Liopleurodon
Member
I hope Square-Enix learns some lessons here.
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New York Times: Clair Obscur's budget was less than...$10M
- Thread starter Tiago Rodrigues
- Start date
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kiphalfton
Member
Makes you wonder how much all those DEI trainings, initiatives, etc. costs
I only bring that up as there seemed to be a huge upswing in costs after it started getting shoehorned into games.
I only bring that up as there seemed to be a huge upswing in costs after it started getting shoehorned into games.
mayham2199
Member
Yep level design was weak but imo JRPGs in general have been kind of weak when it comes to level design. I actually appreciated how short most of them were overall because if it's going to be garbage the least you can do is make it short.
You could tell there were 2-3 dungeons they really focused on and the rest they ignored.
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ProtoByte
Banned
Difficult to believe even with the rampant outsourcing, small scope, cut corners, doubtless governmental grants, and turn based combat, but alright. Does anyone think there's something to learn from this we didn't already know?
The farcical discksucking of this game is insufferable.
The farcical discksucking of this game is insufferable.
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Senua
Member
Marketing thst doesnt work for a hobby where the majority of the audience is on the internet all the time. What works is word of mouth. Games with zero marketing are selling many millions while others with times square ads, buses in london etc, arent selling shit
ProtoByte
Banned
Sure. It's frustrating to see discourse around the game industry be so badly misguided by perfomatively overhyped games and studios.
Hypereides
Member
Just wait till it reaches the 10 million units mark. He's going to tear his hair out.
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DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Is this actually true? Goty? Should be game of all time if this is true.
GateofD
Member
even if you want to nickle and dime to include the ubereats and electricity bills to their budget. It isn't going to be anywhere near the 200mil down the toilet the AAA studios do.
its like people reacting to Godzilla Minus One being like under 20mil and how Marvel is shitting crap looking movies for 200mil going "but japan pays less..."
its like people reacting to Godzilla Minus One being like under 20mil and how Marvel is shitting crap looking movies for 200mil going "but japan pays less..."
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OLED_Gamer
Member
Goes to show how management in these big corps really over-value themselves.
Aressa
You can't die before your death
I truly believe this is the best modern RPG ever made. The writing, voice acting, story, visuals, art style, gameplay and characters are exceptional. People will still be playing it 10, 20, 30 years from now and the only thing they'll complain about is the map because RPG design will have deteriorated severely by then.
MacReady13
Member
That is ALL that matters with gaming. Get that right and you could spend $50 on a game and I could not care less. It's why I tend to gravitate towards indie games now as they focus on gameplay over budgets.
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
Best JRPG of the last decade for me. It's like the "Final Fantasy for grown ups" that I imagined Square Enix would be making someday.
Cakeboxer
Member
There are games like 33 that blow up organically among players, but that kind of success is the exception rather than the rule. And then there are games like the Sony cinematics that have to be pushed worldwide with billboards, TV, radio, etc. You can also see from the poor PC sales what happens when there's no marketing.
Something like 33 is an exception; most games need marketing.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
What.
$10m (Which to be honest I don't actually doubt, although its lower than expected) is still a fucking lot of money even spread out over 5-6 years.
And if you think that's "indie", you try borrowing $10m over a 5 year period and see how independent you are from your backers!
Also dev budget is only a fraction of the PUBLISHING budget, so again I'd be a little careful of taking this as Gospel. Hell, just think of the compounding interest over 5 years when you're burning through $2m a year in payroll, infrastructure, and outsourcing costs!
Sorry, but the way this is being mythologized is getting embarrassing at this point.
There are countless examples. 33 wasnt the first and it wont be the last.
Roman Empire
Member
Triple A is laundry money business, proof #164982928
ChuckeRearmed
Member
When you don't need to pay blue haired banshees and "cultural consultants" it is not that expensive. Add the waste of money that is DEI training, "cultural impact" crap and so on.
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Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
As someone was saying earlier on:
35 * 2500(median wage in France) *12 *5 = 5.25 M €
That is without taxes (employers real cost of employees, etc…) and that brings you to well over 10 Million € without taking into account other expenses such as outsourcing, voice acting, marketing, etc…
35 * 2500(median wage in France) *12 *5 = 5.25 M €
That is without taxes (employers real cost of employees, etc…) and that brings you to well over 10 Million € without taking into account other expenses such as outsourcing, voice acting, marketing, etc…
PurePlatinum
Member
This is what you can do when ur game isn't made by 600 Californians.
The massively bloated budgets of AAA games stem from huge amounts of unnecessary team members and paying everyone like $150k. It's outrageous.
The massively bloated budgets of AAA games stem from huge amounts of unnecessary team members and paying everyone like $150k. It's outrageous.
PonyStation4
Member
Is this supposed to be a surprise? This game is using assets ripped straight from the asset store, from objects to animations.
LectureMaster
Or is it just one of Adam's balls in my throat?
xanaum
Member
Delivering something like that with such a low budget is an extraordinary achievement that almost nobody can pull off. Their resource manager is basically a wizard. Sometimes that's almost the same budget as a pixel-art game, or even more than what something like Hollow Knight cost, for example.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
So essentially what you're saying is your jealous and angry that devs are employed and getting well paid, when AI and outsourcing to cheap overseas labour can allow publishers to save money and will then pass the cost reductions along to consumers.... Riiiiiiiiight!
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Miyazaki’s Slave
Gold Member
Anyone have the non-paywalled version (didn't see it on the first page), just curious on the context/content of the article.
Wording like "it cost the developers less than $10 million" is fine...but it leaves out what it cost NamcoBandi to release and what it cost Kepler to market.
Just like developing Call of Duty might be $60 million while marketing and releasing CoD was upwards of an additional $300 million back in the day (around BLOPS1 for example).
Love E33 it deserves (almost*) EVERY award it gets but a group much larger (in both personnel AND financial resources) than just Sandfall Interactive had their hands in helping this game find as many players as it has.
Wording like "it cost the developers less than $10 million" is fine...but it leaves out what it cost NamcoBandi to release and what it cost Kepler to market.
Just like developing Call of Duty might be $60 million while marketing and releasing CoD was upwards of an additional $300 million back in the day (around BLOPS1 for example).
Love E33 it deserves (almost*) EVERY award it gets but a group much larger (in both personnel AND financial resources) than just Sandfall Interactive had their hands in helping this game find as many players as it has.
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Senua
Member
You were downplaying the game weeks ago and saying how nier automatica had a much lower budget etc. This game really ruffles AAA obsessed people's jimmies
Plague Doctor
Member
Elsewhere on the net, people are claiming if you aren't in support of 300 million dollar games that require a small country of devs, then you want mass layoffs.
See the real reason bloat is accepted in some places on the net? Self preservation from sock puppets and people guilted into supporting it.
Everything has an angle.
A small part of me respects the hustle.
See the real reason bloat is accepted in some places on the net? Self preservation from sock puppets and people guilted into supporting it.
Everything has an angle.
A small part of me respects the hustle.
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Lokaum D+
Gold Member
Feet people
PurePlatinum
Member
Actually I work at a tech company you would recognize by name, and I am one of these people who gets paid six figures to do basically nothing. We are everywhere.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
By comparing it with another non-AAA game! C'mon man!
No, the reason why I was "downplaying" it is that its not a fucking "indie" game by any sort of real historic metric.
Something I know a lot about because my first industry job was in 1987, and I finished up in 2011. So unlike most people I have a lot of actual dev experience, a good chunk of which predates AAA as a concept. I was there at the humble beginnings and watched the business grow and change over successive generations.
What always strikes me as sad is that corporate backing and investment is what allowed the industry to grow and thrive, real independence means a constant struggle to survive because any profits made from one project is unlikely to last through to when the next title hits the market, particularly if your creative ambitions grow with your confidence and general experience.
Sorry guys, but despite the communistic horse-shit being spewed by activist types, corporate backing has been a net positive over the years. That a fucking 6 year, $10million dev-budgeted title is somehow considered "indie" these days, just proves the point. Like I've been stressing from the start, if you've got millions to sink into your project, you're either rich enough to be doing this as a side-gig, or you're taking the money from somebody on the promise of being able to pay it back to them with interest.
For the record its a big part of why I detested cunts like Phil Fish and the other "indie" darlings who in the oughts were swanning about acting like they had somehow invented the idea of making games without corporate studio backing! People of my generation of developers were truly independent, and were working with far less support (technical and monetary) than these spoilt arseholes with buddies in the media propping them up.
Sorry, rant over. But I hope you see my point about "indie" being mostly a gimmick when that much time and money are involved. This isn't a bedroom coder revolution, its a well-backed business operation that's being presented as coming from outside the established brand system.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
I loved the game, my GotY. However, the Graphics were crap and looked like a very good looking PS3 game.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Yep. Two of my most favorite games recently have been KCD2 and BG3. Yes, BG3 is AAA.
Anyways, these games have the sort of scope that E33 can't even approach.
Heck, Rogue Trader or Wrath of the Righteous from Owlcat are a lot more expansive. And take Stalker 2. For all its issues and bugs, it's a much grander game.
To me E33 is comparable to new Mafia game. Very good AA games that do the best with the budget and offer it at a fair price. We need more of these.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
I want your PS3.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Balatro was made by 1 guy and music was done hiring an indie guy. Sold 5M copies as of Jan 2025. So maybe it's up to 6M by now. Ported to all consoles, iPhone and Android too.
Game was made in 2.5 years. It doesnt look great, it doesnt sound great, it looks like it could be made on Windows 3.1.
Doesnt matter. A good game with clever gameplay that's easy to understand hooks you in with replayability, and sold cheap across all platforms.
The profits and ROI on this game are so high for what it is being a one man team making the game in his basement, there probably isnt one game made at any big company that compares to this. And all he did was come up with a simple concept involving deck building and poker.
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DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
Man what a joke. Square Enix/Luminous Studios honestly thought Forspoken was destined to be some huge new AAA franchise.
What I really don't get though, is how there's such a massive gulf between S-E's AAA games and their smaller scale stuff (like their HD-2D games). I wish they were capable of making stuff like Clair Obscur. Not AAA but still doesn't feel cheap or retro.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
I like E33 but that's not really the direction I want to see.
E33 is good but it's world designed like Souls series which it's broken and dead and there barely town you visit, it's turn based combat is dominated dodge and parry which honestly feels like I'm playing action game even tho it's turn based.