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Cost of Game Development is 'Crazy' Says EA

Posted by Zonk on from the they-would-know dept.

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.'"

3 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Being a Spelling Nazi by Skevin · · Score: 4, Informative

    "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
  2. Cost factor is the same old same old... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Informative
    After working in the video game industry for six years at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company), developing games are more expensive because the same mistakes are made every time.
    • 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.
  3. Re:Cry me a river...all the way to the bank! by ubuwalker31 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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!