Epic expects next-gen dev costs to double.

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Deleted_171835

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Tim Sweeney said he expects Epic to be able to build next-gen titles for “only about double the cost” of games from the start of the current generation.
Speaking about Epic's first next-gen tech demo, a 2011 clip called Samaritan in a modified version of Unreal Engine 3. Although the clip was just under three minutes in length, it took four months and a team of 30 people to create.

“If we extrapolate that into creating an entire game, we were worried that the cost would go up by a factor of three or four or even five in the next generation,” Sweeney said.

Yeah...next-gen is going to be pretty rough for devs.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-11-13-epic-expects-next-gen-game-costs-to-double
 
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Deleted_171835

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Costs and labour should decrease over time has the technology improves and the devs adapt to the change.
More like costs will increase (not decrease) as technology improves. And it's not "devs adapting to change".
 

Valwin

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Due to high costs we see a reverse of this gen, it will be Sony and Microsoft getting the stiff while Nintendo gets all the exclusives.
 

Bladexdsl

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maybe instead of making the zomg best gfx eva in a game and instead focus on gameplay maybe it won't cost as much?! I couldn't give 2 shits about unreal engine 3.
 

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When a few people working in their spare time can fire up XNA and make Terraria and get 200,000 sales in their first week...

I'm dumbfounded at how so much money needs(?) to be spent to develop for consoles. Profit is what you get over your expenses, so cut your fucking expenses.

There's no excuse for this kind of shit beyond the licensing/tools to actually get the shit onto the system in the first place, and we KNOW those aren't nearly that much.
 
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Deleted_171835

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Sorry. Does the term "familiarize" work better for you? Plus, costs will only increase at first. They'll eventually decrease over time.
Err, no they won't. That's not how things work.

Dev costs have always been increasing significantly with each generation.

devcosts.gif


With better tech, more work needs to be done to take advantage of the hardware increasing costs. Dev costs are already high enough this gen (For fucks sake, Halo 4 cost Microsoft about $60 million!), an increase could prove deadly to some smaller devs. And then there's the chance that this could encourage devs to stick with tried-and-true things that sell rather than to experiment with new ideas.

Costs won't decrease over time.
 

stinkoman

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Due to high costs we see a reverse of this gen, it will be Sony and Microsoft getting the stiff while Nintendo gets all the exclusives.
Nintendo already gets a fuckton of exclusives. Ubisoft had this huge, epic lineup of games where you get to experience the feeling of actually being one of the true heros of everyday life, like a veterinarian or interior designer. I mean, what other platform gets Imagine?

Gimme a break, these days all the real money's in games like Call of Duty, as much as I hate to say it, and Nintendo's philosophy of using dated technology for lower prices doesn't jive with the whole "LET'S POUR A FUCKTON OF MONEY INTO THIS" mindset of the type of devs that make those games. I doubt that they're going to be able to convince fans of series with XBox or PS3 graphics to settle for jaggies everywhere.
 

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Due to high costs we see a reverse of this gen, it will be Sony and Microsoft getting the stiff while Nintendo gets all the exclusives.
Nintendo got all the exclusives last generation.

...all the exclusives nobody wanted.

;O;

Seriously though, fair play, development costs increase, but so do the profits - distribution is less and less of a problem, cartridges are a thing of the past as far as consoles are concerned (the storage medium used to be a huge portion of the overall price) and the group we call "gamers" keeps on growing.

Besides, they're forgetting that what takes the most time is the engine optimization - once that's done, it's all about modeling artwork, at least in the context of a trailer like Samaritan (in a game we still have scriptwriting and so-on and so-forth, but those do not magically "extend" because the technology's there - technology can only influence graphics, physics and A.I). Most studios actually create models of higher complexity than required and scale them down if needed - a technological leap will only allow them not to optimize as much.

Games look great *as of today* - the studios don't have to work *that* hard, and improved technology allows for being wasteful with resources, and thus saving time on optimization.

This is a double-edged sword - it can be a blessing AND a curse. It's only up to the studio how complex the end product is going to be.
 

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It's not really a matter of familiarizing with new tech at this point. (Although it'll play a hand early on of course.)
The better the visuals become the more important it is to get all the details right.

As a very simplified example, no matter how familiar or capable you are, making an 16-bit game will always, always require more time and manpower than an 8-bit game all other things being equal. There's just more that needs to be done and you can't reduce it.

Even if it does get cheaper over time...it'll still be more expensive than the current gen and development costs are already kind of an issue.
Makes me weary that we mostly see sequels and ports as it is, hope the future isn't worse off.
 

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As for the rising cost of video games:

Also factor in that as dev costs rise, so does the industry. Gaming in 1985 was not as big as it is in 2012. The industry can only grow. As costs rise, so does interest in gaming. You spend a lot of money on a game and you'll probably get profit. GTA IV cost what, $100 million to make? If it didn't do exceptionally well, I don't think Rockstar would be around, let alone making GTA V.

Also as costs of games rise, we also embrace a smaller, lower budget area of indie gaming. Now more than ever almost anyone can have their own little piece of the pie in gaming. We get our massively expensive games like GTA IV but how much money do you think was needed for Binding of Isaac? It runs on Flash but it's quite honestly a well made game (I know this is debatable by some but replace Isaac with any indie game if you wish). Next gen consoles can only embrace this area more as digital distribution becomes more and more integrated and as companies begin to accept indie games more and more (Steam Greenlight for instance or, for a worse-but-relevant example, Xbox Live Indies).

Epic is also developing an entire engine, that costs A LOT of money. I mean UE3 probably cost a lot but imagine how much they got out of it. So many people licensed it because it's highly versatile and they even made their 3 Gears of War games, Unreal Tournament, etc. UE4 will probably set the same precedent for next gen.

So next gen games may cost a lot but there's only a larger audience and more ways to profit.
 
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Err, no they won't. That's not how things work.

Dev costs have always been increasing significantly with each generation.

devcosts.gif


With better tech, more work needs to be done to take advantage of the hardware increasing costs. Dev costs are already high enough this gen (For fucks sake, Halo 4 cost Microsoft about $60 million!), an increase could prove deadly to some smaller devs. And then there's the chance that this could encourage devs to stick with tried-and-true things that sell rather than to experiment with new ideas.

Costs won't decrease over time.

I'd assumed budget cuts, hardware optimization, etc. would help offset the inflation costs of newer hardware.
 

chyyran

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Costs will continue to increase simply because the development chooses to do so. It's not very hard to write any old game that will run on a console, but it's hard to write a game that will appeal to consumers, and take advantage of hardware, and software, as well as having a good idea.

Every day, new ideas are taken, and old ideas are re-imagined. It becomes increasingly difficult to make a game that feels fresh enough.

As well, graphics will become more complex as capabilities become more realistic. For example, each polygon an a 3D model must be positioned and textured accordingly. Maybe not individually, but the point is that with an increasing amount of realism, polygon count will increase and therefore work will too.

As well, this may be a looser point, but the cost of development kit for a console will also increase, due to increased hardware costs and complexity.
 

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