Think Movies are Expensive to Make? Games Are!

[bhagat666]

shenmue is damn good....

 

[Nexus52085]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Mass effect doesn't really take much more than 8 hours either if you skip dialogue (would be silly, as that's the good part of the game) - dragon age is a lot more time demanding in comparison.Anyway yes old games do have higher difficulty standards, but they're not nessecarily more fun to play. I could never get thru digger, but I'd still rather play enclave or wii frisby golf although they're both less demanding. Difficulty level and gameplay isn't the same - neither are graphics and gameplay for that matter.[/citation]
You said it best.

 

[Gulli]

Seeing as games like CoD4, Supreme Commander and Crysis aren't even on the list I have to conclude that much of those 40+ million dollar budget doesn't go towards quality, graphics or realism...

 

[chriskrum]

These numbers look seriously wonky to me. I need to see an actual budget, otherwise these look like creative accounting to me. What else is charged against these games? It isn't uncommon for a film studio to charge all of it's operational costs against one particular film (a successful one) to reduce it's gross profit and simultaneously the taxes and royalties they need to pay. These numbers seem similarly inflated. Have they included the massive marketing costs in these numbers? It's not really fair to consider those development costs as it's money not really spent in creating the game in anyway but merely to push it after the fact.

 

[Clintonio]

It depends on where this huge budget goes. If it goes to an army of middlemen, executives and advertising departments; no wonder they're so bloated. If it's mostly spent on good development and a modest advertising campaign (a good game would advertise itself) then we'd expect a better quality from it. Alas, such thoughts are pointless, since we can't usually tell, it's best just to focus on the end product and ignore the cost. Afterall, it's not coming from our pockets (unless you pay some extortionate price to buy the game)

 

[brendano257]

Funny, I've barely heard of most of those games. Just vague references....I'll stick to the cheaper, yet better, games.

 

[saran008]

[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]WOW! I didn't know just how much money was involved. Those are some very large numbers.[/citation]
+1

 

[r0x0r]

[citation][nom]JWL3[/nom]I just wiki'd "Shenmue. " How stupid could these business people be? Says that at $70mm, each EXISTING Dreamcast owner would have had to purchase the game TWICE(!!!) in order for it to make a profit.Were they counting on people buying a Dreamcast because of this game or some other sales from this game? I hope someone got fired for that.[/citation]

I think Yu Suzuki was getting tired with Peter Molyneux going on about how immersive his games are so he decided to set him a benchmark (which Peter has still yet to surpass).

 

[sinman]

[citation][nom]requiemsallure[/nom]woot StarCraft FTW!!!!!!![/citation]

Yep, Warcraft II , Starcraft , Diablo , Diablo 2 all took home best game of the year awards and their budgets didn't even come close.

Diablo 3 and Starcraft II are gonna take home the awards as well. How about their budgets? Most likely not even close.

I wouldn't even invest $2 in EA to create a game, as I would consider it a risky investment.

On another note, screw these big budget over hyped holylwood type games. What ever happened to the old Activision we used to love? LBA2:Twinsens Odyssey (Little Big Adventure).

Cmon guys you can effectively reduce the developing budget and give us a simple game with awesome game play. Anymore eyecandy and I'm gonna throw up. Braid / Little Big Planet showed us it still can be done.

 

[d-block]

Shenmue cost $70 million when it was made? That is like 999999 gazillion dollars today

 

[kyzar]

But what do you get for all that money?

Was GTA4 really better than San-Andreas for example? Lets see there were fewer reconisable voice talents (Samuel L Jackson and James Woods in lead roles with Axl Rose on the radio in SA was much better than walk-on parts for Ricky Gervais and radio by Iggy Pop), much less variety of locations. The graphics while a real step forward (and the non-scripted ragdoll physics is reasonable) overloaded every platform, the PC port is frankly terrible, the character isn't as customisable and the game. The whole game, while interesting felt 'smaller' somehow than it's predecessor. I've finished both, but I've finished S-A maybe a dozen times, '4 I won't be going back to for a second run.

A lot of money is spent on the presentation and certainly graphical quality has leapt forwards, which certainly costs a huge amount of money to develop. Not so sure there's anything that new though in terms of gameplay. The one exception I would make to that though in that list is GT5. GT5 spends all it's money on modelling cars and tracks to the nth degree. That is a direct ratio between amount of money spent and the number (and accuracy) of cars and tracks in the game.

 

[chomlee]

[citation][nom]rrr1431[/nom]I don't get how a game can cost as much as a Hollywood summer movie. (you know the "blockbuster" kind woth all the big stars and the big explosions?) How can GTA cost $100 mil if you don't have to pay for sets, explosives and all that? If a large chunk of that goes to the actual people who program the game then damn! i'm in the wrong job![/citation]

Have you ever waited through the entire credits at the end of some games. Uncharted 2 had credits that were at least 3 times of a normal movie. It would be interesting to see the actual man hours of work comparison of a movie like Avatar to a game like Modern Warfare or Uncharted 2.

 

[may1]

[citation][nom]Abrahm[/nom]It's amazing the the price to make a game has gone up so much, yet the overall quality and complexity of game play has gone down. I think there is too much money sunk into marketing these days.[/citation]
True say.

 

[kawininjazx]

I don't see modern warfare 2 on there, except they made like 40 Bazillion dollars on it, so that was a lot of profit...

 

[pogsnet]

starcraft is the best! Way back in the time of Windows 95

PS3 was so expensive... they should build a movie for that price. PC games are much better, better than jumping and shooting like most console games.

 

[flugelhorn]

I would like to see what failed games like Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Champions On-line, Conan, etc. cost to make.

 

[chuenl]

It's hard to imagine older 2D games like "Transport Tycoon" and "RollerCoaster Tycoon" could be done mostly by one person (Chris Sawyer). If he asked for even just 10 millions for each, he would made a very good profit.

 

[beayn]

[citation][nom]matchboxmatt[/nom]Hahahahah, what!? I'm sorry, but that's seriously the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.Go back and play the run-of-the-mill SNES game in the 90s, and then play a run-of-the-mill PC game released today. Our standards are a lot higher than they used to be.[/citation]

What? He's absolutely right. Newer games tend to get simpler and simpler, while they look nice, they tend to have fewer features and less complex gameplay so that they appeal to a wider audience.

Take Deus Ex for example, a FPS game with role playing aspects. It had a complex story, tons of weapon and augmentation upgrades, skill points etc. Then you bring in Deus Ex 2 and you have most of the stuff just dropped in favor of simplicity so that anyone can pick up the game and play it. That's the way a lot of games are going. Sure we will always have the complex games designed for hardcore gamers, but over all, the original poster you were replying to is absolutely correct. I don't think he's talking about SNES games of the 90's or graphics either.