Blockbuster Game Development Costs Are Out Of Control
Microsoft’s fight over the Activision deal reveals ballooning game budgets
kotaku.com
Holy shit. I don't think this is sustainable.
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Kotaku: Blockbuster Game Development Costs Are Out Of Control
- Thread starter Saucycarpdog
- Start date
kotaku.com
Games that make blockbuster movie money having blockbuster movie price tags doesn't seem automatically unsustainable to me.
You wonder why the AAA space might seem homogeneous or risk-averse, or why remakes might be pushed more to the forefront, consider how much these things take just to break even.
Kingdom of Amalur was a striking case in my mind, and that one was over ten years ago. It sold a million copies, which is impressive for a new series by a new studio. But it needed to sell twice as much to start making money.
The indie space is going to get more important going forward as lower budget experiences can compete more on being experimental.
Kingdom of Amalur was a striking case in my mind, and that one was over ten years ago. It sold a million copies, which is impressive for a new series by a new studio. But it needed to sell twice as much to start making money.
The indie space is going to get more important going forward as lower budget experiences can compete more on being experimental.
yep
i mean, we are talking about blockbuster video games. in hollywood, your average blockbuster also is 100~200 million dollars. you can make a point movies are more profitable, sure, but that doesn't mean video game is unsustainable
more investment in gaming market? people with money are putting more money now in gaming than ever before lol
We've been getting the similar complaints regarding movies, where they've been leaning more towards reviving successful properties in recent years because huge budgets means they need to have an already guaranteed audience because they can't afford to fail.
Japan based companies have a huge advantage where they pay their employees peanuts compared to US based developers. Doubly so for Nintendo who has low spec hardware which makes games cost even less.
Salaries have just ballooned out of control. I remember Uncharted 2 cost $20 million to make. This is a consequence of the world economy,
Salaries have just ballooned out of control. I remember Uncharted 2 cost $20 million to make. This is a consequence of the world economy,
I'm not very good with economics, so can someone explain to a layperson like me what this means exactly? What is the predicted outcome of this lack of sustainability? What precedent can we look to as a warning?
In an ideal world, AAA studios would be permitted to make smaller, lower budget games between their massive releases.
Realistically, we are going to get more remasters and remakes.
Realistically, we are going to get more remasters and remakes.
What this means basically is we get more and more risk-averse games. You see how Bethesda got bought by Microsoft? They were basically looking for that because 2 or 3 of their games hadn't done well. As this keeps going, basically that margin of error will be even worse--it could be that one wrong game could end a studio or force them to look for someone to buy them.
[...] Cost $660 million to develop with a marketing budget of $550 million.
Please help me, my family is dying
Please help me, my family is dying
Sustainability is fine. We will just see less projects with longer support, and especially less risks being taken. But in the vacuum indies will rise and becoming more prominent which is already happening, so I think we will be fine.
yeah, but no one is saying Hollywood is unsutainable . it just isnt that. not that i like the direction of gaming or movie making, but saying it's unsustainable is a stretch.
Studios putting more money into a smaller number of "safe" projects and becoming more risk-averse might not be great from an artistic/creative point of view, but that's a bit different from being unsustainable. Hollywood's sustained itself on that path for a while now. In fact, the first studio to go all-in on that paradigm (Disney) was hugely rewarded.
I see! But that's the enthusiast's perspective of it, isn't it - that the kind of creativity we will see will be affected.
What is the end state of this lack of sustainability for the industry as a whole? How will it balance out into a sustainable industry, and what will the landscape look like at that point?
From what I understand, this means blockbuster game budgets will eventually go down after the bubble bursts? What does that mean for the industry - do people in the industry get paid less, are jobs cut, that kind of thing?
Honestly, I think marketing budget has become more important than dev budget at this time. There's so many games coming out that you need the marketing to make your games stand out. 600mil dev budget won't guarantee a game is great, but 500mil marketing budget will probably make your games sell at least a few million. If you can pair that with a game that is good enough, it could probably find an audience. A better situation that a great game that didn't sell because lacking marketing imo
To anyone mocking this notion: The model being usustanaible doesn't mean It will burst any time soon. Companies know there's money for them to grab, so they'll milk the shit out of the AAA model.
Now, thanks to that we're headed full speed to a world where the AA industry doesn't exist anymore, creative bankrupcy runs rampant, and studios risk closed (or their personal grossly laid off) if they release a dud.
Now, add to that the recent trend of releasing unfinished games because deadlines have to be met no matter what.
If you think that's sustanaible, i have a bridge to sell you.
Now, thanks to that we're headed full speed to a world where the AA industry doesn't exist anymore, creative bankrupcy runs rampant, and studios risk closed (or their personal grossly laid off) if they release a dud.
Now, add to that the recent trend of releasing unfinished games because deadlines have to be met no matter what.
If you think that's sustanaible, i have a bridge to sell you.
Do you honestly believe that Nintendo development costs have gotten cheaper overtime? Just to use one metric....the amount of credits just at Nintendo's studio for the animation team behind BOTW was 3x as large as the inhouse team behind Skyward Sword. Now apply that to like, every aspect of the game that took half a decade to make and six years/pandemic development for the sequel. Every AAA dev is spending the big bucks and that's with the more efficient development workflows that exist today.
You can pretty much generate 1 billion in revenue in couple of weeks if you get a huge hit.
If your games as a service and dlc shit hit then sky is the limit.
If your games as a service and dlc shit hit then sky is the limit.
It is sustainable if people are ready to pay at 50 bucks on average (including main soft, side transactions, etc...) on a software that sales 4 million copies.
However we can see light at end of the tunnel thanks to accessible middlewares like UE. You gotta mutualize whatever you can.
So for now i disagree. We'll see a few years down the line.
However we can see light at end of the tunnel thanks to accessible middlewares like UE. You gotta mutualize whatever you can.
So for now i disagree. We'll see a few years down the line.
I have no idea where you got the notion that aa industry wont exist anymore, we are still getting a ton of midrange games.
How many actually do?
The market is not gonna be about the money at some point. It will be on people's time. Some AAA will definitely not make the cut, simply because there could be too many of them.
As a consummer, i want to make an experience worth not only the money i put in it but also the time, which comes at a limited quantity. So it has to be top notch.
AAAs standing out of the mass is just gonna be pretty scarce.
That's always been the case. The only difference is you've aged and due to the circumstances of adulthood have less time to game.
Keep in mind:
- A fourth publisher said budgets ranged from $90 million to $180 million with marketing ranging from $50 million to $150 million. Its most expensive game cost $660 million to develop with a marketing budget of $550 million.
We are. But how many gather that deserved attention.
I strongly believe (with little to back it up 😀) that video game market is just saturated now. You simply CANNOT play everything, so you'll just put your time on a couple of AA at a time at best, let alone AAAs.
That's why metacritics is still holding so much importance. If i gotta spend quality time on a game, i'll be more likely to chose one that my favorite reviewers would endorse over an unknown quantity.
Now just apply a similar logic at scale, and you got the market today. Game deva and publishers are competing for time.
I think it's Fortnite or some other ultra popular service game with year round marketing and development. RDR2 would have probably "only" been like one of those numbers overall.
True! I definitely have a skewed vision on this. Likely the people having enough time to play several AAA and AA at once might not be the ones with the money.
I don't think we're headed full speed toward a world where creative bankruptcy runs rampant. I think there's more creativity in the games industry than ever before. You're just not playing the right games.
Also, releasing broken/unfinished games isn't at all just a recent trend. SimCity 2013 was a decade ago. Enter the Matrix was two decades ago. I can go on.
Or GTAV.
Since gaming began.
Definitely could be I think it's original development budget was rumoured to be in the 300m range, so 10+ years of additional development and marketing, including all the ports probably adds up a lot.
I haven't thought of Kingdoms of Amalur in a good while. While we haven't reached the nadir of economic collapse that 2012 seemed to foreshadow, I do think that game served as a canary in the coal mine for devs trying to launch new franchises. As the AAA industry is now, the risk remains, but the rewards are more stratified.
If it is GTAV, $1 billion over ten years does not even seem like that much considering the return they are getting. Fortnite would be in a similar position.