Its your money. Let you not pay and let others pay. The market as always will follow the money. If you don't like shooters buy a PC.
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Rising dev cost. Is a threat to the industry?
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Its your money. Let you not pay and let others pay. The market as always will follow the money. If you don't like shooters buy a PC.
Starbuck2907
Member
I've always read that next gen games will be cheaper to develop.
Most games, especially those with PC versions, already have texture packs that will run at 1080p displays and at higher resolutions, so the added cost of "creating" those textures is zero.
As for game engines, next gen consoles will have more RAM, which will allow for the use of more off-the-shelf middleware and will cutdown on the need for highly optimized game engines, or highly customized combinations of proprietary engines and middleware combinations. Basically, there might be some increased costs with licensing middleware, but the tradeoff would be a greatly shortened development time because there will be less need to develop or optimize every game engine and piece of middleware. -- Now, the best devs will optimize and squeeze every ounce of juice out of their game engines and middleware, but the fact is that the increased amounts of memory will likely not *require* such time consuming optimization and development time.
At least, that's what I've read.
Most games, especially those with PC versions, already have texture packs that will run at 1080p displays and at higher resolutions, so the added cost of "creating" those textures is zero.
As for game engines, next gen consoles will have more RAM, which will allow for the use of more off-the-shelf middleware and will cutdown on the need for highly optimized game engines, or highly customized combinations of proprietary engines and middleware combinations. Basically, there might be some increased costs with licensing middleware, but the tradeoff would be a greatly shortened development time because there will be less need to develop or optimize every game engine and piece of middleware. -- Now, the best devs will optimize and squeeze every ounce of juice out of their game engines and middleware, but the fact is that the increased amounts of memory will likely not *require* such time consuming optimization and development time.
At least, that's what I've read.
The market will follow the money right over the edge of a cliff as more and more developers try to make the next breakout AAA dudebro hit. It's a senseless, depressing race to the bottom.
You honestly think every developer will do that? The market has trends. Look at the big mmo. Killed a few studios now most devs won't/don't attempt it. People learn the market adapts and changes. What makes studios close is poor budgeting and/or incorrect projections and execution.
I honestly think more of them will have to do what Nintendo does soon enough.
You can only hemorrhage money for so long before there's nothing left, and if dev. cycles are longer, and cost more, recouping is just gonna be that much harder unless some compromises on the game development is made.
Plus the inevitable rising game costs aren't going to help in a bargain-fueled society that we're slowly becoming.
You can only hemorrhage money for so long before there's nothing left, and if dev. cycles are longer, and cost more, recouping is just gonna be that much harder unless some compromises on the game development is made.
Plus the inevitable rising game costs aren't going to help in a bargain-fueled society that we're slowly becoming.
GillianSeed79
Member
While I loathe it, the used game industry is probably the only reason there hasn't been a crash yet. I personally don't make it a habit to buy used games these days as I want to support developers and not the GameStop-like pawn shop racket , but parents, kids, teens and a lot of people do. Hell, my finances have made me stop buying new games day one these days.
If all games were $60 MSRP for months on end the AAA industry would have already imploded.
Those people would either buy far less games, move to buying cheaper games, or simply find another hobby altogether. It would just make it even worse for recouping development costs for those high budget games. Stopping used games won't solve this problem, people only have so much money to spend on gaming after all.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Game development costs keep spiraling upwards but a game still costs $60, almost the same as it did 2 decades ago. Do people actually wonder why it's so difficult to break even, much less turn a profit, in today's industry?
Pureauthor
Member
Are we ignoring the multitude of 'Revenue Enhancing Devices' that the big names have slapped onto their games as the generation wore on? The first part of your sentence is the heart of the matter, in any case.
Night_Trekker
Member
Of course it's a threat. A huge one. Look at all the developers who have gone under after one or two bombs this generation.
But a lot of people on NeoGAF think it's fine because Uncharted is successful or some nonsense like that.
But a lot of people on NeoGAF think it's fine because Uncharted is successful or some nonsense like that.
1. I honestly suspect the negative impact has been overestimated, I'd be very curious to see how many sales actually GO to new releases versus those years old and likely out of print.
2. It's valuable for maintaining accessibility to (nearly) all games, we don't live in an ideal world where everything that goes up on DD stays on DD, and services never ever shut down. Nevermind when publishers don't even have to worry about licensing and play games with availability for cultivating the image they desire (pulling Sonic 06 from Xbox Games on Demand, the fact KotOR2 has yet to go up on DD despite nearly every other Star Wars game going up).
At best, I could compromise at no warding against used, but GameStop completely collapsing so that used games are not as easy to access and are more of an out of the way option for penny pinchers or people looking for older titles, but that'd also come with a very heavy cost unless someone else stepped in to create a game-dedicated retailer chain. That likely won't be happening in this current climate if GameStop went under.
This is a great read.
That's the thing. The used game industry shows that budget-minded consumers will still buy games so long as they're cheap enough. If anything, smart developers will learn the value of having legitimate sales (a la Steam/Amazon) and using some of tiered pricing schedule for all releases. If developers lowered their prices at the same rates the used game market devalues titles, they'd still make plenty of money that wouldn't go into shit companies like GameStop.
If the developers want to make money, they have such a small window of opportunity upon release to do so. That's not fair to developers who work on a game for two years, then get only two months to sell high volumes of NIB copies because the rest will just be picked up on the used game market with NONE of the revenue going to the people who made the game. Consider it GameStop essentially getting 'credit' for the games in their entirety.
Ogrekiller
Member
If the industry wants to recoup costs they can either:
1. Sell more copies of games
2. Raise the price of games.
3. Reduce manufacturing costs.
4. Shrink development teams.
To be honest, as a consumer I shouldn't be saying this but going completely digital distribution would be the way to go if you really wanted to squeeze every single penny out of the consumer. You have complete control over the distribution of the product, no handling/shipping/manufacturing costs, complete control over the product you sell, can charge whatever price you want, cut up the game and sell it in chunks at high prices, pay to play online, there's no physical used product for the consumer to resell, a fee to redownload the product if the consumer accidentally deletes it God it's a companies biggest dream.
1. Sell more copies of games
2. Raise the price of games.
3. Reduce manufacturing costs.
4. Shrink development teams.
To be honest, as a consumer I shouldn't be saying this but going completely digital distribution would be the way to go if you really wanted to squeeze every single penny out of the consumer. You have complete control over the distribution of the product, no handling/shipping/manufacturing costs, complete control over the product you sell, can charge whatever price you want, cut up the game and sell it in chunks at high prices, pay to play online, there's no physical used product for the consumer to resell, a fee to redownload the product if the consumer accidentally deletes it God it's a companies biggest dream.
njean777
Member
The problem with this gen is that most companies seemed to go after the graphics, and not worry about how good the game plays. Like I have said over and over, gameplay beats graphics every time. If you make a good looking game that plays great then people will buy it, but if you make a superb looking game with crap gameplay people will pass on it. COD says hello... Its all bad business decisions that have led to studios closing, bad games = studios closing.
Once THQ's corpse is added to the pile I wonder which will be the next semi-major/major publisher to go.
It sometimes feels like Ubisoft is one major bomb away from serious trouble.
Yeah, Ubisoft SEEMS to be fine, but then what big series do they have that are cheap to produce? Madden and CoD are both fairly cheap IIRC, but Assassin's Creed certainly isn't, and it's not like stuff like Splinter Cell comes out all the time. Then again they have a strong investment in casual games that are likely produced relatively cheaply, so they might just curl up and abandon the traditional market.
shaowebb
Member
For those interested the current body count stands at 126 studios having closed their doors since 2006.
Listed here.
The entire industry is in a state of change. They have to relearn from scratch how to make a profit and please fans these days due to all kinds of reasons. The industry has changed dramatically in terms of gaming. Indie markets got bigger, online gaming became a bigger and bigger focus to players, mobile gaming and social network gaming exploded, dev costs needed to meet AAA standards got extremely high as the standards continued to rise, and peoples budgets tightened tremendously due to economy changing many standards of just what equated "value" on the market.
Its been crazy, and a lot of mismanagement occurred from folks either trying and failing to figure this market out or from simply not noticing that things had changed and that they needed to adapt. Its a rough time to be in the industry...I intend to do my best.
Listed here.
The entire industry is in a state of change. They have to relearn from scratch how to make a profit and please fans these days due to all kinds of reasons. The industry has changed dramatically in terms of gaming. Indie markets got bigger, online gaming became a bigger and bigger focus to players, mobile gaming and social network gaming exploded, dev costs needed to meet AAA standards got extremely high as the standards continued to rise, and peoples budgets tightened tremendously due to economy changing many standards of just what equated "value" on the market.
Its been crazy, and a lot of mismanagement occurred from folks either trying and failing to figure this market out or from simply not noticing that things had changed and that they needed to adapt. Its a rough time to be in the industry...I intend to do my best.
It might be Sega :-/
more like 50-60 year old suits that barely know how to use an email client
also
lets just all blame used games sales!!!
the big third parties like...
rockstar/EA/activision will be fine like they have been this generation and generations past.
its the more creative mid tier, studios that ends up getting fucked over.
either that or short sighted CEOs ship all our jobs to china. EA already did it with alice MR
rockstar/EA/activision will be fine like they have been this generation and generations past.
its the more creative mid tier, studios that ends up getting fucked over.
either that or short sighted CEOs ship all our jobs to china. EA already did it with alice MR
studios are being closed for
1. They are overestimating their market reach and thus spend too much money that will yield no return.
2. They are shit at developing games effectively as well as (publishers) marketing them effectively
3. Too many studios trying to sell their games to the same target audience. 80% of mainstream maybe buys 2-4 games per year. They cannot and will not buy your game if they already have bought another one or are waiting for game they percieve to be better (or a better deal) than yours. Especially if you are trying to sell your game for 60 $ / 70€ with day one DLC, codes and exlclusive DLC depending on where you buy their product.
Unhandled Exception
Member
I'm entirely sick of the 'dump everything we have into this, it has to be a blockbuster' mentality. Higher dev costs are strictly a product of poor industry projection. It will correct itself at some point and games will have to stop trying to be Hollywood productions at least for a little while.
converting high poly mesh in zbrush and having a computer scale these down to lower poly with normal maps isnt the same thing....
with more powerful hardware it means modeling more assets not wasting polygons.
PairOfFilthySocks
Member
Rising dev costs will be the ruin of this industry. When starting development on a new game, devs need to stop for a second, stop thinking about what big-name actors they'll hire and what 'epic' set-pieces they'll put in their game, and focus and what actually makes their game good.
Fudgepuppy
Banned
Alot of games don't need the biggest budget to be as good. Companies should just stop assuming their product will sell 3-million copies and instead be realistic.
dr_rus
Member
Short answer: no.
Long answer: no, because the market and the industry is balanced via demand and supply. Dev costs are rising because there are more players who buy games now than there was 10 years ago not because of new hardware. You can do a new Fallout in 2D on PS4, you know? That won't cost much to make and has a potential of selling pretty good. Budgeting is the key. The real threat to the industry are people who think that spending loads of money on a game somehow guarantees good sales for it.
Long answer: no, because the market and the industry is balanced via demand and supply. Dev costs are rising because there are more players who buy games now than there was 10 years ago not because of new hardware. You can do a new Fallout in 2D on PS4, you know? That won't cost much to make and has a potential of selling pretty good. Budgeting is the key. The real threat to the industry are people who think that spending loads of money on a game somehow guarantees good sales for it.
It shouldn't make much difference. You can make games massively better looking for no additional cost. In fact, people spend plenty of time and money on highly reductive bump mapping and things. Asset wise, we've been ready for the next gen for years. The Witcher 2 on PC looks far better than anything on consoles, and was relatively speaking, very cheap.
Wait a minute. Why does the development cost have to rise in the way it did last time? You've got so many unique platforms with so many effective ways to deliver content to those platforms that only your Call of Duty-level games should see the spike. But yeah, as the new generation comes forth, the barrier of entry at the top end is going to be that much higher.
1)Poland
2)the answer to the bold out part is no and there is detailed post from the dev in this thread explaining why
Poland is a lazy answer. If The Witcher 2 was made in the US, it wouldn't be anything close to the most expensive PS360 games. There are things which cost nothing, and greatly improve the visuals of games. For example, you could place thousands of blades of grass on the ground. That process would have a major visual impact, and would cost basically nothing. The Witcher 2 looks as good as it does because the density of it's environment looks similar to an actual forest, it doesn't matter that it's all repeated assets, no one cares about that.
Crysis 1 still looks massively better than anything on PS360, it was made in Germany, and cost about twenty million, including engine development.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Good luck with that.
Vinterbird
Member
I think that bringing Witcher 2 up as a "they did it, and with a minimal amount of money" is crazy, because they are Polish and salaries are low and so on and so forth.
Sure we could outsource everything to Poland, but that would cause a massive outcry amongst developers, who already under the outsource threat from Asia.
But yes, asset wise stuff has been ready for a long ass time, since a lot of stuff gets produced at vastly higher resolutions and fidelity then what the consoles can muster.
But for a company to survive the next gen, they need to have a middleware pipeline that kicks ass. EA has been extremely clever with everything going Frostbite, and Ubisoft seems to be doing stuff alongside that with Anvil, and its moves like that, that will secure a company in the future.
kinoki
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
The industry is in a really bad place right now, financially. This generation the eastern business practices made the whole J-genre more or less die out. The next generation will see a similar demise to the W-genre. Only the really good developers will continue to live on but alot of jobs will be lost.
Atleast that's what I believe.
Atleast that's what I believe.
I didn't mean to imply anyone can make a 'AAA' PS480 game for a few million, I used the Witcher 2 because it's the best looking game, not because it's cheap. It's not like they have two thousand guys making it. Yes, the wages are lower, but you could have still made it in the US for a price inline with a normal game. Certainly nothing compared to the top end PS360 budgets.
No.
Survival of the fittest - consumers will decide. If companies pursue business strategies that consumers don't like and go bankrupt, that isn't a problem. If the only sustainable market left is iOS and freemium, that isn't a problem. You may not like the end results, but that doesn't matter.
If I had the option I would choose better everything, graphics, sound, art, voice acting and gameplay. I hate settling for less. I don't particularly care about whether company A or B is profitable or not. If what I like stops being produced, well tough titties.
The industry isn't going anywhere, the developers you know in the niches you enjoy? Maybe.
Survival of the fittest - consumers will decide. If companies pursue business strategies that consumers don't like and go bankrupt, that isn't a problem. If the only sustainable market left is iOS and freemium, that isn't a problem. You may not like the end results, but that doesn't matter.
If I had the option I would choose better everything, graphics, sound, art, voice acting and gameplay. I hate settling for less. I don't particularly care about whether company A or B is profitable or not. If what I like stops being produced, well tough titties.
The industry isn't going anywhere, the developers you know in the niches you enjoy? Maybe.
I don't really understand why development costs are rising so much. Shouldn't more powerful consoles be easier to develop for? Like, if you try to make a game on the PS2, you have to spend a lot of time and effort optimizing everything, tricking the system into handling memory the most efficient way, making sure things don't have too many polygons or too high-res textures, stuff like that. But if you make that same game for the 360, you don't have too worry so much about those kinds of restrictions.
At the end of the day, you have a game that looks better and was easier to make. Yeah, it won't look as good as your super huge budget AAA system seller Gears and Gods of Wars. But I don't think it has to. A game can look good without pushing the limits of the console.
I feel like it's more of a planning and budgeting issue than a "These systems are getting too powerful!" issue. You don't have to spend eight gajillion dollars to make a game that looks nice and is fun to play. Give the game a moderate budget. Save a ton of money by making a game that doesn't need a bunch of cutscenes and voice acting to be effective. Then sell it for $40 instead of $60, and don't release it in November next to Call of Duty and Halo. There, I've just saved your damn industry.
At the end of the day, you have a game that looks better and was easier to make. Yeah, it won't look as good as your super huge budget AAA system seller Gears and Gods of Wars. But I don't think it has to. A game can look good without pushing the limits of the console.
I feel like it's more of a planning and budgeting issue than a "These systems are getting too powerful!" issue. You don't have to spend eight gajillion dollars to make a game that looks nice and is fun to play. Give the game a moderate budget. Save a ton of money by making a game that doesn't need a bunch of cutscenes and voice acting to be effective. Then sell it for $40 instead of $60, and don't release it in November next to Call of Duty and Halo. There, I've just saved your damn industry.
Movement is the only constant.
If one is afraid that this industry is going to crash sooner or later or that certain studios get too big for their own good (I could cite examples of this all day - but it is clear that there are certain issues with this), then start treating this industry as something that JUST crashed.
You have your preferences, you have your money you want to use for buying such entertainment: start looking at the bottom. Support the indie, support games with interesting ideas, use Kickstarter for a game or two - be the wheel that gets the middle ground back on its feet.
I have, at this point, stopped caring about the "AAA+" market altogether - my only day1 purchases come from fighting games and Blizzard games as those are the games that I want to play with in the next few years as well.
If one is afraid that this industry is going to crash sooner or later or that certain studios get too big for their own good (I could cite examples of this all day - but it is clear that there are certain issues with this), then start treating this industry as something that JUST crashed.
You have your preferences, you have your money you want to use for buying such entertainment: start looking at the bottom. Support the indie, support games with interesting ideas, use Kickstarter for a game or two - be the wheel that gets the middle ground back on its feet.
I have, at this point, stopped caring about the "AAA+" market altogether - my only day1 purchases come from fighting games and Blizzard games as those are the games that I want to play with in the next few years as well.
Now there's a phrase I thought I'd never hear. The world's turned upside down...
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
It's kinda of trueish....I think
I wonder how much time japanese developers need to realize that all they need to do is to tap into the digital western market, because there IS a 250k-500k potential customer base out there who would gladly buy a game or two every 2-3 months in that category, even if it does not have the production quality of a blockbuster game.
There's still a lot shooters on PC. They don't dominate the platform as much though.
iceatcs
Junior Member
I can't see why it is necessarily to have 100+ developers on one AAA title.
I just don't get it, maybe I'm mostly lone worker.
Maybe they do count QA testers as developers.
RPG need much longer developing time.
I just don't get it, maybe I'm mostly lone worker.
Maybe they do count QA testers as developers.
I think it's problem with language barriers - English engine, code source, T&C etc.., or eduction problem (Uni might still behind on coding).
RPG need much longer developing time.
Yeah, but it's a bit surprising how consoles have gone from "FPS? GTFO!" to pumping them out even quicker than PC devs.
Anuxinamoon
Shaper Divine
Oh don't worry. Publishers aren't stupid. They will advance the way to milk more revenue over a longer period of time. DLC is the beginning. Monthly premium subs for online multilayer for individual titles another. (Which can go from the AAA bad boys like Call of Duty down to the smaller devs like Notch's new 0x10c)
(Now some rambles on dev stuff)
The thing this does for the internal developers is quite interesting. For a usual single player game in the era before DLC, the team ramps up development and crunches in the last 2-6 months to ship. After that usually you get a launch party then usually there comes the RIF's (reductions in workforce) If you are lucky enough to stay at the company you usually get to take a holiday for a few weeks. So after a project is completed you get a wind down time where devs write post mortems, and start pre pro on the next project.
(next projects are always looked forward too. Start fresh and try to rectify lots of the issues you had with the previous project)
With DLC and ongoing updates with multiplayer (or if you work on an MMO) after launch there is no break. Its like an anticlimax almost. You crunch, crunch, crunch for gold lock then come in the next day and start the crunch, crunch, crunch, for day 1 patch. Then after that its crunch, crunch, crunch, for the next DLC.
It's a recipe for burnout.
The destruction of the high end industry may very well be internal combustion. You see it already; high profile dev's starting up or leaving to work on smaller indi ios titles. Though that also could be because of how easy it is to get into and make your own ideas come to life, which is the dream of every creative person.
Also because the dev cycles are much more complex with all these newfangled pipelines, working has become much more streamlined to the point of almost being production lined in some cases. It can be difficult as a creative to be a cog for so long. Even though there is something magical working with a large creative team.
It's a really interesting time both for high budget and lower budget development.
(Now some rambles on dev stuff)
The thing this does for the internal developers is quite interesting. For a usual single player game in the era before DLC, the team ramps up development and crunches in the last 2-6 months to ship. After that usually you get a launch party then usually there comes the RIF's (reductions in workforce) If you are lucky enough to stay at the company you usually get to take a holiday for a few weeks. So after a project is completed you get a wind down time where devs write post mortems, and start pre pro on the next project.
(next projects are always looked forward too. Start fresh and try to rectify lots of the issues you had with the previous project)
With DLC and ongoing updates with multiplayer (or if you work on an MMO) after launch there is no break. Its like an anticlimax almost. You crunch, crunch, crunch for gold lock then come in the next day and start the crunch, crunch, crunch, for day 1 patch. Then after that its crunch, crunch, crunch, for the next DLC.
It's a recipe for burnout.
The destruction of the high end industry may very well be internal combustion. You see it already; high profile dev's starting up or leaving to work on smaller indi ios titles. Though that also could be because of how easy it is to get into and make your own ideas come to life, which is the dream of every creative person.
Also because the dev cycles are much more complex with all these newfangled pipelines, working has become much more streamlined to the point of almost being production lined in some cases. It can be difficult as a creative to be a cog for so long. Even though there is something magical working with a large creative team.
It's a really interesting time both for high budget and lower budget development.
smuldegspaj
Banned
This is really just an issue for stupid companies.
Be realistic about sales projections and budget accordingly.
Ea, activision etc want nothing else than to drive up budgets. And more importantly want other publishers to join them in this spending race. This is just another way for them to get rid of the competition and raise the barrier of entry.
tech does not have to drive prices. Tech is just a bigger palette, and you dont have to use all colours if you dont want to.
If you are a smaller studio, maybe you shouldn't be chasing the military dudebro shooter market. Maybe you should not make games that break even at 2m sold. Maybe you should set the bar slightly lower and do something different, and if its successful you can capitalize on the sequel.
Alot of these big games are just straight brute force, they throw people, money and marketing at them, literary no thought behind it.
Be realistic about sales projections and budget accordingly.
Ea, activision etc want nothing else than to drive up budgets. And more importantly want other publishers to join them in this spending race. This is just another way for them to get rid of the competition and raise the barrier of entry.
tech does not have to drive prices. Tech is just a bigger palette, and you dont have to use all colours if you dont want to.
If you are a smaller studio, maybe you shouldn't be chasing the military dudebro shooter market. Maybe you should not make games that break even at 2m sold. Maybe you should set the bar slightly lower and do something different, and if its successful you can capitalize on the sequel.
Alot of these big games are just straight brute force, they throw people, money and marketing at them, literary no thought behind it.
To be honest, it took me completely off-guard how this gen has played out. I honestly thought the Wii is going to be software king because of the history (the winner of the gen has the most software titles).
Now I'm aware that the Wii U could face the same problem, no matter what interior it has.
The main problem with this view is... the market doesn't balance shit. The economy crisis has shown that blind faith in the market is incredibly destructive.
Or let's say it this way: If the industry continues to kill studios left and right, what is the end result? Only the biggest publishers are going to survive, and the market will completely in their control because other competitors are out of the market or eaten by them. I think Activision and EA are already way too big.
Expectation went up too fast for tools to keep up. And expectation is somewhat correlated to the power of the console.
According to Yamauchi, an artist created a car model in one day, when they made the first Gran Turismo. If you want the costs to go down, you need tools smart enough to make this possible with today's car model.
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