Ubisoft CEO: Next-Gen Games Will Cost Triple to Make

[Keane Ng]

Ubisoft CEO: Next-Gen Games Will Cost Triple to Make

In Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's vision of the future, games will be just like playing modern CGI movies. Unfortunately that means they'll cost as much to make, too.

Though nobody knows when (or if) we'll see the "next generation" of games and if we'll be using our hands, arms, feet, eyes or minds to control them, but Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot is sure that they'll offer quite the experience. "The next generation is going to be so powerful that playing a game is going to be the equivalent of playing a CGI movie today," Guillemot told CNBC [http://www.cnbc.com/id/31331241].

Unfortunately CGI movies take a lot of money to make, and if you're making a game that's on par with a CGI movie, well, you can presume that's going to be just as, and maybe even more, expensive. Guillemot estimates that development costs will triple for the next generation of games, with big-budget titles costing an average of $60 million. For the record, that's how much the first Ice Age movie cost to make.

Though he's psyched for games to take that next big leap, he's not quite ready for his company to completely plunge in, though he knows it's inevitable. "For us, the current machines are very powerful and we can do high quality work," Guillemot said. "I'd like to stay with this generation as long as possible, but my customers will want the best machine possible."

In the meantime, Ubisoft is pursuing strategies for a future where the kind of big-budget games they produce will cost more than a pretty penny. For its upcoming Avatar game, Ubisoft is cutting costs by reusing resources used in the James Cameron film that provides the game with its source material.


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[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

I am reminded of the Death to Good Graphics [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6069-Death-to-Good-Graphics] write-up by Shamus.

No wonder Ubisoft is reluctant to jump into the inevitable upcoming generation.

 

[oliveira8]

Just stop trying to make better graphics....the solution is so simple that it hurts.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Well as costs grow so will game prices, and that is not good at all in the struggling world economy right now. People won't buy as many games, and many studios will shut down due to lack of profit. It is a dark future for gaming.

Mainly think about the death of originality in gaming as well. No one is going to want to take chances with game ideas if a single titles could sink a company. The next generation of consoles won't be an arms race methinks, Sony should have learned their lesson (that is if there is a lesson to learn, their plan still has hope of succeeding) and Microsoft will probably take a page from Nintendo's book.

Just stop trying to make better graphics....the solution is so simple that it hurts.

Too late. You try and make graphics the centre-point of your console, then your fambase is going to want more. The only way to move from this is to give them something else instead of a huge amount of horsepower.

 

[Cousin_IT]

unless gaming explodes as a medium generally (ie, beyond the Hip Wii factor), the next gen can sod off if its gonna cost that much.

 

[oliveira8]

Well as costs grow so will game prices, and that is not good at all in the struggling world economy right now. People won't buy as many games, and many studios will shut down due to lack of profit. It is a dark future for gaming.

Mainly think about the death of originality in gaming as well. No one is going to want to take chances with game ideas if a single titles could sink a company. The next generation of consoles won't be an arms race methinks, Sony should have learned their lesson (that is if there is a lesson to learn, their plan still has hope of succeeding) and Microsoft will probably take a page from Nintendo's book.

Just stop trying to make better graphics....the solution is so simple that it hurts.

Too late. You try and make graphics the centre-point of your console, then your fambase is going to want more. The only way to move from this is to give them something else instead of a huge amount of horsepower.

I know its to late. Killzone 2 and Crysis spoiled everyone. Big graphics is what is making gaming development costs skyrocket.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Well as costs grow so will game prices, and that is not good at all in the struggling world economy right now. People won't buy as many games, and many studios will shut down due to lack of profit. It is a dark future for gaming.

Mainly think about the death of originality in gaming as well. No one is going to want to take chances with game ideas if a single titles could sink a company. The next generation of consoles won't be an arms race methinks, Sony should have learned their lesson (that is if there is a lesson to learn, their plan still has hope of succeeding) and Microsoft will probably take a page from Nintendo's book.

After the example of Advent Rising for Majesco, it shows that originality is always less preferred to quick and easy cash. Sony could have a success if they God of War III really will the be the PS3s messiah (Which it won't), and with Natal, Microsoft is already trying to emulate Nintendo under the guise of originality.

I think Microsoft will need to understand how to transform the non core audience gamers into core ones, like Nintendo seems to be doing, then they will succeed. But if they just plant it out there for quick short term sales, then I'm not so sure.

Also the Wii's lower development cost usually means original titles are more likely (Zack & Wiki, deBlob), or at least in my opinion they are.

-snip-

Thus turning game development into one big game of russian roulette, with more bullets added to the chamber each generation.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Well as costs grow so will game prices, and that is not good at all in the struggling world economy right now. People won't buy as many games, and many studios will shut down due to lack of profit. It is a dark future for gaming.

Mainly think about the death of originality in gaming as well. No one is going to want to take chances with game ideas if a single titles could sink a company. The next generation of consoles won't be an arms race methinks, Sony should have learned their lesson (that is if there is a lesson to learn, their plan still has hope of succeeding) and Microsoft will probably take a page from Nintendo's book.

After the example of Advent Rising for Majesco, it shows that originality is always less preferred to quick and easy cash. Sony could have a success if they God of War III really will the be the PS3s messiah (Which it won't), and with Natal, Microsoft is already trying to emulate Nintendo under the guise of originality.

I think Microsoft will need to understand how to transform the non core audience gamers into core ones, like Nintendo seems to be doing, then they will succeed. But if they just plant it out there for quick short term sales, then I'm not so sure.

Also the Wii's lower development cost usually means original titles are more likely (Zack & Wiki, deBlob), or at least in my opinion they are.

Well they've been trying to that with Scene It! and You're in the Movies, the latter of which bombed horribly. So if they do imaginative games that appeal to the non-gamers, I could see Natal working. But as of now I believe it's just to suckle on the Wii's motion controlled dick.

I agree on the original titles, games like MadWorld and NoMoreHeroes seem more common on Wii than they do 360 or PS3.

Aye, and concerning the last post, the reason why GoW III won't be alpha and omega of all games is because the main group of people who want the game are the Sony die-hard community, and while it will increase sales, it won't just spike. Plus if that game gets anything below a 10, I think Dingo might have a stroke.

 

[quack35]

Ouch. So we'll have even fewer games out each month? That sucks.

 

[Jumplion]

I know its to late. Killzone 2 and Crysis spoiled everyone. Big graphics is what is making gaming development costs skyrocket.

The surprising part about that though is that Killzone 2 was actually pretty good [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/killzone2?q=Killzone%202]. So was Crysis apparantly [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/crysis?q=Crysis].

In all honesty, I think people give good graphics too much flak. If you've ever fully played Killzone 2, despite it's average premise (an FPS set in the future with shiny gray landscapes, though still gray) it was extremely well polished with attention put into every little detail, from the gas being released from a canister and exploding to the extremely detailed death animations and animations in general. If you get out of the mindset of "Oh, it's just a pretty game trying to sell on graphics!" you will find that it's the visuals, not the graphics, and the attention to detail that makes the game. I can't speak for Crysis as I have not played it, but from what I've heard the outstanding graphics (or "visuals" as I usually prefer to call them) helped immersion, the atmosphere, and the aesthetics of the game helped it feel unique.

I'm sick of how people moan and groan that "graphics are killing the industry!!#@$" and "if I wanted realism I'd watch a movie/read a book/go outside!" when that's extremely narrow minded of everyone. There's nothing wrong with trying to achieve better visuals, and I infact encourage it. There is a trend with graphics that I'm surprised not many people have found out yet. Whenever graphics are improved, so does everything else.

Case in point, back in the old days of yore, Mario looked phenomenal. During that time, it was state-of-the-art. But fast forward to PS1 with FF7 and MGSand Mario64 for the N64, those visuals blew everyone out of the water and they provided even more experiences in terms of gameplay and the hardware improved dramatically. Now fast forward to today, the graphics/visuals today are outstanding compared to years before, and the hardware is practically 100 times more powerful! But the games themselves evolved to, who would have thought that Assassin's Creed would be possible years before, or LittleBigPlanet, or Crysis and Killzone 2 level of graphics/visuals/detail!

When graphics improve, you know what else improves? Hardware. And what comes with improved hardware? More content. What usually comes with more content? Better games. It's outstanding how not enough people realize this trend, as graphics improve so does the hardware and the hardware fuels for more games, more creative games, and more great games in general.

Now, I may be a self-hopefull Gamer-hippie, but I see nothing wrong with trying to achieve greater graphics/visuals in gaming. Better graphics/visuals doesn't always mean better trees to look at, it can also mean better animations to make characters more lifelike, better facial expressions so they don't seem like robots, it can all fit together to help the story because we connect with the characters for being even more related to us, but that's a different topic.

But overall, I've made this rant get out of hand, didn't think I'd type up that much. People say that "graphics are killing the industry!@!#$ It's the gameplay that matters!@#$!#% They're supposed to be fun", and all I have to say is; I'm not worried.

 

[oliveira8]

*snip*

When did I say in my post that KZ2 and Crysis were bad.

I stated that KZ2 and Crysis set the bar high and of course people will try to outdue them putting more money into developing a bigger and more powerfull engine. Which cost alot.

Take examples of the old Quake engine, idTech and the Source engine. Simple engines they look good and work great.(Quake looked good back in the day, and the Source engine still looks good(even with its shaddy ground textures))

Graphics bring new gameplay concepts but do we need photo-realistic graphics to achieve such gameplay? I really doubt.

The Source and idTech engines do fine. We don't really need Cryengine and whatever engine KZ2 has yet.

 

[John Funk]

I know its to late. Killzone 2 and Crysis spoiled everyone. Big graphics is what is making gaming development costs skyrocket.

The surprising part about that though is that Killzone 2 was actually pretty good [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/killzone2?q=Killzone%202]. So was Crysis apparantly [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/crysis?q=Crysis].

In all honesty, I think people give good graphics too much flak. If you've ever fully played Killzone 2, despite it's average premise (an FPS set in the future with shiny gray landscapes, though still gray) it was extremely well polished with attention put into every little detail, from the gas being released from a canister and exploding to the extremely detailed death animations and animations in general. If you get out of the mindset of "Oh, it's just a pretty game trying to sell on graphics!" you will find that it's the visuals, not the graphics, and the attention to detail that makes the game. I can't speak for Crysis as I have not played it, but from what I've heard the outstanding graphics (or "visuals" as I usually prefer to call them) helped immersion, the atmosphere, and the aesthetics of the game helped it feel unique.

I'm sick of how people moan and groan that "graphics are killing the industry!!#@$" and "if I wanted realism I'd watch a movie/read a book/go outside!" when that's extremely narrow minded of everyone. There's nothing wrong with trying to achieve better visuals, and I infact encourage it. There is a trend with graphics that I'm surprised not many people have found out yet. Whenever graphics are improved, so does everything else.

Case in point, back in the old days of yore, Mario looked phenomenal. During that time, it was state-of-the-art. But fast forward to PS1 with FF7 and MGSand Mario64 for the N64, those visuals blew everyone out of the water and they provided even more experiences in terms of gameplay and the hardware improved dramatically. Now fast forward to today, the graphics/visuals today are outstanding compared to years before, and the hardware is practically 100 times more powerful! But the games themselves evolved to, who would have thought that Assassin's Creed would be possible years before, or LittleBigPlanet, or Crysis and Killzone 2 level of graphics/visuals/detail!

When graphics improve, you know what else improves? Hardware. And what comes with improved hardware? More content. What usually comes with more content? Better games. It's outstanding how not enough people realize this trend, as graphics improve so does the hardware and the hardware fuels for more games, more creative games, and more great games in general.

Now, I may be a self-hopefull Gamer-hippie, but I see nothing wrong with trying to achieve greater graphics/visuals in gaming. Better graphics/visuals doesn't always mean better trees to look at, it can also mean better animations to make characters more lifelike, better facial expressions so they don't seem like robots, it can all fit together to help the story because we connect with the characters for being even more related to us, but that's a different topic.

But overall, I've made this rant get out of hand, didn't think I'd type up that much. People say that "graphics are killing the industry!@!#$ It's the gameplay that matters!@#$!#% They're supposed to be fun", and all I have to say is; I'm not worried.

And if it cost the same to make Killzone 2 look as good as it does today, as it did to make Super Mario 64 look as good as it did back in '96, people wouldn't have problems.

But it doesn't. It takes considerably more - and worse, it sets a standard to be followed. Games are judged on this standard; if a game doesn't look as good or better than Crysis, or Killzone 2, people treat this as a flaw. So it keeps pushing development times and development costs upward. Which means that either game prices have to increase, or a game is going to have to sell more in order to break even. When development costs mean that a game needs to sell, say, 2 million copies in order to turn a profit, and very few games sell 2 million copies, what does that mean?

That's what people are worried about, I think.

 

[MarcusMang]

The thing is that games don't have to cost so much if you stop concentrating on graphics and true realism. Like Yahtzee said in his Saints Row 2 review, true realism is not worth achieving at the end of the day.

 

[Jumplion]

When did I say in my post that KZ2 and Crysis were bad.

I stated that KZ2 and Crysis set the bar high and of course people will try to outdue them putting more money into developing a bigger and more powerfull engine. Which cost alot.

Take examples of the old Quake engine, idTech and the Source engine. Simple engines they look good and work great.(Quake looked good back in the day, and the Source engine still looks good(even with its shaddy ground textures))

Graphics bring new gameplay concepts but do we need photo-realistic graphics to achieve such gameplay? I really doubt.

The Source and idTech engines do fine. We don't really need Cryengine and whatever engine KZ2 has yet.

In your original post, it seemed to me that you were going "Oh deary me, Killzone 2 and Crysis spoiled everyone with their graphics but nothing else! Those games had high production values just for the grpahics!" with heavy emphasis on the "deary" for no reason. I apologize for that, but usually when people refer to Killzone 2 and Crysis for their graphics they also usually mean that for some reason they're bad games.

But to improve on game design and concepts, you already have to sink in tons of money for it! Once again, I'm going to bring up Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain has had over 6 months of mo-cap, a 2000 page script (equivalent of 20 movies) and loads more [http://ps3.ign.com/articles/937/937800p1.html], and you better believe that it's a huge money sink! The problem though is that many people, possibly including yourself, toss it aside because it has realistic graphics even though it's extremely unique in it's own right.

That's assuming Heavy Rain succeeds, but let's assume it doesn't. All that means is that the next ambitious game has to try harder. Whether or not that means sinking 100 bazillion dollars into it or not it doesn't matter, though if it's trying to connect the playerwith a realistic setting and makes them connect with the characters it'd most likely cost 100 bazillion dollars. Nobody said it would be easy, or cheap, or succesfull, because it's hard, expensive, and risky. But is gaming wants to evolve then it's going to have to take some risks every once in a while. MGS was definately a risk, Mario64 was a complete departure from the original Marios, and FF7 changed RPGs (whether we like it or not) and there was no guarantee of that ever happening.

But it's a risk I'm willing to take.

(damn, I just love ending long rants with a short sentence! Makes me feel like a badass)

 

[Knonsense]

This doesn't bode well. Especially with the expensive looking potential 3d fad over the horizon.

 

[Jumplion]

And if it cost the same to make Killzone 2 look as good as it does today, as it did to make Super Mario 64 look as good as it did back in '96, people wouldn't have problems.

But it doesn't. It takes considerably more - and worse, it sets a standard to be followed. Games are judged on this standard; if a game doesn't look as good or better than Crysis, or Killzone 2, people treat this as a flaw. So it keeps pushing development times and development costs upward. Which means that either game prices have to increase, or a game is going to have to sell more in order to break even. When development costs mean that a game needs to sell, say, 2 million copies in order to turn a profit, and very few games sell 2 million copies, what does that mean?

That's what people are worried about, I think.

I get some of that concern, but like I said I am really not worried.

Personally, for me, a game gets marked down if it doesn't have at least standard graphics/visuals for the certain genre and platform. There is really no reason why, say, Protoype should have such horrible graphics (or so I've heard) on a modern day system. At least make it decent to look at, but it doesn't have to be Killzone 2 material.

And do I really need to bring the Wii in this discussion?

Anyway, I'd consider Killzone 2 and Crysis to be the high points in standards as I have yet to see any review or any criticizm from anyone who says that because this certain game didn't look as pretty as Crysis it's a sucky game. We all know that they're very pretty, but nobody expects every game to look like that, and the people who do are an extreme minority.

The whole "my processing power is bigger than yours!" thing in gaming has been going on for quite some time, and games like Killzone 2 and Crysis, on the technological side, aren't anything new. Games and game companies have always tried to be better than the other, graphics/visuals is just another way to do it. And once again, when better graphics comes along, better visuals, characterization, hardware, etc... come with the territory.

And god damnit, I keep forgeting what anime yoru avatar is from! I think it's from Gundam, no?