$150k/year sounds insane to me. But I neither live in the Bay Area or USA.
Programmers make a lot.
$150k/year sounds insane to me. But I neither live in the Bay Area or USA.
It's not even close to Resident Evil 4.
AA in this day and age would be more expensive than it was last gen. As no way they wouldn't be making this on frostbite.Theres no reason why a game like Dead Space couldnt still succeed on a AA scale
Itd be different but that doesnt mean it would be bad or worse
Is there any such thing as 'the average Nintendo game'? Games like Arms and Splatoon will be peanuts, but Zelda and Odyssey on the other hand quite the opposite.How much does the average Nintendo game cost to make?
That budget isnt actually too high. Shame that they couldnt make money from it. Making a comparable game today would probably cost at least 100.
Aren't Japanese salaries significantly smaller than American salaries?
Damn, this is insane. Would any of this have to do with last gen machine configurations?
The PS3 was a development hell and the 360 was easy to deal with so wouldn't those vastly different platform contribute to this balloon irregardless of marketing?
If it is this is mostly due to marketing, that's extreme. There needs to be another way of communicating or getting people engaged
zero dawn is at around 45 million
zero dawn is at around 45 million
Can we stop with the 60$ bullshit, no complete games cost 60$ now, 4m for a multiplats game is just disappointing, that's it.
Uh, not everyone buys at $60. Many wait for sales.
This costing $60 million though, what the fuck EA? Definite project mismanagement. Paying to slap on MP was stupid too.
Then another $60 million to market?
Yes, AAA is expensive, but you killed this one yourselves.
Is there any such thing as 'the average Nintendo game'? Games like Arms and Splatoon will be peanuts, but Zelda and Odyssey on the other hand quite the opposite.
There's no way to magically cheapen the cost of higher quality assets within the scope of games these days.This is crazy to me. AAA devs will very soon need to change how they make games... or I guess just make every game GaaS ><
Off topic I played Dead Space 1 and 2 for the first time this year.
I think Dead Space 1 is a vastly superior game. Atmosphere, sound design and just general vibes... way better. I still think Dead Space 2 was great, just not a masterpiece like the first one for me.
RE6 had more than 600 people working on it. Those salaries add up fast when you're dealing with such a massive amount of staff.
Mostly this. Apart from the usual suspects (think FIFA, CoD, Nintendo stuff) you can always predict which games will be on sale in the next few months. As sad as it sounds, but Dead Space 2 was such an obvious contender; the original wasn't a hit, the second game was hoping for a better reception, but looking into sales charts and the like showed me why I should wait.This really makes you think about the idea of "race to the bottom" with indie prices. It's almost the same with most modern AAA games outside of Nintendo stuff. The $60 dollar price isn't so bad with the larger audience now but when you slash your prices 40-60% in the first several months you need to sell millions more copies. Not to mention how many people wait for sales before buying in now after feeling burned by huge discounts so soon after launch.
Well Dead Space 2 was in development for Wii...AAA third party games ignored the best selling console and all made similat games for an uber saturated market.
Everyone wanted to be cod or gta
You're comparing two totally different games with different cities and different development plans. I'm not privry for the final cost of evil within 2 , I'm sure it's the same as every other average aaa game
Best solution would be for ea to close all north american studios and move to cheaper cost of living countries if we don't want microtransactions at this point
AAA third party games ignored the best selling console and all made similat games for an uber saturated market.
Everyone wanted to be cod or gta
Can't compare 3rd party development to 1st. Not only im sure that doesn't include overall tool development. Besides it's not in San franWhat?? That is really impressive budgeting given the end product. Wow.
Yeah, but we know that Uncharted 1 and 2 combined cost 40m. So how the fuck did DS2 cost 60m? Games are obviously expensive, but i'm confused as to how they got the budget to DS2 up that high.
I thought I heard somewhere that BotW was the first Nintendo game to have 100+ people working on it. Could be wrong though.
Dead Space 2 is honestly up there with Resident Evil 4 as two of the greatest survival horror games - a real shame it wasn't a bigger success.
60 U.S. dollars * 4 million =
240 million U.S. dollars
it only cost 60 mil
I don't get it .
This is why loot boxes exist, fans are price sensitive they don't want dlc, don't want to raise above 60. Something has to give
I believe Skyward Sword had over 100 people working on it as well. BotW's team was likely much larger.
Two years of hundreds of people at San Francisco Bay Area salaries and benefits plus all the outsourcing needed to support it.
Not many AAA studios left in the Bay Area these days you'll notice. Crystal Dynamics outsources half their game development to Montreal as one of the few remaining ones.
Can't compare 3rd party development to 1st. Not only im sure that doesn't include overall tool development. Besides it's not in San fran
FWIW, they mentioned at E3 last year that BotW only needed to sell 2 million copies to be profitable, and that was with the largest staff that's ever worked on a Nintendo game. Nintendo knows how to balance the budget, to say the very least.
This is crazy to me. AAA devs will very soon need to change how they make games... or I guess just make every game GaaS ><
Looks like it's not just making the game that's causing the issues. It's marketing it.
It's like some sort of weird closed data curve. "We need to market it to sell more. But we need it to sell more to make up for the marketing. So we need to market it to sell more."
Devs already ARE using technology advancements which make the process "easier," doesn't mean that the cost of all those assets magically decreases. And no, decreasing scope is not that easy. People keep spouting hypotheticals without considering the realities of game development.Sure. Just make games with smaller scope until, with technology advancements, you can efficiently fund bigger games.
Publishers these days are just constantly trying to one up themselves, with bigger (empty) worlds, more "content", flashier graphics (that go stale after a few years because the art is weak), and pervasive online infrastructures (that close off access to parts of the games when servers inevitably go down).
That, oft meanigless, fluff needs hundreds if not thousands of (paid) employees to produce, market and ship. No wonder they're risk averse, have unreasonable sales expectations, they kill off studios after one faux pas and they keep adding stupid, costly crap in full price games.
The best part is that they've cornered themselves during the years, by feeding the gamers' mentality with the constant need of better graphics and bigger worlds in order to sell their games. They've done this to themselves and now they wonder why 4 million copies isn't enough. Meanwhile Nintendo, indies and level-headed mid-tier developers are quietly making their profit.
The consumer blaming, especially by consumer themselves, is revolting given the circumstances.
Damn, this is insane. Would any of this have to do with last gen machine configurations?
The PS3 was a development hell and the 360 was easy to deal with so wouldn't those vastly different platform contribute to this balloon irregardless of marketing?
If it is this is mostly due to marketing, that's extreme. There needs to be another way of communicating or getting people engaged
So you want a AA game instead of triple a , gotcha.
Have you ever expected a game to have better graphics? More content? More polish? Better writing? If so, you should. Games cost money to make, and the more effort gets put into them, the more they cost. Even something simple like shovel knight would cost less if it had worse artwork and music. But they paid for the talent and it paid off.
And this is all with the exploitation of developers who work 80-100 workweeks. If we want them to be treated fairly, games would cost even more.
Publisher go by what sells, as of right now games as a service is selling. EA can't afford to have a bunch of midtier titles hoping to keep investors happy with small profits. Comparing a 3rd party developer who's single source of income is games to Nintendo is disingenuousSure. Just make games with smaller scope until, with technology advancements, you can efficiently fund bigger games.
Publishers these days are just constantly trying to one up themselves, with bigger (empty) worlds, more "content", flashier graphics (that go stale after a few years because the art is weak), and pervasive online infrastructures (that close off access to parts of the games when servers inevitably go down).
That, oft meanigless, fluff needs hundreds if not thousands of (paid) employees to produce, market and ship. No wonder they're risk averse, have unreasonable sales expectations, they kill off studios after one faux pas and they keep adding stupid, costly crap in full priced games.
The best part is that they've cornered themselves during the years, by feeding the gamers' mentality with the constant need of better graphics and bigger worlds in order to sell their games. They've done this to themselves and now they wonder why 4 million copies isn't enough. Meanwhile Nintendo, indies and level-headed mid-tier developers are quietly making their profit.
The consumer blaming, especially by consumer themselves, is revolting given the circumstances.
No offense to the team, but why we're they allowed to make a third Dead Space then?
I think part of that has to do with them getting more per copy on a game, and being able to bundle their software marketing costs into the hardware marketing. Doesn't hurt that they don't splurge for a lot of VA and similar expenses as well.
Yeah it's impressive, makes me wonder how soon companies will start investing in talent in cheaper countries. Wither 3 was relatively inexpensive in Poland.Good points. Still an impressive show. Would love to see a writeup on the dev pipeline for it.
Programmers make a lot.
You act like moving a studio is just the snap of a finger
$150k/year sounds insane to me. But I neither live in the Bay Area or USA.
Noone ever asked for a 50+ million survival horror.
This fucking industry needs to keep those budgets under control. 60M for a non multiplayer shooter is insane money. Insane.