1. Quality over quantity.
2.I don't need super pretty graphics.
3. Why did you have to set my expectation so high for the graphics in first place, I remember when halo 1 looked like most realistic thing ever.
4. Well no one is gonna experiment with the amount of money it might cost.
Jesus Christ, it cost IW $50mil to make MW2 and they couldn't make more of a campaign or at least more MP maps? I honestly feel bamboozled. This really makes me not want to buy a new game.
Take that $23 million, then divide that by...let's say a 500,000 people just to keep things reasonable. According to my calculator, which I'd assume is accurate, would be $46 per game to make their initial investment back.
Now, understanding game devs need to make a profit, you take that $14 profit from each of those 500,000 games and that equals $7 million. Not bad, but...
Then divide that $7 million amongst 50 people, say 30 developers and 20 others involved in management, marketing, etc., and that equals $140,000 per person. I'm all for being generous, but I think more than 3 times the national median income level [http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm] is a bit much.
Note: Even if we assume $2 million was taken out of the profits rather than the inital investment for the license to make the game for whatever system, plus promotion and the pressing of the games, etc., the profit for each individual would be $100,000. Still a very large number.
Therefore, if these reports about how much it takes to make a game are true, I'd say there is some price gouging going on. Maybe not so much in America, but certainly in other countries.
Take that $23 million, then divide that by...let's say a 500,000 people just to keep things reasonable. According to my calculator, which I'd assume is accurate, would be $46 per game to make their initial investment back.
Now, understanding game devs need to make a profit, you take that $14 profit from each of those 500,000 games and that equals $7 million. Not bad, but...
Then divide that $7 million amongst 50 people, say 30 developers and 20 others involved in management, marketing, etc., and that equals $140,000 per person. I'm all for being generous, but I think more than 3 times the national median income level [http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm] is a bit much.
Note: Even if we assume $2 million was taken out of the profits rather than the inital investment for the license to make the game for whatever system, plus promotion and the pressing of the games, etc., the profit for each individual would be $100,000. Still a very large number.
Therefore, if these reports about how much it takes to make a game are true, I'd say there is some price gouging going on. Maybe not so much in America, but certainly in other countries.
To toss some more numbers at you. you have to sell your game to a middleman in which I assume you getting no more than 60% of the 59, you have to print disc, then you have to pay MS and sony a royalty. All in all your getting at most half of the 60, then you have to sell 750k copies to break even.But wait you have to advertise your game. No idea what it cost to run ads on IGN, escapist, and Gamespot, but for a primetime slot on the week before your game releases (122k for the big 3) then you do this on 3 channels ESPN, ABC, and G4tv for 3 days and your looking into the millions, then you have material support for your game, showing at all the gameshows, tokyo, e3, PAX, etc. Suddenly your game has to go Gold (or whatever they call going over a million) to even break even.
Just to add to your salary considerations, you have to pay a staff for 2-3 years till your game gets finished.
Take that $23 million, then divide that by...let's say a 500,000 people just to keep things reasonable. According to my calculator, which I'd assume is accurate, would be $46 per game to make their initial investment back.
Now, understanding game devs need to make a profit, you take that $14 profit from each of those 500,000 games and that equals $7 million. Not bad, but...
Then divide that $7 million amongst 50 people, say 30 developers and 20 others involved in management, marketing, etc., and that equals $140,000 per person. I'm all for being generous, but I think more than 3 times the national median income level [http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm] is a bit much.
Note: Even if we assume $2 million was taken out of the profits rather than the inital investment for the license to make the game for whatever system, plus promotion and the pressing of the games, etc., the profit for each individual would be $100,000. Still a very large number.
Therefore, if these reports about how much it takes to make a game are true, I'd say there is some price gouging going on. Maybe not so much in America, but certainly in other countries.
To toss some more numbers at you. you have to sell your game to a middleman in which I assume you getting no more than 60% of the 59, you have to print disc, then you have to pay MS and sony a royalty. All in all your getting at most half of the 60, then you have to sell 750k copies to break even.But wait you have to advertise your game. No idea what it cost to run ads on IGN, escapist, and Gamespot, but for a primetime slot on the week before your game releases (122k for the big 3) then you do this on 3 channels ESPN, ABC, and G4tv for 3 days and your looking into the millions, then you have material support for your game, showing at all the gameshows, tokyo, e3, PAX, etc. Suddenly your game has to go Gold (or whatever they call going over a million) to even break even.
Just to add to your salary considerations, you have to pay a staff for 2-3 years till your game gets finished.
If you take a look at my noted comment in the spoiler, you'll see that I did take into account the licensing fee, marketing, and pressing of the game. I don't know how much the middleman would make from selling a video game, but I can't imagine it makes it out of the low single digits per unit. Gamestop makes most of their money from used games, and places like Target and Walmart make much more money on other stuff, which is why they only have maybe a rack or two in the store.
I think gaming is going to have to use procedual generation more and more sooner or later and whilst it didn't quite work out for Spore (ouch), it overall could help make some very good games.
I mean you could, for instance have a weapons system in a game where you could have like a "rusty" "master" "sword" or a "perfect" "balanced" "dagger", with a random generation system using keywords and areas of manufacture to make truly unique items based around economy and other such things you think would effect item creation.
You could then use a similar system to randomly generate huge portions of a sandbox, placing bandits due to economic conditions, trade routes, placing villages in lush areas, randomly generating envrioment-based quests to help them, etc.
A simple key-word based procedual generation system could save a lot of trouble in making a game.
Average cost of a Hollywood movie is more than $100 million
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3564377.stm
Bear in mind that the article was written 5 and a half years ago so it may have gone up (I don't know much about the costs of movies, could be that new technology cost = the cost of old technology when it was new, though that's probably false)
Movie ticket = $8 or $9 if I'm converting correctly
Game cost = $60
That's pretty moronic logic...even a linear shooter lasts you around 6 - 8 hours through a single playthrough - not including online. Even then, you can constantly re-play your game - you'd have to buy a new move ticket...you're getting pretty good value for money with that game of yours - especially if it's an RPG.
I was making an argument against those who said that games need to cost more for consumers because of the rise in cost of producing a game, not the amount of time you use on the thing equalling how much it's worth (which I would call moronic logic).
The way I see it, the cost of games should be going down thanks to the increasing use of digital distribution to sell games, cutting out the real-world retailers who take a fairly significant slice of the $60 pie.
I hear a lot of people saying they don't care too much about graphics, and from that I'd be interested to know how much trying to get the best possible graphics for a game actually costs the developer.
I was making an argument against those who said that games need to cost more for consumers because of the rise in cost of producing a game, not the amount of time you use on the thing equalling how much it's worth (which I would call moronic logic).
You'd only call if moronic logic if you yourself were to foolish to understand the meaning - you're getting a far greater amount of content with a game than a film, thus the price is increased.
The way I see it, the cost of games should be going down thanks to the increasing use of digital distribution to sell games, cutting out the real-world retailers who take a fairly significant slice of the $60 pie.
Digital distribution is still very low key compared to game stores - people like buying copies of games rather than downloading them - that's like saying "We should lower the price of food because you can buy it online instead of going down to the local store" - it's not going to happen because it doesn't work like that, besides you want cheaper game prices - you're going to get cheaper studio budgets, thus worse games.
I hear a lot of people saying they don't care too much about graphics, and from that I'd be interested to know how much trying to get the best possible graphics for a game actually costs the developer.
A hell of a lot - besides, a lot of people do care about graphics, heck, games basically get scored on graphics nowadays - to the point where games like Crysis get an easy ride in reviews and sales due to its graphical capabilities.
You'd only call if moronic logic if you yourself were to foolish to understand the meaning - you're getting a far greater amount of content with a game than a film, thus the price is increased.
Can't wait for them to jack up the price of books...
Digital distribution is still very low key compared to game stores - people like buying copies of games rather than downloading them - that's like saying "We should lower the price of food because you can buy it online instead of going down to the local store" - it's not going to happen because it doesn't work like that, besides you want cheaper game prices - you're going to get cheaper studio budgets, thus worse games.
I direct your attention to the music industry where downloading is very much a big thing despite early arguments saying that people wanted a disk copy. You also have analysts stating all over the place that digital downloads will play a much bigger part in the years to come. Hell, Sony is even trying to get ahead of the pack by releasing a download-only handheld console. I'm not saying it's big now, but it's going to take off sooner or later. Also, look at PC gaming.
I find it odd that you don't think a lower cost in the process of getting a product out to consumers can't result in a better prices for those consumers, simply reasoning it as not working that way. Kotick would love you.
Hilarious that you think that smaller budgets = worse games by the way.
A hell of a lot - besides, a lot of people do care about graphics, heck, games basically get scored on graphics nowadays - to the point where games like Crysis get an easy ride in reviews and sales due to its graphical capabilities.
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/killzone?q=killzone%202
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/lair?q=lair
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/genji2?q=genji#
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/darksector
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/turok?q=turok
Even ones with stylised graphics that reviewers usually eat up get trashed:
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/afrosamurai?q=afro%20samurai
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