The cost of making games ...

[txa1265]

We talk about it everywhere because of how few RPG's come along, but this article gave me pause:

Those estimates total 800,000 units at an average wholesale price of around $30, so it will likely generate around $24 million in revenues. Since the game took three years to develop, it likely cost Take-Two close to $15 million in R&D, and my guess is that the company did no better than to break even. I would NOT expect a sequel.

Wow ... 800,000 units is a 'break even' game?!?! I know it is a console game, but still!

 

[Gorath]

Console games have higher fixed costs: a tax of ~10$ per unit has to be paid to the console manufacturer - upfront & non-refundable. Marketing is more expensive because console gamers aren´t as fixated on print mags as PC gamers. (Multi-platform offers synergies though). The game needs approximately 2-3 months to get approved by the console manufacturer´s QA (for each console!).
The risk situation is also different. Nowadays more console games are released, but the number of potential customers is gigantic. Furthermore the bigger Greatest Hits budget lines are controlled by the manufacturers. Only hits are allowed in, which makes budget sales more complicated.

PC-only games can´t have such a big budget. I guess Oblivion for all platforms costs 15 Mio. Maybe even a bit more. Dragon Age is an exception because Bioware has a proven track record.
Gothic 3 had a budget in the 4-6 Mio EUR range. That was obviously not enough. The 350k it sold so far should be enough to get over the break even, but it´s surely not enough yet to earn big bucks.
This example shows the problems smaller devs and pubs have. Could they really take the risk to allocate a bigger budget to an RPG for hardcore gamers? JoWooD has great distribution in Germany (through Deep Silver), okay market access in Europe and problems in the rest of the world. Can they really sell more than the numbers they´ve based their calculations on? Increasing the budget means also increasing your sales expectations. Making the wrong decision can ruin both companies. Combine this with a developer who refuses to scale the project down or is incapable of seeing its true size and you´re left left with the choice between Scylla and Charybdis. Delaying the game would have made it miss the Christmas business (-> lost sales!) and would have increased the budget. Releasing now damaged the brand. They took the wrong decision, IMHO. At least if they could have afforded the other one.

Small studios should go for compact games with great content. A 40 hours kick-ass RPG should be attractive enough for RPG fans to decide for a purchase. The other possible 100 hours of average content should be seen as an opportunity to keep the costs down.

 

[chamr]

Small studios should go for compact games with great content. A 40 hours kick-ass RPG should be attractive enough for RPG fans to decide for a purchase. The other possible 100 hours of average content should be seen as an opportunity to keep the costs down.

A-freakin'-men on that. RPG development seems especially prone to obsession with eye-candy and sheer content volume to the detrement of quality gameplay and true, meaningful advancement of the cRPG genre. (I don't consider life-like facial expressions on NPC's and five-gazzilion fed-ex quests true and meaninful advances for cRPG's) Just think what could have been done for monster AI and NPC interaction if the massive world and ridiculously long list of quests had been cut in half and those man-hours had been freed up. Geez.

And aren't the publishers and develolper missing the boat? Isn't the gaming market in general, and especially the PC-RPG market continuing to trend toward older gamers with more money but less time to game? Given that trend, it seems clear to me that world size, a prodigious but mostly duplicative list of quests and maybe the latest and greatest bloom-shader-crazy polygon-we-have-the-most-realistic-facial-hair-swaying-in-the-wind-of-any-cRPG-ever! graphics should be trimmed in favor of high quality and true innovation that can command a premium price.

 

[txa1265]

I think that what surprised me was the fact that this is a PS2 game ... and that reports I read indicated that *next gen* games would require 500,000 copies to break even!

But I agree with you guys - I look at my own gaming habits, and the balance has definitely tipped towards short-burst gaming (ergo my infatuation with handhelds). I would be happy with a game that offers a tight 40 hour experience with plenty of quest variety and interesting characters.

I just loaded up Icewind Dale II again after some discussion in other threads ... I'd never gotten into it much after not finishing IWD I. But playing it now reminds me of how little I care about advanced graphics and eye-candy ...

 

[JDR13]

"I just loaded up Icewind Dale II again after some discussion in other threads ... I'd never gotten into it much after not finishing IWD I. But playing it now reminds me of how little I care about advanced graphics and eye-candy ..."


Hallelujah brother! I replayed Baldurs Gate last year and enjoyed it just as much as I did 6 years ago. Looking forward to replaying BG2 later this year, and I'll definitely play the IWD series again in the future as well.

Hell, I just played System Shock 1 for the first time in November. That game was released in what year? 1992? I was blown away by how great it was.

*edit* SS was released in 1994. It takes a fair bit of tweaking, but you can run it on Windows XP.

 

[Gorath]

Decent graphics are a must nowadays. The potential customer at the shop only sees a box with a few pictures. He can´t know if an ugly game is more fun than the colorful one next to it.

 

[Corwin]

I replayed SS early last year too and I agree. I have yet to finish either G3, or NWN2 (though I am enjoying them despite many flaws). However, discussions about Wiz 8 in a different thread, lead me to re-install it, then I just had to make sure everything worked, then I decided to just do the Monastery, and of course the Arnika Road beckoned, and I've been playing it for 4 days straight!! There's a lesson in that somewhere!!

 

[chamr]

Decent graphics are a must nowadays. The potential customer at the shop only sees a box with a few pictures. He can´t know if an ugly game is more fun than the colorful one next to it.

Granted. I'm certainly aware of the appeal of pleasing graphics and, to some extent, the role they play in immersion. However, my beef is with the extent to which graphics dominate so many PR blurbs on and reviews of games. It's disproportionate to their value. I think everyone will agree that fantastic graphics won't save a boring, derivative, low-quality game and, conversely, OK-ish graphics won't sink a great game.

Obviously, a good deal of effort and talent must be spent on keeping your graphics good enough not to put off potential customers. But I would argue that developers/publishers tend to go way too far in that department at the expense of more significant aspects of the game that would, IMHO, actually pay greater dividends in the long run.

Part of the probelm, I think, is that content volume and graphics are just plain easier targets for improvement, so to speak, than other, trickier aspects of a game, such as AI, player impact on the world, and the dynamicism of NPC interaction. I think RPG development has been stagnating for quite some time, content with "more hours" and "prettier" which has led to the proliferation of indy RPG titles trying to recapture some of that old magic.

Of course, the optimist's take would be that the genre is now very ripe for true innovation...

 

[GothicGothicness]

decided to just do the Monastery, and of course the Arnika Road beckoned, and I've been playing it for 4 days straight!! There's a lesson in that somewhere!!

Yes, the lesson is Wiz 8 rules.

As for the cost, to put it simple CRPGs are the worst genre to try and develop! However such a "RPG" as pokemon is the most profitable game ever! the franchise sold around 20 million copies or more only in Japan... and I could program and draw that game by myself in one year! With a budget of $1000 a month for foods and internet!

The horror of CRPG's are so many for a developer ( I know since I worked at a game company developing one ) It has to have good enough graphics a good engine and sound... because everyone expect it these years. For a FPS having all of this is enough... after it is done it is just a matter of tweaking the gameplay a bit and thinking up a fairly crappy story and go! Besides people accept a small scale game that takes about 13 hours to play through or less for a good player, and it lives on the multiplayer after that.

For a RPG people expect it to be huge... which means even more graphics work, more map work than the FPS, more sounds... more of everything mentioned above! On top of that it needs tons of dialogue and NOW it must even be spoken... people expect no less... this in itself is a huge cost. When there's the balancing and combat system that takes forever.... when there are choices and quests which just is assured to give bugs!

On top of that you need a good story... which is also really hard to think up.

After having done all of this enormous work, and you feel you are about done... you realise everything you did is getting outdated since it took so long to complete it... time to update everything! It is a nightmare! To put salt in the wounds the FPS sells better anyway. To sum up, if you are in the industry for the money these days you don't develop CRPG's at least not of the wizardry kind.

 

[Corwin]

Exactly, which is a shame, a pity and a lot of other things. Who remembers most of the FPS games they've played several years on, but we still discuss the Wizardries, the Ultimas etc and we still play them all years later!! That's what a good CRPG has over all other games. PS-T, will live forever, as will Wiz 8 and U7 among others. Who will be playing many of the current crop in 10 years time?

 

[Jaz]

Who remembers most of the FPS games they've played several years on

I do. Every single one of them. And I still love to discuss and play* them, just as the RTSes/fighting games/platformers/adventures/CRPGs I played - for me, quality has nothing to do with genre. And no, an FPS doesn't need good graphics, sounds and a nice engine only to succeed. Blood 2, for example, had all that, but it lacked atmosphere and was difficult enough to fail on a grand scale. And is 'save the world/the princess from the evil wizard/the dark god' really a great story per se? Is it any different from 'save the world/the princess from the Nazis/Bowser'? No, it's not. In both cases, the details count. The story details and the way they - and NPCs - are presented are (among other things) what can make or break a game, at least for me, and this goes for most gaming genres (except perhaps puzzle games ). I enjoy a mean story twist in a CRPG just as I enjoy a mean story twist in an FPS game.

That folks on our forums generally remember CRPGs best (and replay them the most) might be a consequence of the fact that this site was made for fans of CRPGs. That CRPGs are more often economical failures than other games may be a result of the fact that everybody wants something else out of them. While customers' expectations for FPSes usually are pretty straightforward and I need about two questions to be able to satisfy them, the Q&A session with a potential CRPG buyer usually is much longer.

_________________
*My current list of games to replay includes LoL 2, Wiz Nemesis, Cyberstorm, Catacomb Apocalypse and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Only one of them is a CRPG.

 

[Danicek]

This thread is quite an insteresting thing to read. I'm really wondering where this 'cost of making games' problem will lead the gaming industry. But overall I'm quite optimistic. I believe film industry went through same history and look at it now. You may find tons of bad commercial titles, a lot of good commercial titles and a lot of what we could call indies.

 

[GothicGothicness]

And no, an FPS doesn't need good graphics, sounds and a nice engine only to succeed.

You supply a game who had it and failed, however could you name me one FPS game who didn't have it and succeded? I doubt it. However I can supply many FPS games who had only that and succeeded. Well they do need multiplayer too... but I haven't seen a single player FPS in a very long time.

As far as I know there is two FPS series on the PC who has a story with decent NPC's that is Half-Life and the wounderful NOLF ( I love these games, but it is not exactly an FPS I guess ), yet I've played a lot of FPS's. Doom... it has a story? Far Cry... soap opera has a great story compared to that Prey? hmmm story? Quake.... nope. Heretic? not really.. I can go on, FPS's does not need NPC's nor a story to succeed. Maybe you want atmosphere for them to enjoy them.. that is all good. But the truth is all it needs is good multiplayer, see CS or quake 3 as good examples. Of course people discuss counterstrike tactics and quake 3 tactics and things like that! But I think you are a rare breed if you still discuss such an old classics as doom with your friends often... what exactly is there to discuss? If the rocket launcher better than the chaingun, can you play through the game without using any other weapon than the shootgun? who is the meanest enemy?

 

[Corwin]

GG, you and I think a lot alike; you should consider joining our online weekly NWN sessions, you'd like the people who play!!

 

[GothicGothicness]

GG, you and I think a lot alike

Maybe it is called being smart? I hope it has nothing to do with getting old!

hmm NWN sessions..... perhaps been a long long long time since I touched NWN. I will think about it.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

There had been last year an *very* interesting article on the blog of the "grumpy gamer" Ron Gilbert about that ! (Or was it the year before that ?)

 

[abbaon]

To sum up, if you are in the industry for the money these days you don't develop CRPG's at least not of the wizardry kind.

If you're not in the industry for the money then you're out of the industry. Only a third of games make money*. Publishers need investments that won't just pay for themselves, but will pick up the shortfall of their other projects. They need hits to survive, and real RPGs don't deliver enough of them.

* I don't know whether Executive VP Bing meant at EA, or in the industry as a whole. EA has, after all, retired the risk of game development by releasing the same game every year.

 

[txa1265]

Shooters are an interesting breed ... because the only 'low tech' commercial games I can think of are the 'World War II Combat' games from Groove Games , 'Iwo Jima' and 'Road to Berlin' ... I played Iwo Jima and it was truly awful!

The thing that is problematic with FPS is that the graphical quality is considered to be directly proportional to the product quality. Look at Jedi Academy - a pretty good game, but what do people complain about most? Not the immature story or characters, or the awkward mission / level structure, or the flawed RPG-lite attempt at skill building ala-the original Jedi Knight ...no, it is because the game used the same Quake III engine as Jedi Knight II! Serious people actually asserted that using the Source or Unreal engines would have made the game *better*!

I know that there is a 'reasonable lower limit' - I mean, how many people would seriously consider buying Avernum 4 based on the screens without knowing about the gameplay (or even *with* knowing the gameplay!). I don't think many would look at GeneForge 4 and say 'cool new graphics in this version' ... I know I am a rarity in that regard ...

But I was in one of the electronics stores the other day watching someone play a racing game on a PS2 and thinking ... what is the *real value* of spending $15 million on Ridge Racer 7 that is the same but prettier than the $5 million Ridge Racer 6? (swags)

 

[VPeric]

What we need is more RPGFTS'! The abovementioned NOLF is precisely that; also, the beyond awesome Deus Ex would be here. This should, in theory, get the best of both worlds: high sales due to FPS elements, RPG elemends due to, well... RPG elements.

---

But yeah, a big part of cost is the graphic, which is usually not so necessary; a lot money goes into marketing too, which RPGs shouldn't need so much (due to communities like this, I guess...).

 

[chamr]

To sum up, if you are in the industry for the money these days you don't develop CRPG's at least not of the wizardry kind.

A-ha! And this is where, ideally, a smart, risk-tolerant entrepreneur/publisher/developer smells an opportunity!

Obviously, the big budget publishers and developers are contributing to the slow death of the cRPG by continuing to take the safe route of better graphics, more of the same quests and larger worlds as their only targets for growing the genre. If the success of Oblivion is any indication, cRPG's will degenerate to the point of gaming's version of a theme park where the player is asked to do nothing more than enjoy the ride, rather than be challenged to best the game and feel as if they are truly playing a part in making the story with their avatar. The cRPG of the future will actually tout on the game box that the player can create any of 120 highly customized and beautiful, but ultimately irrelevant, avatars and just sit back and watch the story go by from the comfy armchair provided by the "go-here-and-do-it-exactly-this-way-the-monster-will-be-just-waiting-around-to-die-so-don't-worry-about-it-you-can't-possibly-fail-in-any-way" quest design.

As with any business, the typical way out of product stagnation and slumping sales is true innovation. It takes somebody with the balls, smarts and a more than a little good luck to buck the trend and do what everybody says can’t be done: innovate. Ironically, I’ll use Oblivion’s Radiant AI as an example. The way I understood it before the game came out, it was a real cRPG innovation that was going to rock the player’s world. In fact, Oblivion themselves spent a lot of PR space hyping it. And for good reason. It really was a great idea that could take the cRPG to places it hadn’t been before. Of course, as I understand it since I haven’t bothered to play Oblivion (ok, I can’t resist…. I already have Morrowind. Why would I pay $50 more for the privilege of playing almost exactly the same game with better graphics and dumbed-down gameplay? Anybody? Bueller?) it was a flop. But at least on paper, it’s the kind of innovation the cRPG genre is going to have to succeed at to remain a vibrant, evolving game type that sells well.

Ironically (again) I’ll use an FPS as a great example of the kind of thinking I believe could lead to great cRPG design: Hitman 2. When I played the first mission, I was blown away at how many great ways you could go about accomplishing the single objective, which was to get a key from this Don at his highly guarded villa and release the priest in the basement. Here’s a few ways it could be done:

- Hide your guns in a box of groceries that were being delivered at the time. Then, knock out the flower delivery guy that happened to be waltzing into the compound. Steal his clothes, and then walk right through the front door, surviving the frisk because you had no weapons on you. As soon as the coast was clear, sneak into the kitchen and get your guns from the box that had just been brought in by the grocery guy. Now, you’re good to go.
- Observe that the Don waltzed out onto his 2nd floor balcony from time to time to enjoy the view and take a few golf swings. Find a good place in the hills outside his villa and snipe him at just the right time so that he falls off his balcony and into some bushes below. By this time, you’ve observed that a guard likes to slip outside the walls using a side door to take a leak every now and then. Wait for him to do it again, sneak up behind him and strangle him, take his clothes and then carefully walk over to where the Don’s body is. Hide his body better and take the key.
- Sneak around the compound until you can find a way in and then on the roof. Sneak over the roof and down to the Don’s private office. Wait for the right time to cut his throat quietly and take the key.
- And, of course, the most fun way: lock and load your two .45’s and just walk through the front gates, guns-a-blazin’ and dare them to stop you.
- And so on…

Now that's what I call open-ended gameplay!

Of course, I understand that FPS’s have advantages in taking this design approach over cRPG’s (i.e. much fewer missions/quests to develop, set-piece maps that are very small, contained, and easy to script/control environments, no character development system or deep and long storylines to worry about, etc.). My point is, I wish someone would take this kind of design philosophy into cRPG quest design and adapt it accordingly. That would be innovation that a publisher could trumpet to the press and gamers. I’d take 20 of these kinds of quests over 100 of “the usual” any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Can you imagine the gameplay depth that would result when combined with a solid character development system, great NPC & world interactivity and significant evolution in monster AI? It begins to boggle the mind.

Here’s hoping someone takes it on and pulls it off. It would be a great day for cRPG gamers, that’s for sure….