So, I guess this is the new reality of game development. Recent--
reports by the UK CMA (the agency that deals with whether or not
mergers should be allowed) recently noted that triple-A games can cost upwards of one billion dollars (with included marketing). Yay?
It's a ridiculous amount, of course; not only that so much money and resources should be poured into what's a completely disposable luxury product, but that it should cost so much to begin with. Nobody's
getting value for money from these overpriced behemoth games; not the developers (who are crunched and forced to make mass-market garbage),
nor the publishers (who risk way too much money for games that have
such a high probability of flopping, or just breaking even), and
certainly not the gamers, who are saddled with increasingly excessive
MTX as the publishers struggle to make their money back.
And you have to wonder, WHERE is all this money really going? Does
"Call of Duty CCCLXIV: More Call, More Duty" really look and play so
much better than "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" released in 2007? That
game is estimated to have cost $60 million USD (with another $100
million USD for marketing); even adjusting for inflation, do the newer
Call of Duty titles really feel like they're offering three times as
much content? And now let's compare that to "Grand Theft Auto V"; its
total budget was $250 million USD. How can the latest "Call of Duty"
(or generally, _any_ modern shooter) justify their cost? Do Activision programmers do their programming on solid-gold keyboards or something?
It doesn't have to be this way. The total budget for "Black Myth:
Wukong" was $70 million. "Control" was $30 million. There aren't any
official figures on "Space Marine 2", but the few estimates I saw put
its total budget at < $100 million. These are all still incredible
amounts, but a far cry from the wastefulness of the triple-A studios.
The big studios cry at us that they just HAVE to put all these
lootboxes and MTX and other nonsense into their games because
development costs have skyrocketed so much. Arguably, they're right:
its unlikely that the publishers could make their money back if they
depended entirely on retail sales as their sole source of revenue. But
maybe a better solution would be to cut back on the fucking costs
instead?
It's not just that MTX/etc. are fucking over games. It's that it's an unsustainable business. In order to get Fortnite money, you need
players to spend incredible lengths of time with your game. Nobody's
going to spend $500 on cosmetics and DLC on a game they'll only spend
30 hours on. But there's only so many hours in a day; you can only
have so many mega-live-service Fortnite-style games out there. If you reaching for that gold ring with your next game, the odds are
incredibly high that you will miss... and if you spend $1 billion
developing and advertising that game, that miss (and the subsequent
fall) is going to be very painful.
It makes a $30 million flop look almost cozy in comparison.
Aim lower, triple-A publishers. It's more certain and -while not as
flashy- will probably net you more cash in the long run.
Aim lower, triple-A publishers. It's more certain and -while not as
flashy- will probably net you more cash in the long run.
On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 23:35:26 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
Is Dr. Evil making games now? :P That newsgroup post's title reminded me
of Evil Genius game demo I played back then:
I absolutely deny that I had my pinky held up to the corner of my
mouth as I was typing that.
This is NOT me!!!!! * https://makeagif.com/gif/austin-powers-100-billion-dollars-zivzwF
* It might be Activisions CEO, though. ;-)
On 1/20/2025 9:15 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 23:35:26 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:Well, I was going to say Elon Musk but the gif only says 1 billion
Is Dr. Evil making games now? :P That newsgroup post's title reminded me >>> of Evil Genius game demo I played back then:
I absolutely deny that I had my pinky held up to the corner of my
mouth as I was typing that.
This is NOT me!!!!! *
https://makeagif.com/gif/austin-powers-100-billion-dollars-zivzwF
* It might be Activisions CEO, though. ;-)
dollars which is too small for Elon to put any effort into it.
On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 23:35:26 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
Is Dr. Evil making games now? :P That newsgroup post's title reminded me
of Evil Genius game demo I played back then:
I absolutely deny that I had my pinky held up to the corner of my
mouth as I was typing that.
This is NOT me!!!!! * https://makeagif.com/gif/austin-powers-100-billion-dollars-zivzwF
* It might be Activisions CEO, though. ;-)
On Mon, 20 Jan 2025 23:09:57 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 20/01/2025 21:15, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
Well, I was going to say Elon Musk but the gif only says 1 billion
dollars which is too small for Elon to put any effort into it.
One billion you say, so about the same as he spent on paying people to
make him an uber gamer?
<chuckle>
That whole story* is just so sad and cringey, but then the same can be
said for the person it is about. Musk is just so desperate for
attention and validation. I'd almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't
so otherwise loathsome and willing to use his enormous advantages to
the detriment of others.
The thing is, if he had just said, "hey, I'm a gamer; I'm pretty good"
he'd have been fine.** Apparently he had some (not a lot, but probably
better than average) skill at Quake, and I'm willing to believe he is
the same in a number of other games. But its his insistence that he's
always the best, always right is what keeps getting him into trouble.
Hubris, Musk. Look it up.
* For those of you who don't know what this is all about: Elon Musk,
CEO of Telsa and Twitter, has claimed to be one of the top players in
Quake, Diablo IV, and Path of Exile, even going so far as to
live-stream him playing the latter to prove his 1337 skillz. However,
the evidence backing up his claims is extremely sketchy, and the
live-stream made it obvious he has very little idea what he is doing,
and there are lot of indications the high-level character he used on
the stream was the result of his paying somebody for it rather than
earning it through his own efforts, including the fact that his
so-called top ranking in Diablo IV was self-reported and used a
short-lived glitch to speed-run a single dungeon, and that his Path of
Exile character was seen farming phat loot in China some days prior to
his live-stream. Oh, and Dennis Thresh Fong is on record saying Musk
wasn't a very good player at Quake either.
** I mean, I'd still wonder what he was doing spending so much time
playing video games when he has three companies to run, and so many
elections to subvert, but I guess all that ketamine he (allegedly)
takes gives him that extra energy to keep going on through the night
;-)
On Mon, 20 Jan 2025 23:09:57 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 20/01/2025 21:15, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
Well, I was going to say Elon Musk but the gif only says 1 billion
dollars which is too small for Elon to put any effort into it.
One billion you say, so about the same as he spent on paying people to
make him an uber gamer?
<chuckle>
That whole story* is just so sad and cringey, but then the same can be
said for the person it is about. Musk is just so desperate for
attention and validation. I'd almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't
so otherwise loathsome and willing to use his enormous advantages to
the detriment of others.
The thing is, if he had just said, "hey, I'm a gamer; I'm pretty good"
he'd have been fine.** Apparently he had some (not a lot, but probably
better than average) skill at Quake, and I'm willing to believe he is
the same in a number of other games. But its his insistence that he's
always the best, always right is what keeps getting him into trouble.
Hubris, Musk. Look it up.
On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 23:35:26 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:
Is Dr. Evil making games now? :P That newsgroup post's title reminded me
of Evil Genius game demo I played back then:
I absolutely deny that I had my pinky held up to the corner of my
mouth as I was typing that.
This is NOT me!!!!! * https://makeagif.com/gif/austin-powers-100-billion-dollars-zivzwF
* It might be Activisions CEO, though. ;-)
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