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Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million
An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop:
"The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."
Two words: Bug testing
I wouldn't be surprised if half the budget on MW2 was marketing, if not more.
You are also 10 years older.
It is very much like the idea that modern music sucks (the best music is always the stuff that played when we were in college), or the quote about sci-fi:
The golden age of science fiction is twelve.
Modern game development focuses more on expensive, movie-like graphics than on clever, original, innovative gameplay. In fact, with budgets like this, innovation is dangerous. Better stick to what's been proven to sell. Just like in Hollywood. Innovation usually starts small, and the bigger the business becomes, the smaller innovation has to start.
Ok, I get it now, I guess with multiplatform games I was thinking too much about games for Windows, Mac and Linux. But of course I had forgotten that PC gaming is dead and games refers to consoles today.
objection! opinion
Of course it does, only now it's done by end users and we pay for the privilege :)
Half of why movies are so expensive is actors and scriptwriters unions and the hollywood monopoly
Feh. Seriously? Was that necessary to bring in to this conversation? You REALLY think unions are the reason why actors get paid so much?
By the way, there are a TON of movies made on a shoestring budget that rival anything out of Hollywood. I Like Killing Flies is a move that is a perfect example of that. Directed, Produced, Edited, AND Filmed all by one guy.
District 9 is another great example, although on a much larger scale. Do you know how much District 9's budget was? Go ahead, take a guess. $30 Million. Compare the visuals to that of any big-budget CGI laden film.
'm old enough to rembember when one teenager could write a game on his home computer with a budget of zero
Check out Kongregate, Newgrounds, etc. There are also a TON of games on XBLA/PSN, as well as very popular games made by folks using the XNA (I Made a Game with Zombies in it) and pretty much no cash.
Living With a Nerd
World of Goo is a great game, but I don't think it follows that the money spent on big budget games is wasted.
To make the comparison with movies: lots of people like the low budget Clerks. But millions more like the expensive Lord of the Rings. Part of what they like is all that expensive looking grandeur. You couldn't make Lord of the Rings on Clerks' budget.
You couldn't make GTA IV on World of Goo's budget. I think there's room in this world for both games.
I'm just suprised you'd need to pay for acting talent when all you want is voice- I'd have thought you could get voice actors cheaper than you could get physical and voice actors. Similarly, although I agree you wouldn't want to just use any old joe for it, I'd have thought there are plenty of low end voice actors that are perfectly good enough for a game well below hollywood rates.
But all you want isn't just a voice, what you want is someone who can take someone else's movements and do a voice so well that even without a human body, you can still pick up on things like, emotions, fears, desires, interest, etc. A good voice actor is what takes your character beyond: "Wow, that villian sounds like a villain" and brings you to "I really despise that villain".
And to put the proper emotion into a character's dialog, you have to understand how that character behaves and acts. Thus selecting a standard actor isn't such a bad idea given how much they do know about the total package of human behavior.
The voice actor is the bridge over the uncanny valley.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
The fun thing to remember though is that when people discover old music, they usually discover the songs that aged well. Most of the songs back then were crap too.
At the same time, when we open the radio, we listen to the good songs once in a while AND the crap most of the time. This is where the idea that old songs were much better is so popular. This is also true for movies.
Graphics...
1 the products of the graphic arts, esp. commercial design or illustration.
2 the use of diagrams in calculation and design.
3 (also computer graphics) [treated as pl. ] visual images produced by computer processing.
Visuals...
a picture, piece of film, or display used to illustrate or accompany something.
They are produced by computer processing, so I stick by my word.