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Is Death Stranding the biggest carte blanche a publisher has ever given to a studio in the AAA space?

Nostradamus

Nostradamus

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Oct 28, 2017
2,280
We really don't know the budget and for an AAA it had a pretty short development cycle. Decima was probably ready to be used by anyone, just needed minor tweaks that KP provided. Also, having Kojima exclusive to your console after all the Konami controversy probably led to huge PR gains for Sony. And let's not forget that the game will probably be a commercial success despite its themes.
 
Le Dude

Le Dude

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May 16, 2018
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mescalineeyes said:
say what you want but homeboy made a game within 3 years after starting up a brand new studio. That carte couldn't have been that blanche.
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The budget for this had to of been a lot less than many AAA games. I don't know how many staff worked on the game, but I can't see it being as high as Breath of the Wild, Uncharted 4, God if War, etc . . .

On top of that development time was half of a typical AAA exclusive.
 
ffvorax

ffvorax

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,855
Sony is used to greenlit really interesting games and curious concept, not the first and not the last time.
But as an AAA I guess is the most ambitious one to date.
 
Damn Silly

Damn Silly

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Oct 25, 2017
7,188
I imagine Rockstar have been able to do pretty much whatever they want for quite aome time now.
 
residentgrigo

residentgrigo

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Oct 30, 2019
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Star Citizen doesn´t have a publisher, so we are missing the topic with it. Cloud Imperium Games only does everything. It´s budget passed the 250+ mil $ mark in late 2018 and closes on 300 mil $ by now.
 

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G_Zero

G_Zero

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thebishop

thebishop

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Nov 10, 2017
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angelgrievous said:
Step one: acquire Kojima at any cost
Step two: acquire MGS from Konami
Step three: print money
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I wonder if continuing MGS is even something Kojima wants. A part of me was hoping that Death Stranding would just be a more polished, bigger budget Phantom Pain without shortchanging the narrative elements. That plus the enigmatic new sci-fi scenario that's been teased all these years.
 
Dr. Ludwig

Dr. Ludwig

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Oct 31, 2017
2,520
Bioshock Infinite comes to mind. But by the tail end of development, Take Two/2K had gotten enough and sent in Rod Ferguson to ship the damned game.
 
J-Skee

J-Skee

The Wise Ones
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Oct 25, 2017
11,102
There's no one else in the industry like Hideo Kojima & I mean that in the most sincere way. Just look at Metal Gear Solid & what it did for the industry. From voice acting to popularizing the stealth genre to making sure it was as cinematic as possible. His love of movies made him look at games in a different way & because of that, look at all of games we get today, whether they were directly influenced by Metal Gear Solid or indirectly. And of course, after Metal Gear Solid 2, forget it. Who can pull off that stunt today? Shit, who could have pulled off the stunt that was PT other than him?

No matter what you have to say about him, there's no denying that once he sets his mind to something, it's going to be seen all the way through, with no care to how things are "supposed to be".
 
softtack

softtack

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,650
In a sense, the guys and girls at Polyphony Digital. Shu is very good friends with Yamauchi, basically since the inception of the original PlayStation. Their budget is also massive.
 
SunBroDave

SunBroDave

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Oct 25, 2017
13,148
Aokiji said:
What about a sequel to a popular IP, by a popular developer, put out by a popular publisher, is carte Blanche?
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The part where RDR2's missions are restrictive as fuck, everything takes forever due to the unresponsive controls and the length of the animations, the 20 hours of tutorials, and the lack of quality of life mechanics like letting you pick up more than one thing at once and letting you fast travel more than just from your camp. In a vacuum, all of those decisions are considered "bad", but Rockstar made them anyway and they had their reasons for it
 
apowhungo

apowhungo

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Oct 30, 2017
45
publishers seem to balance out weirdest/riskiest with how much money they throw at it but yeah not here. kojima's ego isn't a coincidence.
 
Thera

Thera

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Feb 28, 2019
12,876
France
If I remember correctly, point 1 and 2 are linked and are not : "we give you the engine and we give you employee" but more "we are all gonna work on the engine"
Point 3 : it is Kojima, of course they do. They done it with No Man's Sky too.
Point 4 : That, we don't know. And do we know if SONY paid everything for the game ?

"The amount of freedom Sony gave Kojima is insane considering everything."
We don't know the deal.
 
turbobutts

turbobutts

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Oct 25, 2017
519
let creatives create and get out of their way. this is a good thing and more publishers should follow suit
 
residentgrigo

residentgrigo

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The COD MW2 marketing budget of 200 mil. floored everyone when it was disclosed in 2009 G_Zero. Here is a number to compare:


"[Disney] has reportedly spent an estimated $200 million on marketing for the Infinity War sequel." You know the biggest film of all time, without inflation.

Talking about MW2´s budget is totally on topic due to how dangerously high it was but it was the right move. It made CoD bigger than Jesus.
(Star Citizen is about to take the No.1 spot or it already did but again, without a publisher.)
PS: Hollywood films typically spend another half of the budget on marketing.

Edit: The Deadpool game from 2013 is in the wiki list due to a 100 mil budget. Wow. I get why E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial made the list but... words fail me.
It released 3 years before the film. I change my answer from Shemue to Deadpool.
 
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Jroc

Jroc

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Jun 9, 2018
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G_Zero said:
Unrelated, but how did fuck is MW2 the most expensive game ever made?

That marketing cost is insane.
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MW2 was the last game I can remember that truly seemed larger than life. All the recent COD games keep trying to market themselves as "the great return". Well MW2 is what they're trying to live up to.

GTAV was close.
 
Mr_F_Snowman

Mr_F_Snowman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,879
No? It's like a zero risk investment, basically a guaranteed return.

Yeh the game concept is a bit out there but if doesn't really matter because its backed up purely off Kojimas name and huge Hollywood ensemble cast lol

The original Shenmue is in a whole other league when it's budget is literally impossible to recover even if your game is purchased by every system owner. Unless Death Strandings break even point is 100 million sales.....
 
RedSparrows

RedSparrows

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Feb 22, 2019
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I don't think it's quite the same, nor has the same backstory at all, but Sea of Thieves - despite being MP OMG XBOX GAAS etc - is a fairly radical game for a major publisher. Death Stranding is definitely more 'out there' from what I have seen, but it's still a vidya game with vidya game shiz, and SoT is too, but both seem to step away from a lot of conventions. It's also noticeable for Rare's consistent desire to do new shit and MS letting them (which, tbf, has never been the problem there, Kinect was more the problem imo).
 
pswii60

pswii60

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Oct 27, 2017
26,667
The Milky Way
Alastor3 said:
I mean... didn't other big game like God of War had carte blanche??
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No. Sony Santa Monica's game prior to God of War 2018 was a brand new sci fi IP, and was cancelled with Stig departing soon after. So not carte blanche or we'd have ended up playing it one day. They went back to the God of War IP as they needed something bankable after that. But they also need to do something new with it., as God of War Ascension was a failure. The result was one of the best games of the generation, but it wasn't as a result of carte blanche.
 
Ricky_R

Ricky_R

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
3,997
Jima won't have the same luck with Jimbo at the helm. He might as well go back to Konami.
 
Haint

Haint

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Oct 14, 2018
1,361
SunBroDave said:
That or RDR2. A lot of choices made in both games that just seem like the opposite of what you're supposed to do when designing a game
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Aside from the terrible controls and input lag (which is itself a Rockstar staple), I'm not really sure what you're referring to in RDR2. The bulk of the game is still just GTA styled missions in an old west dressing. It was exactly what I was expecting going in and looking back.
 
Nome

Nome

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residentgrigo said:
The COD MW2 marketing budget of 200 mil. floored everyone when it was disclosed in 2009 G_Zero. Here is a number to compare:


"[Disney] has reportedly spent an estimated $200 million on marketing for the Infinity War sequel." You know the biggest film of all time, without inflation.

Talking about MW2´s budget is totally on topic due to how dangerously high it was but it was the right move. It made CoD bigger than Jesus.
(Star Citizen is about to take the No.1 spot or it already did but again, without a publisher.)
PS: Hollywood films typically spend another half of the budget on marketing.

Edit: The Deadpool game from 2013 is in the wiki list due to a 100 mil budget. Wow. I get why E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial made the list but... words fail me.
It released 3 years before the film. I change my answer from Shemue to Deadpool.
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If you wanna include mobile games in the mix, a few different titles' total lifetime marketing spend probably eclipse MW2.
 
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