You're all over the page here. You need to focus on points and make them. This is the second time I've asked you to clarify what you're saying.
We are discussing industry wide trends - you're throwing statements about only Sony... and then tacking on "other top publishers". Your statement is incorrect in both counts;
Jim Ryan lists their games around US$100m - and that was for one notably expensive title, meaning their other games aren't quite that expensive. We're also not discussing the industry's change from 1980 to 2021 in terms of budgets. Literally no one is talking about what was happening in 1980. I was
quite specific when I said "twenty years ago", referring back to the OG Xbox and PlayStation 2 era of 2001. During this era, games stopped be able to be made by small teams and now required larger teams to produce. Budgets have not increased 10x. Your comparisons are disingenuous and you're pulling numbers out of thin air. Please start discussing things in good faith, and start backing up your numbers, or I'll stop replying.
Bullshit. I explained it well and provided facts, it's just you that don't want to understand it and are avoiding the facts.
And please, don't lie. Ryan doesn't say '
around $100M' and doesn't say 'that was for one notably expensive title', he said '
THEY cost MORE THAN $100M'. And I proved that it's way higher than 100M and that it's the case for all the relatively recent top AAA Sony games,
showing the examples of all the ones with their manpower listed in their game credits (via mobygames.com, a few games don't have their credits listed there so I didn't list them) and their development time mentioned by the devs (via wikipedia) and comparing them to a couple of other top AAA games whose budget we know because their creators mentioned it publicly. Games with budgets way higher than 100M and a manpower and dev time pretty similar to Sony to compare them.
I also highlighted Sony because this is a Sony thread and because I'm the one who decides the topic I mention, not you.
There's someone mentioning the AAA games from the 8 and 16 bits: myself. To explain that current prices are basically as they were then, or even cheaper when considering inflation. And also added that the development times and manpower, so their budget was way smaller then, to contrast it better with the current times and explain better why they need to rise the prices and when this issue started.
I didn't talk about PS2 generation, because this problem started way before, when I said: the 16 bit generation, that is when budgets started to grow generation after generation but prices kept more or less the same, and PS2 was only a generation more in the middle of these stairs where budgets kept increasing every generation.
As Ryan says in that interview, these budgets are becoming dangerous and risky. Every generation costs rise a lot, sales almost don't rise and prices kept getting smaller because they didn't update the release price with inflation and now they get discounted more and faster.
This is word soup. Can you please clarify what you're saying?
I said that 'Sony and Activision are the only publishers to
confirm a full next-gen price increase' wasn't true. Like EA or Square, Sony or Activision have games with the same price in both generations and free next gen upgrades (in many cases those developed from previous gen and their next gen version is mostly a raw port). While at the same time they also have other games with a paid next gen update or different pricing for each generation (in many cases when there's additional next gen only stuff other than the basic, standar improvements).
Not only does this not have anything to do with what you're saying, it proves the opposite of your point. You might want to re-read this again.
There's nothing wrong with that. Godfall and FFVIIR Intergrade are 3rd party games, so their publishers decide their pricing. And they decided to sell these next gen games at 80€/$70 at launch. Over time, like all games -excluding Nintendo- will be discounted and will apply price cuts.
They are timed console exclusives, which means that some day in the future they will be released for Xbox, and very likely it will happen at a discounted price because it's very rare to see a year old or two years old game keeping the same price it had at launch. If cheaper in Xbox will be because of being old, because we already saw multiple $70/80€ games on Xbox.
Which also means that if Godfall and FFVIIR Intergrade would have been day one multis they would have cost $70/80€ on Xbox too. The reason that we're seeing more $70/80€ games on PS5 is because we're seeing more next gen focused AAA games there.
You're deliberating attempting to obfuscate the issue with outlandish statements. No one is claiming a vast international conspiracy with Sony at the vanguard. Sony, as a platform holder, demonstrated that they could simply raise the price of their first party games and fans would just pay more money. Everyone else followed suite when they realised there was free money to be had, and fanboys would actually defend the price increase because "next gen". Everything else you've posted is noise.
Bullshit, NBA2K and Godfall shown their next gen more expensive pricing at the same time than Sony. Other games like Intergrade, Battlefield 2042 announced their price later because these games were announced later.
Virtually everything you posted in this specific post is absolutely false. I'll concentrate on the top numbers, because you're
deliberately mis-representing the development of these games to make garbage points.
For example, TLOUII did not have 2,331 people working on the game for six years.
In fact, the game didn't even enter full production until late 2017. The
estimated budget is around US$100m, and it is likely the game Jim Ryan was referring to in my above link... which indicates this specific budget was notably larger than the average Sony first party game.
According to the director of Days Gone,
they were mostly 45 people for several years before "ballooning" up to 120 over the course of development. Estimated budget for Days Gone in that link becomes roughly US$28-38 million.
Returnal's developer, Housemarque,
tops out at roughly 80 people at their peak. Returnal is a mid-budget Sony title, hence the push back on its AAA pricing.
This pattern is true for basically every single game you've posted. You're deliberately mis-presenting the development sizes, lengths, and budgets of these games. If this is all you're going to post, there's nothing worth discussing.
Bullshit.
I never said all these more than a thousand workers have been working during all the development time of the games. In preproduction there's always a way smaller team, part of it mainly only works in the early stages of the game, like in some cases concept artists, creative directors or some lead writers. Then it becomes bigger when they start production and develop the core of the game, and at the later part way more devs join the party, plus in the last parts the QA, localization, PR, CS, marketing guys and more join the party. It works in the same way for all AAA games. As an example in all games, testers aren't working during pre-production, and concept artists or creative directors aren't working after beta or RC stages.
But if you see the total manpower of a game and its development time, if both figures comparable to another game, then their development budget will be comparable.
Example:
Days Gone: 1679 people, 4 years
Destiny: 1195 people, around 4 years
Knowing the total budget for Destiny was around $500M (includes development and marketing, which often have similar budgets in AAA games), you must be crazy or to don't have any fucking idea about AAA game development to believe Days Gone was made by only 120 people or that did cost $28-38 million.
In addition to the lead studio developing the game (in Days Gone 120 people when mentioned in the interview, they later grew more) are only a small portion of the total amount of people that works in a AAA game as you can see in the over a thousand or two thousand people listed in many AAA games listed in my previous post and compare to the amount of workers that their lead studio have.
All lead studios who make AAA games have multiple support studios who work in the game. Most of the people are in outsourcing/support art & animation studios. As an example, Sony has Visual Arts Service Group, an art support team that excels on cinematics and works in many games like the ND, SSM, Bend, Insomniac ones. They also hire several external outsourcing studios spread around the world who also work for Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Capcom and so on. They also outsource work to other studios focused on music, audio design, dubbing or motion capture. Then there's teams in other offices from the publisher who handle testing, marketing, PR, CM, CS, localization, publishing, finances, legal and many more like the higher ups as are publisher/corporation, editorial team, producers on their side and so on. A huge amount of people who doesn't work for free. In moby games you can double check where all these over a thousand people comes from.
Btw Ryan doesn't say '
around $100M' and wasn't about this being an exceptional single game, he said '
THEY cost MORE THAN $100M'. And looking at the comparision I did is clear how Sony games compare to each other, or to other non-Sony top AAA games.
I also want to highlight that I listed the amount of people listed on the credits of the games (according to moby games), which means the total amount of people who worked in the game. And in many cases the list isn't complete because some studios don't include in the game credits people who leave the studio before the game ships, or don't list all their testers, or don't list the people of some support/outsourcing studios. Sometimes they only include the logo of the outsourcing studio or mention only a few studio bosses and not all their normal workers.