgur.com/ekTRIw5.png

 

[Hazaro]

Ugh. What the hell is with GAF today?

Their publisher is legally bound to withhold venture capital for DLC development after a loan fuckup unrelated to Skullgirls. Skullgirls' main method of funding is frozen until that wraps up (And it may go away forever if things turn for the worse).

Skullgirls actually sold quite well with it's NA release. It also sold quite handily in Japan and easily secured the #1 spot on the JP PSN.

Voice actors, like any actor, are paid relative to their past expertise and training, not for how many hours they've worked in a studio or on a set.

The game uses contractors to speed up development, not to find cheaper labour. The in-house artists do the brunt of the art direction and main keyframes.

If I remember correctly, the costs and process for technical QA is mandated by Konami as terms for their backing. On top of that, extensive playtesting has to be done either way. While Mike Z made a lot out of loke tests at tournaments and gatherings, skilled balance testers should be paid for their work. Due to how consoles work, they only have a chance to patch the game when new characters drop. Since they can't acquire backing for this from their publisher, the crowd-fund has to take this into account.

A lot of the people who talk shit about the in-game assets haven't touched the game, nor have they compared it to similar work. I capture raw footage of this kind of stuff regularly. A small studio of plucky developers have TOPPED what A-list devs have been doing for years for less, while paying their workers and contractors, what I assume is, reasonable wages.

I mean shit. Who could we call redundant at LabZero right now? Go watch their animation panel. The guy who made the engine (Mike). One lead illustrator (Ahad). Two in-house animators. Their cleanup guy (I would consider having one on hand as mandatory). A sound guy.

They also have a dedicated PR dude and what I assume is someone handling legal and business.

I would consider that the bare minimum for a project of this magnitude. They are stomping developers in some areas, those of which are much better staffed and have much higher budgets.

Some other interesting details from Ravidrath, buried in various comment replies on the article:

Yup. From what I've followed of the studio and development from people who actually work in the games / VA industry it's a pretty lean operation delivering a very polished and finished product in a small timeframe.

The bigger headline should be how expensive all the fees + how shitty MS is with patching and how that fucks over devs.

As someone who's now working as a 3D environment artist in the industry it's depressing as hell to read these threads and see opinions like this.

Grats!

 

[Yabdbadbdadbda]

I wonder if you guys also think highway workers are making six figures since it costs millions of dollars to construct those roads.

...they dont??

where the fuck has my father been getting all that money then!!!

 

[_dazed]

So it costs less money to build an AIM-7 Sparrow ($125,000 out of pocket if you pay the US government rate , which many do if they can't buy missiles in bulk) and blow a multi-million dollar fighter out of the sky than it does to create a single character in a somewhat underwhelming 2d fighter. Obviously the cost relationship has nothing to correlate with each other, it's the ultimate apples vs oranges remark, but it really does highlight how ridiculous lowhighkang_LHK's statement was.

Spoiler

I would like to believe he was really commenting on the cost of healthcare in the US

 

[radios shipping overview]

guys fighting games aren't worth more than 20 bucks tops. All those japanese dev just want to take your money and say its expensive.

Cmon where aare all the money going if they don't even have a story mode? It can't take more than a week tops to Q/A a fighting game. Just make sure the attacks hit and do damage. TADA

I honestly can't tell which posts in this thread are sarcastic anymore.

 

[SupaNaab]

I feel like most of the arguments that consider the costs to be inflated are probably not fighting game players. A single character in a fighting game might as well as be an entire expansion to the game. I think people see games with lots of characters and assume it should be simple, if you look at MvC2 you had like 8(?) viable characters out of the 52 in the game (largely made up of recycled sprites) because the balance doesn't cover the entire cast like it does Skull Girls. It's also very hard to describe but you really have to play the game to see how great the art really is (this is a common problem for fighting games).

I'd be very curious what the development costs for Blazblue or Persona Arena were. Those games are the most similar to Skullgirls (especially the focus on gameplay over character quantity).

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

It's not really an indie game. That's probably what's confusing people.

This. A lot of people think of studios setup like our own when they think of indie - a couple of individuals who decided they wanted to make games and scrimp and save until they're able to make a living at it. Whereas something like the studio that made Skullgirls is more like a miniature version of one of the traditional video game development studios and as such, requires drastically more money to stay operational.

 

[SirPenguin]

why would you say that

Partly to show that even at 25% the number is absolutely ridiculous, but also partly because that's kinda the way it goes sometimes. Meetings, code reviews, documentation, training, etc. etc. are all things that wouldn't "count" as work insofar as the game goes, but it eats up days.

50% is probably a closer number. So, 1600 man hours.

I work in the IS department of a very large company. A typical project from our devs creating enterprise level software would cost maybe 600 man hours in a given quarter, and that's for a new project. Enhancement releases are at maybe half that.

Again, at a certain point you can't just be ok with that kind of thing. You gotta start looking at skills, tools, training, whatever it is that is acting as the roadblock. Keep in mind I'm talking solely hours here, not money, which is a wash because ~~~entertainment industry~~~

 

[VariantX]

I think it would help if they actually knew how much money it costs to make a fighter from one of the big pubs, So skull girls budget can be put into perspective .

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

Now I see why Capcom has no interest in making an HD hand drawn Street Fighter.

Most accounts say just doing Super Turbo HD was a nightmare.

 

[BattleMonkey]

See now I'm confused. Now I'm no marketing expert and I'm definitely not the smartest guy in what for what costs. Anyways how do you make a profit on a game if it actually takes this much money to make even just a single character. I don't mind looking like the stupid one here, but the way I'm seeing it unless the game looks low budget then it would need to sell like 1mill to even make the money back of what it costs to make it. I know how movies work with their budgets and how they make their money back, but video games will always be a big question mark to me.

Let's just say after seeing this I'm glad that my major is in animation and not video games.

Its cheaper when doing it all at once as one big project. Adding one new character is basically starting a whole new project that needs funding. The character would have likely been cheaper if produced along with the rest of the game. This is also why dlc is a mess and often expensive.

 

[Aquamarine]

So it costs less money to do a heart transplant surgery ($130,000 out of pocket if the heart surgeon waives and/or reduces his fee, which many do if the patient has no insurance) and save a life than it does to create a single character in a somewhat underwhelming 2d fighter. Obviously the cost relationship has nothing to correlate with each other, it's the ultimate apples vs oranges remark, but it really does highlight how bloated this figure is.

The problem I think comes from the fact that planning and budgeting just isn't done properly in the video game industry. And when I see producers who get that job title simple because they were community managers and QA testers for a few years and then get promoted to a producer role...it's kind of like..."the fuck?"

Studios are EXPENSIVE. Keeping a bunch of people together and contracting a bunch of work out and mountains of overhead leads to an expensive pipeline.

Once you've gotten everything revved up, that's when development starts to become cheaper. But the initial investment is very, very expensive.

Not to mention the difficulty of adding a new character in a genre where characters are fundamental to the enjoyment of the game.

 

[SixMachine]

So it costs less money to build an AIM-7 Sparrow ($125,000 out of pocket if you pay the US government rate , which many do if they can't buy missiles in bulk) and blow a multi-million dollar fighter out of the sky than it does to create a single character in a somewhat underwhelming 2d fighter. Obviously the cost relationship has nothing to correlate with each other, it's the ultimate apples vs oranges remark, but it really does highlight how ridiculous lowhighkang_LHK's statement was.

Spoiler

I would like to believe he was really commenting on the cost of healthcare in the US

If you double the budget to make Squiggly, you still won't have enough to make 1 minute of Ponyo. If you multiply it by 10, Blur would only you give 1min and 30sec of their time.

 

[Nags]

Indeed. For those of us who want to make games in the future info like this is vital.

Cost going up just being another actuality, not surprising that there are so many crowd funded projects these days.

 

[Mutanthands]

If you double the budget to make Squiggly, you still won't have enough to make 1 minute of Ponyo. If you multiply it by 10, Blur would only you give 1min and 30sec of their time.

Blur should totally make a feature length CGI movie. If they work hard, and keep it in-house, it should take a couple of weeks and a free boxed lunch daily.

No horsing around!

Spoiler

Sarcasm.