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In-Game Ads Necessary?
GameDailyBiz is reporting on the increasing frequency with which real-world ads are being included in online game worlds and single-player titles. They discuss the possibility that, with the increasing costs of developing hit games, such measures may be a requirement. There also some callous examination of developer motives. From the article: "Right now, the fact that publishers are putting so much emphasis on multiplayer online play and replay ability is in some ways actually hurting their bottom line. While it's true that an excellent online portion of a title will move some additional copies, who knows how many potential future sales are lost. Whether gamers spent 100 hours with Halo 2 thanks to Xbox Live or 15 hours with Ninja Gaiden, both publishers sold their products for the same $50 MSRP.
I see your e-mail address. What do you do there? Pay the bills by chance? Working in the industry doesn't magically give you more insight that every other person. There are plenty of us out here who have both the contacts and the ability, but choose a different career. Game development just plain doesn't pay that well.
Lots of companies spend too much money to do what other companies manage for a lot less. That's not unique to the game business.
I'm not talking about games from before 3D became the norm. I'm talking about games from the last 8-10 years. Hell, even from 4 years ago. The costs just haven't changed that much for the actual work, but the publishers weren't complaining about this stuff then (It is the publishers that are complaining, not the developers. Unless you've got a proven track record, and you're not writing a game on spec, you're probably getting a fixed fee for your development work anyway...). It's all in the same order of magnitude. Sure, you *can* spend a lot more, but you certainly don't have to. Spending lots of money certainly doesn't guarantee success, nor does having a reasonable budget guarantee failure.
It used to cost very little to film movies, too, and now blockbuster movies have budgets in the tens or hundreds of millions.
That's exactly my point. There's a big difference between tens and hundreds. Some movies cost a little, and some cost a lot. The cost of making the movie is usually not an indication of the quality, and the production costs certainly aren't the majority of the budget. The same goes for games. It's not the development that takes up the biggest pile of the cash these days.