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Cost of Game Development is 'Crazy' Says EA
GamesIndustry.biz has the word from Alan Tascan, general manager of EA's Montreal studio, who has gone on record saying that development costs are 'crazy' in this next-gen world. From the article: "When asked whether he'd agree that it's larger companies like EA which are driving bigger game budgets, Tascan replied, 'I think a lot of [other companies] are spending even more money. It's people who want that, it's not EA per se ... I said to some of the guys here, "The gamer is not buying lines of code; you have to promise him enough entertainment for him to put his hand in his pocket and buy the game." It's a lot of money, so you need to give him a show, and we're just here to deliver the show.'"
Good thing EA only has to develop one Madden game per console.
I kid, I kid...
You think it's pricey to make games? I have to pay $699 for the console to play them!
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
All this money spent on development and not one game I want to play!
There are always going to be two kinds of developers:
The developers who are creative and try to build new, interesting games every time in the interest of having fun and helping others have fun.
And the developers who are in an 'arms race' to make the most flashy eye candy possible in the name of capturing market share.
Gosh, wonder where EA fits in? I have a lot of respect for the way Shiny produced a decade of great games. As did Microprose. Blizzard is arguably doing the same thing now. Nintendo has spent a decade being a developer of quality.
EA, well, they're a good distributor. Sometimes........... erm. No. Never mind. Their games have gotten better implemented recently, but I've never played a groundbreaking EA game. So yeah, since they're just racing the competition to build the best game within the lines given to them, it's going to be expensive. And I have zero pity on them for high dev costs; that's the segment of the market they are going after...
My little site.
Now would be an ideal time for EA, Ubisoft, Activision etc to get together and agree a maximum texture resolution and polygon count.
I don't think many people would be unhappy if they provide xbox 1 level graphics, but in high resolution with a framerate that never drops and no loading times.
The cost of game development has skyrocketed over the last thirty years. In the last ten years or so (the period during which I have actually been paying attention), I'd say that it's arguable just how much benefit this has produced for the game industry or their customers.
Maybe they should be focusing on making the games fun to play, instead of entertaining to watch?
Canthros
Statements like these give me hope for the success of Nintendo. From what I've heard, it is far easier and cheaper to code for the Wii (and similarly the DS/GBA) than for the "true" next-gen systems. Perhaps while the large companies are making the blockbuster big-budget games, Nintendo will attract the more indy, affordable games. Then when people get more accustomed to the PS3 and 360, (perhaps) costs will come down enough to make it more reasonable.
Or maybe Xbox Live and the equivalent for the PS3 will just get an explosion of smaller games, and there will be just a small number of blockbusters coming out on the system proper.
What are we talking about? $10m, $50m, $100m, $150m?
According to Mark Rein Gears of War had a $10m pricetag.
And what would be even more interesting was a breakdown of the costs. For example, is it less expensive to use original music or licensed music.
The average blockbuster (meaning one that is intended to sell lots of tickets vs a niche market) movie budget is $100-$200 million. Game development cost are in the $10-$20 million dollar range. Game profits sometimes dwarf movie profits. Though I don't think game developers are going to be spending $200 million anytime soon (except for DNF) they will continue to make a profit regardless. The real interesting thing that is going to happen soon will be a break from the idea that every game has to be a blockbuster. More and more game studios are understanding a niche hit can be just as profitable as a blockbuster. Expect to see more small budget games even ones developed for the next gen consoles.
It's pretty much embedded in human nature to want bigger and better things. If that weren't true we would have just been content to live in tents for the rest of our lives. Furthermore, the more you give people the more they are going to want. So, it's no surprise that development costs have gone up as people are demanding more and more out of their video games. That's just the way it is.
What is EA doing? Paying each football player to come into their motion capture studios to perfectly imitate the way each runs? Taking hi res photos of their faces to perfectly texture them?
There's a cost for HD games, and it isn't cheap. However, I think EA is calling sour grapes because companies like Capcom, Team Ninja and Square-Enix are able to make games that are stunning, fun, and wildly profitable while EA doesn't make the grade in any of those.
The sad truth of Spore is that it will be a great game, but in so being it will allow EA to continue their overbloated and inefficient methods.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
"It's people who want that, it's not EA per say..."
Umm, it's "per se".
I realize this is how different flavours of languages propagate over the ages, but I'm all in favor of keeping English as unified as possible.
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
The phrase is "per se", translated from Latin it would mean "in itself". Alain Tascan looks like the bastard offspring of Edward Norton and Kevin Spacey, I'd be more interested in hearing about that.
I'm sure EA can cut down on development costs like they did for some years by releasing sequel after sequel, not counting spin-offs.
EA might just be whining because they have to start from somewhere near scratch with a new architecture like the CELL within the PS3 (which unlike the Wii is not just an update of a former system); something that more respectable developers do for any new game that tries to make a new idea become reality.
EA also has more fixed costs in the licensing department, I guess. It won't be so cheap incorporating all those sports celebrities, real team & player names, car brands and technical specs and what have you. But that's up to their own conceptual decision, crazy as it may be.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
seems like someone is just reading the feeds on http://www.gameboar.com/ and then posting them several days later!
I'll go watch a movie.
When I pay for gaming entertainment, I want a game, something fun. This is why I bought a Wii. Companys can focus on the fun factor and not have to blow me away with showy graphics.
If EA is worried about the cost of game development, then maybe they should start focusing on producing quality games. They are repeatedly getting slammed in reviews with drivel like NBA Live 2007. If they didn't push out another iteration of every franchise each year, development could focus on building a truly blockbuster title, rather than a few updates with each release.
Ubisoft has thrown their weight behind the Wii, and embraced the much cheaper development costs there. They aren't ignoring the PS3 and 360, but those Wii titles will help cushion their bottom line a bit. EA doesn't seem to have paid as much attention to the Wii when it comes to unique IP.
I thought these were the guys who make tweaks to the same games and release new ones every year with a new year number.* That's gotta be the least expensive way to make a new game (unless you go Burger King's route).
Maybe they're upset about new control schemes by Sony and especially Nintendo causing them to actually have to code something INNOVATIVE.
* - Yeah, if you can't tell, I'm not a fan of the sports genre... I haven't bought even one sports title, unless you count Tony Hawk.
Is there the equivalent of "clip-art" for game studios? If I'm buying a racing game, I don't need to know that the makers personally did the buildings or the trees. Buildings are buildings, trees are trees. In film, there's a lot of specialization that exists: for example, you can buy pre-rendered explosions to put in your movie. A better example might be companies that specialize in making CGI oceans and water. A lot of movies with CGI oceans rely on them to deliver that look.
Could game companies do something like this? Every game is going to have proprietary assets like the protagonist, specific types of giant robots, monsters, vampires, what have you. But does some of this info get shared even between sub-studios? How many times is AI code re-written? (That may be a bad example, as AI code may or may not be part of the engine). Can we just use the same Enzo Ferrari model in each racing game? Do we really need 7 different companies perfecting how the car looks?
I don't think this will lead to homogeny in games. If anything, it will free up designers to be more creative and think about the important things in the game (gameplay, control, fun) as opposed to how accurate Scenery Team 3's rendition of this waterfall is.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I think a lot of [other companies] are spending even more money.
Yeah, but the other companies pay their employees overtime.
IMHO, EA hasn't made an entertaining sports game since Mutant League Football. Dodging landmines and bribing the ref, that's how the game was meant to be played!
Not as pricey as having spent $699 on the console, and their being no games for it. So both of you can cry each other to sleep.
Generic comment about how games should be fun and developers "aren't getting it"
This is a bit of a catch 22. It's been a big push since the Atari/NES days to keep improving graphics, which comes at developing more sophisticated machines, which increases development time, which increases the cost of games. Also, as games continue to morph into an interactive story/movie, more time will need to be spent in much the same way it takes time to create film or write a book.
Of course, I'm putting my money on the Wii for one of these reasons. Given that the actual technological specs aren't as advanced as say the 360 or PS3, I'm hopping that this attracts more developers as development will be easier due to not having to deviate far from the 'norm' and couple that with the new potential to interact with games with the Wii Remote and nunchuk.
As games continue to expand into story telling, compared to the days of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, the amount of time needed to invest will continue to increase, along with the budget. This will continue to force game investors to 'play it safe' and only invest in sequels or licensed content (Disney Movies, etc). And as a gamer, I'll continue to feel like gaming is chocking on it's own success and be turned off by most content and invest less into it. Perhaps, this is why MMO's are becoming successful and games like Half-Life are moving to episodic content. You're not playing one game, beating it, and then playing the exact same thing 2 years later with better graphics. Instead, you're playing the same game, never loosing the progress you started 2 years ago, and the game just continues to build from where it started.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
You must never have played these games then:
Archon - 1983
M.U.L.E. - 1983
The Bard's Tale - 1985
Starflight - 1986
among others
Although EA later became a 'cookie cutter' publisher/distributor,
it started out as a very innovative company that helped many
good independent designers publish their software.
"If EA is worried about the cost of game development, then maybe they should start focusing on producing quality games. If they didn't push out another iteration of every franchise each year, development could focus on building a truly blockbuster title, rather than a few updates with each release."
Yeah! Like the open source community.
Well, no wonder it costs so much. EA has the complete wrong idea of what a game should be. I don't want a show, If I wanted that I could turn on my TV and choose from a gazillion shows. I play a game to have fun. Just make fun games instead of throwing millions of dollars at a franchise knowing enough gamers will buy it because it's the next iteration.
I'm not holding my breath though. The day EA tries to just make something fun rather than generating eyecandy demos I will be amazed.
I've dabbled in game development a little, but I could never take the plunge and do it full time. Something about being able to go home and see my family every night and being able to go to sleep without so much eye strain that I have a migraine.
:)
:)
But I do have a theory about the games industry...
Let's forget about all the hype of next generation blah blah blah. Look at the differences between game generations. Between SNES and PSX, between PSX and PS2/Xbox, etc. The graphical jump has been undeniably great. Now we're getting closer and closer to reall life. And it's taking longer and longer to make games more realistic. But here's the catch: in 5-10 years, that will probably go the other direction, making it easier ot make really good looking games. Think about the advances in 3D Modeling in the last 10 years. I worked with Max and Maya when they were both in infancy and I'm blown away at hte ease of some of the things that you can do now. How long is it goig to be before it just CAN'T look any better that what you have? I can't see any reason why within 5 years you won't be able to tell the difference between the real world and a game.
My theory is that in no more then 10 years, making something look like real life will be easy enough that it won't take a team of people with art degrees to do it. That's what the industry demands, and that's what's driving the technology. Soon you should be able to pick from a library of cars and buildings and people that can interact and get destroyed in a realistic fasion and will be pluggable into any environment. People will start whole businesses providing content like this and it will bring costs down for everyone for once LOL
Anyway, maybe it's the ramblings of a madman, but maybe there's a little hint of the future there.
I'm gonna go back to coding my own Final Fantasy VI clone now
-Jason
...to the leagues, team names, and players EVERY YEAR so that nobody else can use the player's actual name or the team's name in their games is maybe one of the reasons their games cost so much? Hmmmm? ;)
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I worked for several years on mods for Neverwinter Nights, getting my games on some magazine DVDs, winning awards, and so on. The graphics were not the best aspect, even when released, but it was fun to play and it made for an interesting hobby.
For the last couple years, I've been planning a campaign for the sequel. Neverwinter Nights 2 has far better graphics and tremendous flexibility when it comes to designing areas. Such advances have a cost, however. File sizes are much larger, area creation can take ten times as long, and creating custom models is much more complicated.
Don't get me wrong - I love the new features and style. Improved graphics can make for a better gaming experience and a greater emotional impact for players. As with all things, though, there are trade-offs. I suspect we'll see more divisions between the "fun, simple, and cheap" games like Bejeweled versus the big budget games like Gears of War. There will be audiences for both.
Imagine a smart hot blondie. What will you notice first? she is smart of he is blondie? Of course, you will notice first the hot factor. And that also work for Code and Games. Even If some engine is smart, you will notice first and next how Hot and Blondie is.
Theres even some very very smart blondies out here that are angry because not one notice how smart are, and people only notice how blondie is.
EA is right here. People do make bad choices, and dev's follow.
-Woof woof woof!
- Unrealistic schedules: A marketing dweeb decides when a game should be released without taking into consideration the developer's experience level, console manufacturing requirements, and whether enough QA will be available to adequately test the title. As a lead QA tester, I routinely add two months to the schedule and my time estimates are usually 90% correct.
- Bonus Structure: The producer's bonus is tied to the unrealistic schedule and a lot of decisions are made to compromises the game so the producer can get his bonus. As a lead QA tester, I was routinely accused of denying a producer his "hard earned" bonus.
- Unrestrained QA Overtime: If a game is not properly scheduled and managed, a tremendous amount of QA overtime will go into trying to save the game and, almost always, is shipped regardless of the final quality. As a lead QA tester, I worked 28 days straight on my last project because the schedule was cut by one-third and I was not notified until half-way through the project.
I'm not holding my breath that the video game industry will one day figure out that there's a saner method for developing a video game that doesn't blow the schedule and the budget like a bad lunch at Taco Bell.I don't know if anyone knows the exact figures (as such I can't give them away) but EA pays multi million dollars contracts for licensing. The Godfather license they KNEW they were never going to make back (it's so large you wouldn't believe it) yet they bought it any way. They are the Sony/microsoft of game development, so caught up in the war and the fighting that they just dig themselves into holes they can't get out of.
The Madden franchise will save them of course, and be well worth all the money they drop on it, but the superman franchise, the Godfather franchise, and the rest are just screwing themselves over and over. EA has one goal, to license good franchises and make games out of them, and in that respect they do excellent work... Notice I don't say they make good games, or support the franchise, because really, they don't.
EA does spend a lot of money on game development, but that doesn't mean they are doing it right, or like everyone. The correct (at least according to companies I've talked to) development cycle is one enormous budget game, which allows you to correctly tailor an engine to your genre, and then a couple other games that uses that engine. You don't reuse an engine 50 times, but you don't throw away all the work that you do. EA knows this, but developing a new game like Superman or Godfather will always be expensive because they don't enter that with an engine in place, if you're going to have to rewrite your engine for every game you do, you're not being smart about it.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes rifling through their pockets looking for loose grammar.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
What i find interesting is that a lot of games attempt to take place in real environments, take a racing game, such as the MSR/PGR series. there must be a lot of money spent on, for example, sending a bunch of people to New york to accuratley map the area around central park and take a gerzillion GPS readings and photos in the process before physical in-game modelling exists. throw in Nurburgring, germany. Edinburgh, scotland. Sydney, australia and you can see where the money is going.
Now, not every game can use the PGR style environ in the same way, take a skating game for example, whilst others may need more free roaming aspects, such as the Driver series. But i can imagine that there's money to be made licensing (possibly exclusively, forcing you to start over from scratch with each new licensee) slices of real-world-modelled ctyscapes/sports-venues at a MAX_POLYCOUNT of the client's choosing.
Unlike modelling a ferrari enzo i doubt you'd need to pass on these fees to another body, unless places start cottoning on, wasnt the whole reason a bunch of 80s films were filmed in montreal instead of NYC because it looked kinda the same but cost $$$ less?
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
They have things like that- and for about every thing imaginable. Engines. Models. Textures. Music.
The biggest problem with all of this stuff is that it tends to make things cookie-cutter unless you're grabbing
things like trees, mood music, or sound effects from them. It shortens the cycle at least some- but, depending
on the game, it makes it seem cheap if you get carried away with the use of off the shelf content. But, they
COULD be using the stuff a little more, I think, without causing problems with everything. But the biggest
expense isn't in the production of trees, buildings, etc. It's in being enamored with this or that new fad
in coding or insisting upon this or that when it's obvious that what you're flogging isn't going to work.
Each and every one of these studios seems to be interested in "lessening" the amount of work they do- but in
the end, most of the places end up shooting themselves in the foot badly on that. They end up putting more
effort into the game because of those "labor saving" techniques.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This article has absolutely nothing to do with the Wii. Madden for the wii is still madden and people are obsessed over it graphically just as much as the other consoles and it wasn't like it was cheaper to produce the wii version than the other versions.
The simple truth of the matter is developers need to make games. That is all. Some people like wii games, some people don't. The wii is a new product in nintendos linup and i'm sure it will do good but it isn't the be all end all that people preach around here.
I like my graphics, i don't mind some cutscenes as games are sometimes stories that need some telling as well. You can preach the wii all you want, but the wii is a console, not a game.
The real problem with the media market in general (not just games) is public companies having to increase there bottom line as if we are just a product consumer. Most gamers don't play games because we need to, but because we want to and if EA doesn't make games we want to play it won't matter which console they prefer to support, how much money they dump into or whos name they get on it.. It will still suck.
EA is like the motor giants of detroit, they had some good linups but thought Americans would buy crap just because of name alone. Forget quality, forget character, forget slick design, feedback and personality. Its about profit. It costs money to make money and if you don't like that, then leave. Maybe EA needs some new management, someone who understands what a gamer feels when he/she is in the passion of the moment.
I like the small shops because they do one thing and do it well. Epic turns out one hit after another because they stick to what they're good at and they sell the technology to others so they can build what they're good at as well.
The problem with EA is they're a company who believes that buying up markets creates demand and that is where they will fail. You don't own me EA and thus i don't own anything from you.
Latin it might have come from, but it's been absorbed into the English language...
:-)
We've got bits of French, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and a horde of other languages intermixed in there. To say it's not English when it's in common usage instead of just used in specific circles is being a pedant about it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I dunno, if cost of creating a game is 'Crazy', is that why there are so many bugs? I mean, it's not like EA don't currently make billions of dollars selling games, but the games all feel half-complete, or are full of critical bugs. Do they push out games early to drop some of the cost? Or do they just not bother hiring QA guys to, again, reduce the cost? Either way, they can get away with it because people continue to buy.
It's one thing to say 'We have (to pay for) NHL licensing' it's another to use it to ship out a piece of crap and 'fix it later'.
It has Gandalf!
And that guy from Pirates of the Carribbean! What was his name? Oh yeah, Legolas!
Geometry Wars Evolved is still the best game on the 360. Tetris was always the best game on the GB ... Neither appear to have had or needed big budgets, big budgets are just needed to justify all the over paid management that need to focus on the stupid little things and tell each other it was awesome (and already be planning the sequel before the original is released).
Introversion just released it's third hit in a row (Defcon) and their games are better than most of the high-budget ones I've tried.
aoeu
Just check out how many Medal of Honor servers and players are online.
Pacific Assault was crap and wouldnt run on my PC even though it was above min spec. The game time was very different from the other "Medal of Honor" as a result I will not buy anymore EA games, games.
You wouldn't and even couldn't justify a $699 edition of Monopoly. All they provide is the board, you provide the game.
Anyone who knows the name, is guilty just the same!
EA is a huge corporation that makes a ton of making making/publishing/distributing games. As per any large organization, the little man is going to get the shaft. They employ a great deal of people and generally speaking, you know, or should know, what you are getting yourself into with an entry level job there. If you do not like, go look elsewhere. EA surely wronged and still does wrong its employees, but when hardcore gamers get a job at EA in hopes of breaking into the gaming industry they are disappointed with what they see. Justified or not, EA is certainly not the only large corporation who undervalues and mistreats there low level employees. What EA does have going for it is that is a recognizable name that will attract 10 people for a position that vacates because the previous person was pissed at their employer, EA.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Where is the money going that they spend on development?
Check out http://finance.google.com/finance?q=ERTS and look at EA's financials. This is the real scandal here. They brought in about $3 Billion, yes, Billion with a B, dollars in 2006. $3,000,000,000. That is a cool pile of cash. And then they spent just under half of that to make their product. Thats a lot of dough!
While MSFT's XNA initiative is still in early stages they're starting to deliver stuff that could help address the high cost of video game development. Right now the platforms and tools for game development are complex and immature. The goal of XNA is to provide a framework and toolset that will greatly speed development and...ultimately...provide a common framework for video games across both XBOX and Playstation. They have a tool available now for hobbyhists but I think they're eventually planning on releasing a toolset for professional developers. Some details are at http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx .
Yeah, but the other companies make their employees work overtime.
Have you asked an EA employee what their hours have been like since the whole wife-sues-for-husband's-unpaid-overtime (or whatever the exact version was) thing from a year or two back? To help you out I'll give you a quote from an EA staffer that I know: "It's a ghost town after 6."
This whole "EA needs to pay their employees overtime" joke needs to be retired even more than hitting weak points for massive damage does.
PS - that same EA staffer isn't even allowed to do overtime without it being approved and paid on the clock. If it happens, it's rare, approved, and paid.
EA culture and policy has changed. Get a new joke.
I used to work right across the street from EA Tiberon here in Florida and I know a couple of "former" EA developers. How can they complain when they pay their developers SHIT!! I had a recruiter call me up and offer me an interview there and I laughed at the salary!! It was like 50k less than what I make as a consultant! Even for FT standards it was a joke. C'mon EA! What costs do you have to deal with?
I thought the crazy costs for EA was changing their sports title year from $CURRENTYEAR to + $CURRENTYEAR+1, adding a few players to the database, changing the box graphic, and sending 'er out.
//sarcasm.
That must be an expensive graphic design company they have for their box covers. You know, going into the text edit tool changing a digit and all that.
Of course they think it's expensive to produce their games... They actually have to pay their developers now.
Galactic Civilization 2 does not compete with the sorts of games EA puts out. The graphics are relatively simplistic and sparse. And the game is extremely technical. Now if you can handle GC2 then it is a fantastically fun game, but it's not a mainstream game by any means.
other high quality and innovated indy games:
Uplink
Darwinia
DEFCON
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
man the moderation cannons!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Is it the cost of whips to flog the employees with rising or is it the cost of the slave drivers to keep them in their place that's rising?
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
<Burns-mode>Excellent...</Burns-mode>
I'd say game _prices_ are crazy.
This sig is intentionally left blank
The gentleman from EA is right to blame consumers for the cost problem. We like to buy expensive-looking games even if they turn out to be not all that fun. Game design has taken a back seat to shelf appeal, and we've done it to ourselves. Meanwhile, high profile games are becoming less and less fun to play. How many FPS games do we really need? You might as well slap a "100% recycled content" sticker on every game sold in the US.
How much money does it actually cost to develop a fun game? Contrast that with costs of licensing movie characters or (worse) putting your entire production staff on the task of reworking animations for yet another Madden sequel. I'd argue that the real cost here is risk. Rather than assemble a number of small teams to make a bizarre game that could turn into a franchise, EA opts (more and more often) to play it safe by spending scads of cash on a sure thing.
Then again, maybe he's pining for the old days when he could order up a cash cow sequel much cheaper.
Either way, the next time you throw down your controler in dusgust at that $50 worth of deja vu you just purchased, we have only ourselves to blame.
Another example is C&C generals. Command and Conquer was one of the oldest and best RTS games out there. Red Alert was crazy intelligent and well rounded. Then you got generals. That buggy piece of shit, with the crappiest (still years after release) netcode and a myrad of design changes and bugs. They totally broke the whole c&c franchise by developing a whole new story for the universe. That game should not even be called c&c. Here is an excerpt from the wikipedia entry:
I mean how fucking apathetic do you have to be to not even bother fixing MAJOR exploits in the game?
EA is simply the worst about not fixing bugs. It seems as if they have a memory of 1 year. If a game is passed one year release, its time to either a) tack on an expansion b) make a sequel or c) bargain bin it and stop all development.
Like I am having trouble believing that you are not some sort of shill for EA. They ruined so many good games. UO is another one, where they decided just realeasing new art every year or so and charging an extra $59.99 for it was a valid way to "improve" the game. Simcity too. The graphics on simcity 4000 are SO BUGGY, that I had to hunt around and try multiple point realeases of nvidia video drivers before I wouldnt get crazy random graphics corruption happening in that game. They had some good ideas with the whole multiple cities on a continent theme, but If I cant see it because of graphics bugs then wtf good is it?? This is also on multiple machines with both ATI and NVIDIA cards. You can get it running if you find the exact magic combination of drivers and details/resolutions but come on! EA is a huge company! Maybe thats why they make such shit now, too much beurocracy, not enough risk taking.
I just remembered one last thing I absolutely hate about ea's business practices. Every time I logged into BF2, I would get an ad for some other stupid EA game or bf2 pay for mod. Showing ads to me in a game that I have PURCHASED is crossing the line.
Now thats 4 games, and I didnt actually play the games you mentioned. Seems like alot of people (usually on consoles so what do they know?) forgive them for various UI bugs that I would consider unacceptable in a gold game. I don't play sports games but I have heard them roundly condemed by everyone who does. Fuck EA. They took their slogan too literally and "challenged" good gameplay, exsisting franchises and good quality code. From what I have read about the practices at that company re developers, I am not surprised in the slightest that they produce the most buggy unplayable games I have ever tried to play.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Well, I hear that just remembering how to build their source base takes weeks... ;)
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Now, if they would just actually deliver anything worthwhile...
It's kinda funny when he mentions the development budget, as EA spends more on marketing and franchise royalties than they spend on actual game development, testing and art.
(8-DCS)
what costs more? hiring all the NFL superstars to do MOCAP for the next EA sports 2007 title?
or investing in some great animators and hiring talented MOCAP actors for innovative games?
EA, we stopped buying your franchises a long time ago. You are wasting your money on them.
If you produce just 5 great innovative and fresh new titles a year and skip all the franchise crap, you'll see your profits increase.
game sequels should be spaced out so far as to include dramatic technical and visual enhancements.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I recently developed a web-based version of the board game Risk. Let's tally up the final costs:
Programming zero
Project management zero
Graphic artist zero
Advertising zero
Publishing 500.00 (this is how much is cost to rent the web server)
Total 500.00
You can play it here: www.denizengames.com
And yes the above does mean that my time for this project was free.
Maybe the gaming companies will relize what the movie companies haven't. As the budget keeps getting higher and higher, its time to make sure you release a quailty product. Something people will not only enjoy once, but enjoy time after time for long periods.
With higher budgets, I know they are gonna try to charge more. But, they damn better make sure its worth it. I own a PS3 (not off eBay) and I find it quite worth it. The games at $60 are well worth it. But, if they try to charge more it might not be worth it. Why ? Well, $60+ for only a few hours of entertainment isn't worth it. Not to mention the $600 for the console. Some games these days are playable for like 4 hours, then you beat them. Games are also far too easy now. Hell, I played a few games recently that on hard mode I could play in my sleep. Hard should be that, HARD.
Gaming companies (EA is the worst at it) enjoy craming recycled crap down peoples throats all year around. Oh lookie! The newest Maden with slightly better graphics and same game play!
until (succeed) try { again(); }
When asked whether he'd agree that it's larger companies like EA which are driving bigger game budgets, Tascan replied, "I think a lot of [other companies] are spending even more money."
EA's Godfather cost well over $20 million for a primarily current-gen title, and he wants to blame the other companies?
Alain Tascan also claimed Gears of War had zero innovation, completely ignoring the active reload, and the best implementation of a cover system in games to date. How did he make such a mistake? According to him, he never played Gears of War, so that might have something to do with it.
Why would Tascan make such ridiculous comments? Why would Ken Kutaragi make them? It's great gaming press, and it gets people to focus on your company and your games. EA needs someone to spout off occasionally (Sony's doing okay). But here's a question for Tascan: how well did that work out for Kutaragi?
Royalties to Parker Brothers $50,000
Lawyer to defend against PB IP suit $50,000
Damages on top of royalties ??????
Just joking.
This is part of the cycle you see all the time in movie production. Budgets get bigger and bigger, quality generally decreases, and everyone cries. Then some college student makes the next "Blair Witch" for basically nothing, and everyone is talking about "independents" and "experiments." Big studios will buy the successful small studios and promise to let them stay the same, or the big studio will create an "independent" division. A few years later, that division will be subsumed by the corporate mono-culture, and the whole cycle will start again. We have already seen this with games like "Alien Homonid".
Before you go off, let me be clear. Not all low-budget games and movies are cool, and there is definitely a place for big budgets. For every "Clerks" there is "The Matrix", and for every "Custer's Last Stand" there is a "Disney Sports: Basketball".
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
Stop buying EA games. EA games are bad for gaming. They are abusing microtransactions on the 360 big time. They need to be hit where it hurts. Stop buying EA games.
I see this as a prelude to EA stating they're going to raise prices on their games to cover the "crazy" cost of development.
No, that's what companies without a long-running track record of incompetence and evil need to promise me. EA needs to promise me not only this, but additionally convince me that they're not going to:
- Tout the game's immersion and realism, yet conveniently omit central aspects of said illusion just to achieve a "more accessible" ESRB rating in the hopes of increasing sales. (a la the "award-winning", "critically-acclaimed" MoH series' blood-free WWII combat.)
- Release the otherwise-pretty-cool game with at least one fatal exploitability that essentially kills all hope for reasonably fair multiplayer (a la Command & Conquer Generals mp disconnect exploit)
- Ignore patching of said game (now that you have all our money!) for "more imporatant" taking-over-the-world oriented-tasks (like suspending patch development to prepare a bunch of hype for E3 (ironically, for another game that is most likely going to have the same lifecycle of weaknesses...))
- Release an expansion pack for said game that introduces yet more unfairly exploitable bugs (a la Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour expansion pack multiple tech centers "feature")
- Abandon patching of said expansion pack even with said critical exploitable bug (and plenty not-so-critical but equally annoying ones) still alive. (EA Suit: "We patch expansion packs? This must end!")
- Include "nifty" features that ultimately wind up meaningless because they ignore the fine details of sensible implementation. (a la BF2's logic-challenged stat tracking system, which singlehandedly doused my desire to purchase the game, even after I was hooked on the demo for a couple weeks.)
- So-obviously respond to industry, media, and management-induced pressures yielding mediocrity in design, just so the suits, clueless industry media, and fanboys won't say stuff like "These Other Games are X. Why isn't This Game X?" (a la LOTR BFME II. I mean... if you're just going to worship everyone else's 5-year-old standards, then I guess I don't really need to buy it...)
- Release the game with limited content so it can be held back for more (theoretically) profit-generating expansion packs. (a la Sims I and to a greater extent II)
- Spend a bunch of money on trivialities that don't actually improve the gameplay ("a-list" talent for voiceovers and cinematics, big-brand content licensing, etc.) meanwhile pitching that "challenge everything" bs.
- Continue treating their technical staff* so poorly that I continue to hear about it often, even in non-gaming, non-industry contexts, while simultaneously managing to climb to the top of the industry on said staff's dried-up carcasses. (*who, for the record, do show real -- if restrained -- talent)
- (and last, but definitely not least, as it all-at-once symbolizes EA's dismissal of the "customer first" tenet): Continue making the stupid EA Games brand splash screen un-skippable, as though loyal customers respond positively to having their time wasted, as though some sort of long-ago-deserved reverence is still in order, or as though any yet-to-be-EA-enfranchised spectator might actually get to view it over my shoulder without also being subject to a brief-but-obligatory "Why EA is evil" speech.
To summarize: 20 years ago, EA set a (if not "The") standard of excellence for computer games. Their brand alone signaled "BUY THIS GAME!" Sadly, nowadays, their brand signals "AVOID IF POSSIBLE!"Surely that is a most significant "cost", and one that must be eliminated ASAP. But, again, this is more advice than I usually give away for free. My consultancy is available starting 2Q of 2007, with or without snarkiness.
Instead of spending millions on hi-res video and Hollywood-like productions, hire a good games hacker and motivate them to write the next Tetris or Chess game. Good games are simple, without rich graphics (so that your imagination can work), but with lots of gameplay. You may spend $1000 in developing the next Tetris and earn millions as people start downloading it on their smartphones to play something during rush hour traffic.
I bought some of their products when they were an OS/2 shop, and let me tell you I sure didn't get my money's worth. They once made this games called "Avarice" which was kind of a Myth knock-off. Problem was, it was buggy as hell, and although I spent $80 on the game, they NEVER fixed the problems. They just dumped me as a customer when they realized they could make more money selling Windows-only products. Because of that, I'll never buy another Stardock product.
I don't think Introversion has had that problem, and DEFCON is more fun than a lot of EA games out there.
They buy the whole of the NFL, NHL, or whatever else they've bought out the licenses to... Then they complain about how much it costs to make a game. According to the article, it's big teams that drive the cost up. I have a hard time believing that engineering costs even hold a candle to what it takes to keep competitors from putting your John Elways and Wayne Gretzkys into a game. That the quotes in the article would come from an EA GM sounds ludicrous to me. I don't even play EA games anymore unless it is unavoidable. If they keep buying the World, it soon will be.
...and as such am fairly desperate for that first job. However, because of their reputation as a sweatship, EA is not somebody I'd want to work for.
I can't see why any hotshot developer would work for them, either.
Other outfits may be sweatshops, too, but EA is a known sweatshop.
Your time is never free, it just means you had no one to charge for it.
If you really think it was free, just try to get more of it.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
EA pays overtime to all non-salaried employees. Recently, this includes entry level software engineers, though higher levels of SE are still salaried.
I see games like The Sims, Grand Theft Auto, that sports thing on the Wii, Super Smash Brothers, Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, DDR, all of those Dragon Ball games(that sell tons of copies for some reason). But there are still so many games where it seems that a huge amount of effort has been put into the video engine. Do many people really buy games because they have bump mapping or HDR or whatever? Does it make such a huge difference to the large casual audience who buy one or two games a year or buy based off franchise names? It seems like a lot of effort is put into the video engines. Sometimes it still doesn't look good because there apparently weren't any actual artists on the team(all of the strangely shiny and bumpmapped objects in Perfect Dark 0, Everquest 2 in general..). And then, high power engines require more work to avoid making a game that truly looks *bad*(not just from a technological standpoint). Nobody will notice the lack of a state-of-the-art fractal tree generator, or low resolution textures, in Paper Mario. It makes even less sense to me on the PC. Games like FEAR and Oblivion(maybe Oblivion can be excused because it was built for the Xbox 360). Do the people who make these games realize that even among PC gamers, most will not be able to run them without upgrading their computer? And if most people do try to run them, they'll look like crap and might even crash, which isn't going to make the game look very good for whoever bought it and doesn't know why it won't work right. Its like selling console games that require $200 peripherals to run correctly(a few of these have been made, I'm sure). I guess they could be assuming that in another 2-3 years, the average PC owner will be able to run the games, but by then unless it was really successful(taking us back to the original problem) the game will be off the shelves and in the bargain bins. Maybe someone who knows more about the game industry can explain.
But you no longer have the time that you spent working on the game. So it might not have cost you in monetary terms per se, but you can never have that time back.
Had you not worked on the game, what would you have done with:
1. your time?
2. your equipment?
3. the building where you worked?
4. the electricity required to power the equipment/building while you worked?
If you did this project in your home, then maybe you can throw out points 3 and 4. But you and your equipment could have been doing something else had you not worked on this game.
In short, your time can be free but it can never be Free.
But there are still so many games where it seems that a huge amount of effort has been put into the video engine. Do many people really buy games because they have bump mapping or HDR or whatever? Does it make such a huge difference to the large casual audience who buy one or two games a year or buy based off franchise names?
It seems like a lot of effort is put into the video engines. Sometimes it still doesn't look good because there apparently weren't any actual artists on the team(all of the strangely shiny and bumpmapped objects in Perfect Dark 0, Everquest 2 in general..). And then, high power engines require more work to avoid making a game that truly looks *bad*(not just from a technological standpoint). Nobody will notice the lack of a state-of-the-art fractal tree generator, or low resolution textures, in Paper Mario.
It makes even less sense to me on the PC. Games like FEAR and Oblivion(maybe Oblivion can be excused because it was built for the Xbox 360). Do the people who make these games realize that even among PC gamers, most will not be able to run them without upgrading their computer? And if most people do try to run them, they'll look like crap and might even crash, which isn't going to make the game look very good for whoever bought it and doesn't know why it won't work right. Its like selling console games that require $200 peripherals to run correctly(a few of these have been made, I'm sure).
I guess they could be assuming that in another 2-3 years, the average PC owner will be able to run the games, but by then unless it was really successful(taking us back to the original problem) the game will be off the shelves and in the bargain bins.
Maybe someone who knows more about the game industry can explain.
[sorry, I forgot that the bold tag wasn't the line break tag]
PC have demanded the graphics, processor, content performance of a 360 or a PS3 for years now AND the games sell for less for retail AND the games are pirated more. What exactly makes consoles with built-in copy protections and higher price points so crazy expensive?
"For the last couple years, I've been planning a campaign for the sequel. Neverwinter Nights 2 has far better graphics and tremendous flexibility when it comes to designing areas. Such advances have a cost, however. File sizes are much larger, area creation can take ten times as long, and creating custom models is much more complicated. "
I'd like to see the editing tools made scriptable. The engines usually are, but not the modding tools.
(doh, reposted due to URL mangling)
I adblock all animated gifs.
Blessed be the prime numbered slashdotters
but I had a bit of a revelation today.
I've always loved games. I used to be a poor child, then a poor student, then I was starting out in the world - and now finally I can afford pretty much whatever I want.
Gears of War. Looks great. Great reviews. It's £50.
I think we've passed my breaking point - I'm simply not going to pay that much for any game - I could, but that's £50 for a 'game' I'll probably just never finish
I don't care how much it cost to develop. I don't care how much gameplay I'll get out of it (actually I prefer shorter games as I don't have the time to play anything longer and my flat is littered with abandoned games and consoles as it is).
I don't even think it's so much the £50 - it's the entire industry desire to make everything bigger, longer and more expensive. I mean we all like pretty stuff, but pretty doesn't have to be expensive. I enjoyed spending an hour or so playing the first Sam and Max episode. I think Rez and Flow are wonderful. You don't need to hammer every last cycle out of the CPU and have offices full of artists to make a great looking game.
I think to summarize the entire industry has completely lost their way. Very few projects aim to offer what people want - more what the industry thinks they want (which is the last thing, but prettier with yet more bells and whistles).
DS should have been a wakeup call, but I'm not entirely sure everybody got it (Nintendo included). People want good, simple, fun games. DS isn't great because of the touch screen or the microphone, or the two screens (why why small ones is better than one large one is beyond me, apart from preventing mindless eye-candy) - it's THE GAMES. The Wii has come along as the saviour of the hardcore gamer, but that's just crap. Technically it's a Gamecube+ with a motion sensor - absolutely no reason why the motion sensor couldn't just have been a fun peripheral like an EyeToy, GH guitar etc. The Wii is purely a marketing tool to knock out a console with a high profit on it from the start. Doesn't mean there won't be any good games, but it's mere existence means nothing.
I'll trundle off to bed now, but I'm not happy.
It goes on things like:
bounding boxes (the way the characters hit each other and what parts actually collide) - in the first EA NFL game, the players were one big bounding box - 6 sides, collisions even if you were hitting thin air, whereas now they are FAR more complicated
AI - This is a massive money pit at the moment, especially in sports games, where each player MUST interact with their team in a way that THE REAL PLAYER would (otherwise there are complaints - and no, I'm not joking), never mind the replayability of these games by the teams using different strategies
Physics - although you may not think it, you put a LOT of importance on physics, such as if a car starts sinking into the ground, or how a ball bounces on the ground. That can cost MILLIONS to develop.
other games - for every 3 games that are produced, only one comes out to retail, even if they were part of a series (such as dungeon keeper 3)
Market Research - a lot of money goes into making sure the game is what the market want, and although we sigh at ANOTHER NHL game, it sells BIG
cross continent development - although this technically should be in the market research area, I think it deserves an area on its own. This is the development of a game to suit different cultures, where there are many different stereotypes and links for different objects (i.e. certain flowers mean death in some cultures), and as once happened to Ford in Greece, if you call a car a turd, its not going to sell very well
Grass roots Development - helping people like me get INTO the industry and learn about the software, such as sponsorships through Uni and giving us access to software (which can cost thousands)
Marketing - this can account for a lot of money (in some cases around a third of a games total cost)
Initial testing - this stops REALLY stupid bugs existing in games (unlike in certain OS')
Patching - although this comes a looooong way after the game comes out, there needs to be money for the later patching and development of a game (World Of Warcraft costs $3mill each YEAR to develop further- and that's just the main game without the add on packs!)
so, if you think the games developments company's only think about the graphics, think again!
Thanks, Badspyro
Staring at a white background [on a computer screen] while you read is like staring at a light bulb — Maddox
Programming zero Project management zero Graphic artist zero Advertising zero Publishing 500.00 (this is how much is cost to rent the web server)
Stealing a well established decades old game design?
Priceless.
These guys need to stop crying. No one is twisting their arm and making them create flashy new games. There are plenty of platforms out there that don't cost a ton of money to develop for. I think that they get pissed when new consoles come out because they actually have to put some money into improving madden.
EA used to Rule-But now-They only care about one thing and thats wheres the money And The Hip Hop Generation silly games?..Zzzzz Also This subject is in no manner of trashing the sports games or people who like that kinda of music--->.But in opinion its kinda getting disappointing!..No Sequels to the games that I used to like! More instince Freedom Fighters 2?,SSX-4?..A War Military game perhaps?..Or bring back there oldschool games from the dead! lol...Does anyone remember Immortal? 1991.1992-93--Mutant League Brutal Sports Hockey and Football..RoadRash- Oh yeah those games were actually fun to play back in the day..LMAO!..Now there mostly concentrating on Who has to best graphics?..What I'd like to ask Eletronic Arts is now who has the Best Replay Value and Play Control!..lol-.
Did you pay $500 for that comment?
I'm going to go on a limb and play devil's advocate here. No, that has nothing to do with Devil May Cry, you may leave now.
Let's say you're a game company. Which word do you think is most important here: "game", or "company"? If you said "game", you should return to Utopia, the Real World will only hurt you more.
The primary goal of such entities such as EA is to make cash. Their secondary goal, by which they achieve their primary goal, is to make games. Think about that.
To make cash through games, their games have to sell well. They have to be popular, in the most primitive sense of the word.
How do you make popular? You either have a well-known brand that will instantly ring a bell in Joe Sixpack's cranium ("Madden" *bing!* You do realize that the Madden series sells really well, right?). That's easily marketable, and MBA-types know this well because it works. Otherwise, you can focus on raw, untested fun. Marketing of fun? I'll come back to that.
Guess which one goes best on a billboard or a TV commercial? If you said "fun", didn't I just tell you to return to Utopia?
People won't believe "fun" on a billboard, but they could believe "fun" from their friends. Marketing of "fun" is by word and mouth, and that one's really unreliable.
By the way, do you know this really fun game called BreakQuest?
Sadly, this rhetoric is true only because there is no straight link between the vague concept of "quality" and sales. There is, however, a link between "marketing" and sales. I celebrate companies such as Blizzard that concentrate on quality (yes.), but I have no illusions regarding the games industry's economics.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Companies like EA just amaze me with comments like this. What does EA expect? It goes around buying out companies to get the biggest share in the games market and wonders why costs are so high! This is what you get when you go down the corporate greed route.
This is the reason why I like the smaller companies like Ubisoft they have the corporate balls to take a risk and develop at a quality level with a descent time scale.
There was also another comment here regarding "marketing dweebs" which shows yet another example of fat cat companies squeezing the gaming market for quick cash at the expense of the comsumer market.
What's next? Outsourcing to India?? And please don't say that'd never happen especially with these companies that want to make a quick buck, with low cost, with their deluded visions of "at a better quality of service", I should know, I work for one of these types of company!
Wow, post long enough in /. and you will occasionally learn something new. (Honestly so!)
I, honestly, never knew whom put the concept to words- I just see it and hear it from time to time. And, yes, I think it fits- and I'd posted my rendition for the humor value.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
EA needs to take 1/3rd of their production budget and hire a team of people that are good
:)
at creating GAMEplay that is captivating and challenging.
TOOOOOO Much is being spent on eye-candy... "Production costs are outrageous!" Derr!
Get a clue guys....
The Wii represents the greatest leap towards engaging GAMEplay... it's wildly popular
and the graphics SUCK for the most part
Step it up boys