What is Digg?217 Comments
- TheRealDj, on 12/30/2007, -13/+117Quick summation of the article:
Games are expensive.
They're more expensive then they used to be.
I don't know what game companies will do to make back that money
There I saved you 3 minutes of your time. - bethlagarrison, on 12/30/2007, -2/+50Either you didn't read the article, or you just didn't get it. Give it another read.
The whole point is that, since games cost millions upon millions to produce, they're trapped into a sink-or-swim situation with no middle ground.
If a game does well, companies will just throw more money at the sequel without changing the formula, leading to endless chains of sequels that never really go beyond the original. If a game doesn't do well, the stakes are so high that entire teams are fired - and anything remotely resembling the failed game in the future will get shot down before it gets the chance to develop.
Basically, video games are becoming more popular and getting the Hollywood treatment, but that essentially dooms them into suffering the same fate as the film industry. More templated crap with higher production values. - amrush4th, on 12/30/2007, -4/+41If developers make great, but less costly to make $30 games then I will be all over them. They don't 'have' to make $60 budget busters for every game. With PSN and XBL lower cost down loadable games is something every development company should be working on.
- dsmx, on 12/30/2007, -5/+37Except that most third party wii games are awful. If you make the dev kits cheaper sure you get more games made for it but you get far more crap.
- popothebright, on 12/30/2007, -11/+39Here are some tips then to stay within budget:
1) Don't (ever) license an film/television title. Everybody knows film-based titles suck 100% of the time. Licensing only increases costs.
2) Don't set a release date on your game. 95% of games are released before their time. Spending more time in development may seem counterintuitive as a way to save costs -- but look at Blizzard, Valve, BioWare and other successful shops out there: They release when the game is "done".
3) Don't make a another friggin' driving game late in a console cycle. There are already a silly amount of them for all leading consoles.
4) If there are bugs in your game, don't *plan* on releasing patches after release. Fix your stupid bugs first.
5) Don't release a standard shooter after the console-seller (ie: Halo) has already been released.
6) Be original. A simple walk down the aisle of any game store reveals *mostly* "me too" games.
7) Worry about gameplay before depth. I'm sure that there are some really nice easter eggs, hidden areas and unlockable features in most of the games that I've played for 1 hour and given up on. That "depth" is wasted development time, and ends up not mattering because the first hour of gameplay sucked anyway.
8) Stop it with the gay Japanese anime. Men shouldn't be pretty, have blow dried perms and carry swords the size of my couch.
9) There's no shortage of good writers in this world. Why is the writing always so derivative and awful? (And if you think writers are too expensive, then lol)
10) There's no shortage of good acting talent in this world. Why is Bill from engineering "good enough" voice talent for your game? (And if you think actors are too expensive, then lol)
I could go on, but the industry brings it upon itself. - charlescheese, on 12/30/2007, -11/+38This article doesn't take into account that much of the cost to making these 15 million dollar games is in making new game engines for the new platforms. Yes it costs 15 million to make a new PS3 game, but take Insomniac for instance, they built upon the Resistance engine to build Ratchet. So a lot of that development cost that went into Resistance pays off in the development of future games, and because a lot of the engine work is done, it doesn't cost as much to make the next PS3 game. With time the cost of development will continue to go down as all of the engines and resources are complete and established.
Further, much of the cost in developing a new game on PS3 is a result of training and learning curve costs associated with learning a new architecture. Meaning, it takes a lot longer for someone to develop a game on a new platform that they've never coded for than it does for a team of veterans on that same system.
So while development costs I'm sure are very high at first, they will go down a lot as time goes on. - SeBBBe, on 12/30/2007, -4/+27Please stop calling the PS3, 360 and Wii "next-gen". They are current-gen consoles.
- whazup911, on 12/30/2007, -8/+29Simple, tell the game companies to stop making ***** games if they want to stay alive.
- iluvatar, on 12/30/2007, -0/+20Portal is proof that this can work.
- Strawgate, on 12/30/2007, -19/+37Nintendo Wii development is supposedly about 1/3rd to 1/4th of PS3 and X360. Nintendo Wii is on the right track, doing the right thing, for the right crowd. The extreme realism gamers is a very specified market, and to have every single game, on 2 consoles competing for it, it gets a little ridiculous. Nintendo wont miss that 5% market share they are losing from extreme gamers.
- geminitojanus, on 12/30/2007, -2/+20Sadly, gamers like you think that the engine is all there is to a game. Not so. While it's probably the most reusable component of game construction (and is the reason why game companies don't invest millions on rewriting engines each time), the artwork and design cost exponentially more. A couple of coders and a few cans of Mountain Dew will get you a game engine. A few million dollars and the work of a team of 20 graphics designers, texturists, "colorists" (yeah, they pay a few hundred thousand dollars for a guy to come in and tell you that the colors are off and to use a four cent shader to fix it, just like the movie business), and modelers will make a 'game'.
The biggest problem is, all of the stuff, except the engine, can't be reused when you're finished. It's game-specific. So either the game does well and you're forced into reusing the same models to make an unimaginative, but exponentially cheaper sequel, or you're cut out of the business.
There's really no way out of the loop either, unless you want to change the way modern games look and how they're made. Lots of work is going towards this with procedural generation (meaning no more paying two modelers a couple of million for generating models of trees and boxes and simple textures for things such as clouds), but it's just the tip of the iceburg until we've got much more powerful machines, as procedural generation isn't cheap computationally. - kilodelta, on 12/30/2007, -6/+21get this: No one buys 3rd party wii games.
- camilos007, on 12/30/2007, -9/+24The wii is made for a specific type of market. I doubt gamers who enjoy Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect and Crysis would be satisfied with most of the stuff on the wii. Like I said, the wii has its place, but to say that it is the solution? Hardly.
- ShugNinx21, on 12/30/2007, -2/+16If that's your attitude then you are not a "Hardcore" gamer. Hardcore gamers will play a 10 year old game because it kicks ass, not cry about how the graphics don't stand up to today's games.
- BRODEL, on 12/30/2007, -6/+19Hey.. don't put Assassin's Creed on the same level as Kane and Lynch. I actually really enjoyed Assassin's Creed.
- betterth, on 12/30/2007, -0/+13they also subsidize cost through theatres, which generally nets the entire cost back before DVDs go on sale.
- charlescheese, on 12/30/2007, -6/+19I don't think so. The Ratchet and Clank Future engine is a modified Resistance engine. Meaning, you can take the engine you built, and at a significantly lower cost develop an entirely different game for a much lower cost.
- fudsak, on 12/30/2007, -1/+14I'm trying really hard to make any sense out of this comment.
- inactive, on 12/30/2007, -4/+16buried as lame. they only had pac-man and heavenly sword/PS3. You know there are two other consoles, two handhelds, and a thing called a "pc". I was really hoping for a graph or something.
- philhatesyou, on 12/30/2007, -4/+16Right, except 360 games cost just as much to make. Read the ***** article next time, jackass.
- Shaflugi, on 12/30/2007, -0/+12Yes. I was anticipating Portal since the first trailer. You think just because it's short, it wouldn't have been popular as a standalone title?
- Smwbigboss, on 12/30/2007, -1/+11The $60 per game thing is due to increased licensing fees. The PS3 and Xbox360 is using the asinine business model of making overly expensive consoles selling for a loss, and trying to make back that money by charging an extra $10 for each game. They wanted to make consoles that could compete with PC quality graphics and appeal to the minority of gamers that care about high definition graphics and don't already have a PC.
Meanwhile, Nintendo stuck to the standard gaming model of simply doubling the power each generation, and keep the console around $200 and the games $50. If it wasn't for the Wii, we'd probably have another video came market crash. - Frostman3D, on 12/30/2007, -2/+12I'm sick of hearing excuses as to why game companies need to jack up the price of their games. This is ***** and it's driven by greed, nothing more. I refuse to pay $60 per game, so I don't buy games unless they're $50 or so. I'll boycott any game that tries to raise them even further. What do they want? $75 per game? $100 per game? ***** that. I want entertainment and game companies just aren't delivering quality games with replay value anymore.
- ScionX, on 12/30/2007, -1/+11No. CoD4 is completely like Doom.
Because it has guns in it. - inactive, on 12/30/2007, -3/+13Well you would think wrong then. A modern game is all about the content. The engine has very little to do with it anymore, as all the big software problems have been worked out. I know in the mini-games I write I spend about 10x as much time on the content (pictures, animation and sound) as I do on the software. I suspect the big software houses have a similar ratio. They then have the whole quality assurance step that I don't have to go through, where they fix every little bug that is introduced by the content for that game. My guess is, the quality assurance step gets much more demanding as games get larger and more complex.
Obviously you have never attempted even a simple animation with 3d graphics... - chris9902, on 12/30/2007, -3/+13They are so expensive because developers feel the need to re-invent the wheel with every new game. What is wrong with using Valve's Source engine for example? It's 3/4 years old but the games produced with it (in my opinion) are more fun and last a heck of a lot longer than many other games. You don't see Hollywood directors going out and re-inventing the camera for every new movie.
That and the fact they price every game at $60. That's a trend that needs to stop. Why is a game like The Simpsons the same as COD4, GTA or HALO? If the simpsons game was half the price I bet they would shift so many more units. - charlescheese, on 12/30/2007, -6/+16Or continue developing games with the engine you spent 15 million making and the team of people you spent 15 million training, thus making your development costs significantly lower. These are short term costs, and dev costs will go down by leaps and bounds with time.
- camilos007, on 12/30/2007, -2/+11The world wide video game market is supposed to reach 45$ billion in 2010. Sure, development costs a lot more but there is also a lot more money to be made. The article doesn't mention that at all.
Also, video games aren't made like the old days where the programmer was also the artist, the sound guy and the story guy all in one. Thank god for that, or else we wouldn't have games like oblivion, mass effect, crysis and even Zelda: Twilight Princess. - DeviantDragon, on 12/30/2007, -2/+11Okay, one major difference between the two games is the dominant POV of the gamer. 1st v. 3rd person. Second, MSG is more stealth oriented than CoD4. Finally, the setting and plots of the two games are very different.
- Flynnz, on 12/30/2007, -1/+10heh I played games on PC for years...but now I have no interest in putting up with all the issues, and inconsistent performance from game to game. When I put a game in my wii, or 360 it does exactly what its suppose to do. Hate to break this to you, but most people who play on consoles now a days have also played on PC at some point. They simply choose to play on a console now cause it just "works". Enough of the PC snob ***** please. Just because you are willing to put up with all the issues that comes with PC gaming does not make you "cool" or "hardcore". Get over yourself.
- Eddible, on 12/30/2007, -1/+10Exactly, whilst the wii fan base is big, a large proportion won't go out of their way to buy many other games beyond Mario.
- Judacious, on 12/30/2007, -2/+11"or Asian" lol
- sinizuh, on 12/30/2007, -2/+10XBLA / PSN / WiiWare. Developing for these cost anywhere from $10k to $100k (or more, if they want to) and from what we've seen so far, they can do some pretty cool stuff on these platforms.
- Snuff99, on 12/30/2007, -0/+8Yeah cause it so simple to satisfy the wants of 10s of millions of gamers in one game...
- Dustmuffins, on 12/30/2007, -6/+14Nor halo 3. It's a damn fun game, and I still play it almost every day, and it's not like it's my only option either: http://www.xfire.com/profile/dustmuffins/
- digggggggggg, on 12/30/2007, -1/+9Right, seven of the top 10 Wii games this week are produced by Nintendo. http://www.vgchartz.com/aweekly.php
No other console manufacturer has relied so heavily on first party titles. - Borgcube, on 12/30/2007, -1/+9No, consoles are for people who do not want to spend a lot of money on a PC game so that they only find out that the game doesn't support their graphic card and that they have to spend more money just to get one.
- sapo916, on 12/30/2007, -0/+8Too bad not all of that $50 goes to the developer.
- inactive, on 12/30/2007, -1/+8Some developers actually want to progress technoligically, want better AI/physics/multiplayer/etc, want to have a better experience (plot/music/sound effects/voice acting) things not suited for Wii. In short, some developers want actual innovation, rather than replacing button pressing with waving a controller.
- philhatesyou, on 12/30/2007, -2/+9Your criticism is valid as soon as you foot the bill for me to get a brand new Core 2 Duo, required motherboard, RAM, and a fancy new video card. Until then: shut the ***** up.
- Lasereth, on 12/30/2007, -1/+8Does anyone actually know what inflation is? PS1 games were $40 brand new in 1995. I remember SNES games being $40-$90. NES games were the same price. Inflation lessens the value of money over time, so games going up in price is perfectly normal. I hate all the people in here saying they REFUSE to pay $60 for a game because that's just absurd, yet since 1995 inflation has lowered the value of $1 drastically. Copied straight from an inflation calculator: "What cost $50 in 1995 would cost $65.59 in 2006.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2006 and 1995, they would cost you $50 and $38.12 respectively."
That means that videogames are actually going DOWN in price. - LLamaStar, on 12/30/2007, -1/+8Most smart game companies have already solved this problem. They make a few side games for the ds, psp, or wii, WHILE they work on their golden egg of a game for ps360. Or they do a port to the wii. It's extra cash that allows the developer to continue work on their bread and butter.
- dsmx, on 12/31/2007, -0/+7I'm not arguing about the number of crap games on other consoles, I'm arguing that on the wii only 1st party titles are any good, all the rest are shovelware and poorly designed pieces of crap. Don't beleive me go have a look at any review site and see.
- poxonyou, on 12/31/2007, -2/+9No, he's using the Internet. Look at Metacritic and compare the 3 systems. Look at the 2008 release schedules for the 3 systems. Like always, the top games for Nintendo's console are just 1st party Nintendo sequels. If Nintendo can't pull in quality 3rd party games this year, expect this to be the last Christmas of Wii shortages. I feel bad as I got mine for a present and really hope things turn around, but I'm not keeping this if I have to wait 8-12 months between decent games, most of which are sequels loaded with cute, bright colored Nintendo mascots. And you know what I'm not doing right now? Not playing my Wii. I've spend the past 2 days looking for quality cheap used NGC games to play on it, and surprise, there are very few to choose from.
- JayD16, on 12/30/2007, -0/+7I think thats misguided. If Wii development is so much cheaper its only because games are using less detailed model or smaller worlds with less art. (I don't mean any less pleasing, just less in terms of quantity)
Theres nothing stopping developers from making smaller scale games for the PS3 or the 360. - dungbeetle, on 12/30/2007, -4/+11Actually it is current gen, seeing as it was released in the current console generation.
- poxonyou, on 12/31/2007, -1/+8Yeah, it matters. Nintendo, with the exception of Metroid, likes cute mascots that appeal to little kids. It would be nice to have some variety. How many times do I need to see Mario? If Nintendo still can't pull in good 3rd party games, even after having the top selling console, they should consider going Sega's route and releasing their awesome games on the other consoles. Take a look at Metacritic...PS2 vs GameCube. Tell me The NGC is a better buy for a customer. Now, look at the Wii vs PS3. Look familiar? The PS3 that is supposedly doomed and tanking, with its outdated controller, is somehow pulling in more quality 3rd party games, so PS3 users have a wider choice of high quality games.
I have a Wii, don't have PS3, so I'm just getting pissed that either 1) Nintendo is failing to encourage quality 3rd party game development, or 2) 3rd parties are still not taking Nintendo's console seriously, despite the fact everyone owns one now. I wish we could do something to change things, instead of being forced to buy another console. - dansmeek, on 12/31/2007, -2/+8what's somewhat concerning is that two of those games are available for the PSP.... with almost identical graphics.... and are not even considered "decent" 3rd party games. and I'm comparing the Wii to a 4 year old portable system.
- poxonyou, on 12/31/2007, -0/+6It's clear some people are living in fantasy land. The only way things will change is if Wii customers, like myself, stop pretending there are buttloads of awesome games, and face the fact it is starting to look like the Wii is going to have the same limited quality game selection as the NGC and N64. I think the only hope is if we start pressuring 3rd party companies to take the Wii seriously. Otherwise, start saving for a 360 or PS3 because you (and I) will soon grow bored waiting ages between the quality 1st party games, just like with the NGC.
- BlueSkyfish, on 12/30/2007, -16/+22"I don't know what game companies will do to make back that money"
Advertise to hell and hope the hype train brings in the sales regardless of how ***** the actual game is. I'm looking at you, Assassins Creed, Kane and Lynch, Halo 3 and Lair. -
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