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Can we get next-gen graphics without the insane budgets?

We know some of the budget costs of games:

note: some of these games may also include marketing costs

Gears of War - officially $10 million
Gears of War 2 - officially $12 million
Red Steel 1 - officially 12.7 million
Bioshock - officially $15 million
Crackdown - officially around $20 million
Uncharted 2 - officially $20 million
Resident Evil 5- officially at least $19.3-20 million (as of May 2008)
Crysis 2 - officially $22 million
Killzone 2 - over $20 million
Assassin's Creed 2 - officially over $20 million (roughly 20% higher than AC 1)
L.A. Noire - unsure of toal cost, but significantly higher than $20 million
Lost Planet - estimated $20 million + $20 million marketing budget
God of War 3 - officially $44 million
Halo 3 - officially $55 million (includes $30 million marketing budget)
Halo 4- officially estimated $60 million without marketing costs
Gran Turismo 5 -estimated $60 - $80 million
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - estimated $85 million (includes marketing costs)
GTA 4- estimated $100 million

Marketing budgets:

Left 4 Dead - officially $10 million
Left 4 Dead 2 - officially around $25 million
 
Sure, you can have incredible graphics if you outsource development to a second-world country/third-world country and not include AAA voice actors.

Are you listening, Kim Jong Un? trade your nuclear testing for some Maya and 3Ds Max courses and you'll be back in business!

But seriously, the Witcher 2 dev managed some incredible visuals under a VERY reasonable budget.
 
lordchompy said:
Are you listening, Kim Jong Un? trade your nuclear testing for some Maya and 3Ds Max courses and you'll be back in business!
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kim_jong_un.jpg
 
Hiltz said:
We know some of the budget costs of games:

Gears of War - officially $10 million
Gears of War 2 - officially $12 million
Red Steel 1 - officially 12.7 million
Uncharted 2 - officially $20 million
Crysis 2 - officially $22 million
Killzone 2 - Over $20 million
L.A. Noire - $50 million
Halo 3 - officially $55 million
Halo 4- officially $60 million
- Gran Turismo 5 - officially $80 million
GTA 4- estimated $100 million
Skyward Sword - Uknown cost, but Miyamoto stated it was one of the developer's most expensive projects
Click to expand...

I thought GT5 was $60m?

For a game with a $20m budget, how many copies does it have to sell to be considered a 'moderate' success?
 
The idea that models and texture work will cost more is a bunch of fking bullshit. They make all models now high res and all textures high res. Then they optimize them down for current gen. Witcher 2 looks amazing. Look at Skrim with high def textures... done by the COMMUNITY for FREE.

4FAC0FA78A139F236E46E0B4ABB63742CE477B4F
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The idea that it will cost more is a bullshit way for developers to justify higher prices if needed. *Keep in mind that skyrim shot has over 100 mods and using ENB... all free by a community. I guess it all depends on the engine they use. The fact that this gen is going to by Engine Wars will hopefully keep costs down. They can use all the fancy shaders and techniques without breaking the budget, and just use their textures and models without optimizing them for crap consoles.
 
Hiltz said:
We know some of the budget costs of games:

note: some of these games may also include marketing costs

Gears of War - officially $10 million
Gears of War 2 - officially $12 million
Red Steel 1 - officially 12.7 million
Uncharted 2 - officially $20 million
Crysis 2 - officially $22 million
Killzone 2 - Over $20 million
L.A. Noire - $50 million
Halo 3 - officially $55 million
Halo 4- officially $60 million
- Gran Turismo 5 -estimated $80 million
GTA 4- estimated $100 million
Skyward Sword - Uknown cost, but Miyamoto stated it was one of the developer's most expensive projects
Click to expand...

Those better include marketing because if not it shows how inefficient and bloated some of these work environments are when most of the best looking games of the gen are all under 25 million. Witcher 2 was also around $12 million including marketing.
 
Going from 2000 people to 3000 people in the credits costs money so, no. Next gen will require at least 50 more useless writers for the next COD campaign.
 
aegies said:
Stepping outside of the GAF echo-chamber, TW2 didn't set the world on fire saleswise. It made money for sure, and I know that everyone involved considers it a success, but still. Also, TW2 was designed with console limitations in mind, which certainly had a major influence on the way it worked. It's cheaper to develop in eastern Europe because the economy is considerably different from the other regions I specified.
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The series has sold 5 million. That's not setting the world on fire for a PC RPG series with a late port to a crappy console?


Also would you care to explain how and why it's cheaper to develop in eastern europe than other regions you specified? I don't doubt you, but you also presented zero evidence. You are basically saying "just believe me i'm right."
 
Also keep in mind that just adding more crap that current consoles cant handle makes a HUGE difference for next gen. Ill add 2 more skyrim shots, both at the same place. One with extra stuff... one optimized for consoles. Keep in mind both still have other mods and ENB.

776F3F10496FB3A7919573A3B1E1DF3EAC4DA789
Click to expand...

80AD6F18C27264E925E26204BCBEA0A16716E5E9
Click to expand...
 
Hiltz said:
We know some of the budget costs of games:

note: some of these games may also include marketing costs

Gears of War - officially $10 million
Gears of War 2 - officially $12 million
Red Steel 1 - officially 12.7 million
Uncharted 2 - officially $20 million
Crysis 2 - officially $22 million
Killzone 2 - Over $20 million
L.A. Noire - $50 million
Halo 3 - officially $55 million
Halo 4- officially $60 million
Gran Turismo 5 -estimated $80 million
-GTA 4- estimated $100 million
Click to expand...

Uh, I've got it on pretty good authority that Uncharted 2 was more like $70M. Also heard that God of War 3 was around $80M. And neither of those likely include marketing.

Uncharted 2 had a core staff of 75 that roughly doubled with internal contractors in the final year of development, and it did a lot of art outsourcing on top of that. And Naughty Dog pays very well and has generous benefits, too.
 
Pimpbaa said:
I think most of the money is from trying to make the game more cinematic. Popular voice actors, extensive motion capture, symphonic scores done with a real orchestra. Probably some more aspects I can't think of that add a lot to the budget. Maybe when they stop trying to make every game a damn movie, they can cut costs.
Click to expand...

Not quite. The dramatic increase in game budgets can be mainly attributed to the dramatic increase in the visual departments of development studios. 3D Graphic artist, and 3D modelers comprise the largest part of any, what people here call, AAA development team.

I did a lot of research into this matter, while comparing the credits of different "AAA" games from this gen and last gen. Anyone, who works in the field, will tell you that all of the departments got larger after the 360 launched, but the Art departments increased dramatically, because proper art assets take the most time and dedication in order to properly make.

You have to think about game budgets in time cost. The things, that take the most time to make, will cost more to produce; and a games visuals is what takes the most time to produce, by far. The higher the detail, the longer it takes to create. It's the environments that take up 90% of the artists and modelers time, and not the high poly character models.

Most large developers already have a tool, that can automatically break down high poly models into lower poly models, with a minimal loss of detail. That is not where all the cost goes. The cost goes into making those highly detailed assets to begin with.

The current publisher model is broken. This is probably why we will see drastic actions taken next generation, in order to prevent the embarrassing losses that were incurred this generation. Killing off used game sales is just one of those actions that may be taken.

The sad part is that we sit here talking about what was visually achievable on 360/PS3, without taking into account the tremendous toll it took on publishers and developers. The industry can't get away with what it did this generation again. The crazy amount of profits, generated by the Wii, helped to disguise just how terrible it actually was. The console industry doesn't have the Wii phenomenon, in order to hold it up anymore; and the 3DS is not enough to offset next-gen development costs, especially for Western publishers.
 
Ravidrath said:
Uh, I've got it on pretty good authority that Uncharted 2 was more like $70M. Also heard that God of War 3 was around $80M. And neither of those likely include marketing.

Uncharted 2 had a core staff of 75 that roughly doubled with internal contractors in the final year of development, and it did a lot of art outsourcing on top of that. And Naughty Dog pays very well and has generous benefits, too.
Click to expand...

The 20m figure came from ND. And SSM said GoW3 came in at 44m

The budget for the first game was said to be around $20 million dollars, and that had to include that engine creation from scratch, which is a big thing. Since you are using the same engine, has this been a cheaper endeavor? Are you guys spending the same amount?

We are spending the same amount. You always want to be able to just do more. Definitely it is a leg up to start with that technological foundation, but what you try to do with it is just that much more.
Click to expand...

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/04/joystiq-interview-talking-uncharted-2-with-naughty-dogs-evan-w/

Anger management simulator God of War III cost $44 million to create, according to director of production development John Hight, which is "right within budget." Speaking with Giant Bomb, Hight revealed that the team of 132 staff required to finish the third installment was more than double the crew (of about 60) on hand to wrap up God of War II, with the biggest growth occurring in the graphics and art departments.
Click to expand...

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/09/god-of-war-3-has-44-million-dollar-budget/
 
To answer the OP's question - there were plenty of examples of great graphics this generation in games that clearly didn't break the bank, such as Journey, Flower etc., but if you want to make the next cutting edge blockbuster FPS, I don't see how you get around the basic asset production and coding issues. It's a labor intensive process.
 
SolidSnakex said:
The 20m figure came from ND. And SSM said GoW3 came in at 44m
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know that's what they announced, I'm just really skeptical.

You can't run a team that large and well-paid for two years on $20M. Contractors can be more expensive than full-time employees, too, and they had tons of art outsourcing on top of that all. Their budget for voice acting and localization is probably pretty big, too.
 
Productions don't get expensive because they involve more work, productions involve more work and therefore get expensive. This isn't a tautology. Capitalism is first and foremost accumulative and additive: from a certain level on, wherever things are more things will be, this goes for means of production, money, power, even poverty and sickness -- this doesn't mean that they or the place where they exist remain static, of course, it can be very dynamic. We are, for example, successfully exporting poverty and exploitation to other countries, where they thrive and grow.

It's only going to get worse in the AAA market, if you think "bland" and "samey" instead of "bite-sized" and "streamlined" while playing them. Look elsewhere for what you seem to like about games. The medium itself will become more diverse not less, just not where a lot of money is involved.
 
Hiltz said:
We know some of the budget costs of games:

note: some of these games may also include marketing costs

Gears of War - officially $10 million
Gears of War 2 - officially $12 million
Red Steel 1 - officially 12.7 million
Uncharted 2 - officially $20 million
Crysis 2 - officially $22 million
Killzone 2 - Over $20 million
L.A. Noire - $50 million
Halo 3 - officially $55 million
Halo 4- officially $60 million
Gran Turismo 5 -estimated $80 million
-GTA 4- estimated $100 million


Skyward Sword - Uknown cost, but Miyamoto stated it was one of the developer's most expensive projects
Click to expand...

What the hell did they need 100 mil for for GTA IV?
 
aegies said:
The two things that add the most to game budgets are the things that require the most time. For graphics, that's statically lighting scenes for pre-baking over and over. For development, that's finding a way to achieve specific design parameters under slowly shrinking resource overhead. Some of the games late this gen with the longest development cycles required much of that time to script and rig levels and AI to provide a specific series of experiences.

More power isn't just good for graphics. The giant leaps in memory and processor power in the next gen consoles make design less of a death march. The less time it takes to make things happen during development, the cheaper games are to make.
Click to expand...

This is exactly why I'm most excited for next-gen tools like Unreal Engine 4. Accurate real-time lighting and physics means I can spend a lot less time faking things with smoke and mirrors. This is a particularly huge boon to me because I run a tiny 4-person studio and I want it to be financially feasible to make high-quality games. I think the next generation of indie games will see a more noticeable leap in quality than AAA games.
 
nickp said:
This is exactly why I'm most excited for next-gen tools like Unreal Engine 4. Accurate real-time lighting and physics means I can spend a lot less time faking things with smoke and mirrors. This is a particularly huge boon to me because I run a tiny 4-person studio and I want it to be financially feasible to make high-quality games. I think the next generation of indie games will see a more noticeable leap in quality than AAA games.
Click to expand...

Cryengine 3 has been able to do these things for a while
 
You could get a good leap without significantly raising budgets, but....

EA, Activision and Ubisoft will still double or even triple their budgets regardless.
 
deviljho said:
Cryengine 3 has been able to do this things for a while
Click to expand...

I still don't know why no one seems to license CryEngine 3, especially since it's supposed to be easy to use. Maybe some devs will finally start next gen if it can run well on the consoles.
 
The better question would be why are devs struggling with these budgets anyway? Films is a smaller industry than video games these days and yet there are way too many movies that cost $100m while only the biggest of the biggest games cost as much.
 
I think there's definitely a rising market of middleware which eases development costs. There's still heaps that can be done in that area to improve productivity and bring new ways of doing things to the table.

Manmademan said:
exactly this. Demon's souls was projected to sell-and be profitable at- 75,000 copies stateside.

not 750,000. 75,000. It ended up being a wild success selling triple that.
Click to expand...

Yes, which is great, but remember Atlus shouldered none of the development costs.
 
aegies said:
How many man hours do you think it requires to decide to lower a game's resolution by 4 horizontal lines? There is a ridiculous amount of triage and compromise that happens throughout development. It adds to cost. People want realized concepts that grab their attention and hold them in thrall, or they want games that are easy to pick up and play. Consumers don't walk into the store thinking they want the game that cost the most to make. It just so happens that many of the games that cost the most to make often have smart, talented people making them.

Also, developing in eastern Europe is considerably cheaper than developing in Japan or the UK or North America, so comparing the Witcher 2's budget to triple AAA development isn't really fair or indicative.
Click to expand...

I think part of that problem is developers trying to make games that clearly shouldn't be run on current generation machines. I understand squeezing more power out of a box is cool and all, but when it get's to the point where you throw IQ and framerate almost completely to the wind, it's time to hold back for some new hardware.

I guess that's a push-and-pull between aging hardware and needing to keep going on with tried-and-true game design though. Publishers feel they need just one more sequel to a franchise that has probably already maxed out current generation machines, and they end up sacrificing too much in order to make the next sequel look like an improvement on aging hardware. Instead they could try something new, but the publisher feels that new IP doesn't do so well this late into a console generation.
 
Ravidrath said:
Uh, I've got it on pretty good authority that Uncharted 2 was more like $70M. Also heard that God of War 3 was around $80M. And neither of those likely include marketing.

Uncharted 2 had a core staff of 75 that roughly doubled with contractors in the final year of development, and it did a lot of art outsourcing. And Naughty Dog pays very well and has generous benefits, too.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this one. A lot of studios toss out those bs numbers, while leaving out important aspects of game development cost. GeoW leaves out the cost it took to develop UE3 and marketing.

One can easily change the reported cost, of developing games, by slightly changing the definition of "development costs". Some publishers include marketing, and some don't. Some developers include engine development, and some don't. And some are just flat out disingenuous about it for purposes of selling middleware.

There is no shortcut for making highly detailed art assets, while using the current polygon and texture model. The only way to cut costs on games, with tons of unique and highly detailed art assets, is to lower the salary of your visual department (which has been done in the past to devastating results). Using procedural assets is the only other way (besides "Unlimited Detail Technology©"), and that method can only be used in certain types of games.
 
Shaheed79 said:
I'm with you on this one. A lot of studios toss out those bs numbers, while leaving out important aspects of game development cost.
Click to expand...

There is also a lot of creative accounting that goes on with a lot of these projects, too.

The first Dead Space was in development for like... 7 years, I think? And restarted twice? But each time it restarted the budget "reset" and they wrote the previous efforts off as R&D.
 
1st Course said:
The better question would be why are devs struggling with these budgets anyway? Films is a smaller industry than video games these days and yet there are way too many movies that cost $100m while only the biggest of the biggest games cost as much.
Click to expand...

cause even i know how to point a camera and make something into a video.
just to get one stupid pixel to move on screen takes a ton of knowledge.

edit: lol reading.

anyways its because movies get three chances at making a profit, movie theatre, bluray/dvd/digital release, and tv/hbo/premium channel licencing.

games have to be profitable in the first month of sales after that used games sales just eats up any other potential sales.
 
Ravidrath said:
Uh, I've got it on pretty good authority that Uncharted 2 was more like $70M. Also heard that God of War 3 was around $80M. And neither of those likely include marketing.

Uncharted 2 had a core staff of 75 that roughly doubled with internal contractors in the final year of development, and it did a lot of art outsourcing on top of that. And Naughty Dog pays very well and has generous benefits, too.
Click to expand...

Hey Ravi, how much did Skullgirls cost (if you're comfortable sharing it)? Would be interesting to see how 2D games fared this gen.
 
JordanN said:
Hey Ravi, how much did Skullgirls cost (if you're comfortable sharing it)? Would be interesting to see how 2D games fared this gen.
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Around $1.7M.

Keep in mind, though, that fighting games don't have nearly the budgets for environmental art that other genres do, 2D or not.
 
deviljho said:
[IM]http://asset3.neogaf.com/forum/image.php?u=391&dateline=1360335278[/IMG]

where the fuck are all these avatars coming from?? do i even want to know?
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Just random AKB48 pictures.

Ravidrath said:
Yeah, I know that's what they announced, I'm just really skeptical.

You can't run a team that large and well-paid for two years on $20M. Contractors can be more expensive than full-time employees, too, and they had tons of art outsourcing on top of that all. Their budget for voice acting and localization is probably pretty big, too.
Click to expand...

You could certainly be right. I know Tim Sweeney had Gears of War 2's budget at 12m, and that took a lot of people by surprise.
 
A lot of budgets are bloated due to crap like higher paid voice actors, forced online game modes, crazy marketing expenditures, and rushed delivery dates forcing studios to high extra help.
 
StealthxHawk said:
Also keep in mind that just adding more crap that current consoles cant handle makes a HUGE difference for next gen. Ill add 2 more skyrim shots, both at the same place. One with extra stuff... one optimized for consoles. Keep in mind both still have other mods and ENB.
Click to expand...
That second shot is gross, why are there trees there?
 
StealthxHawk said:
The idea that models and texture work will cost more is a bunch of fking bullshit. They make all models now high res and all textures high res. Then they optimize them down for current gen. Witcher 2 looks amazing. Look at Skrim with high def textures... done by the COMMUNITY for FREE.



The idea that it will cost more is a bullshit way for developers to justify higher prices if needed. *Keep in mind that skyrim shot has over 100 mods and using ENB... all free by a community. I guess it all depends on the engine they use. The fact that this gen is going to by Engine Wars will hopefully keep costs down. They can use all the fancy shaders and techniques without breaking the budget, and just use their textures and models without optimizing them for crap consoles.
Click to expand...

Maybe Bethesda should get the community to develop all of the art assets for ES6. It would save them a good 20-30 Million easy.
 
deviljho said:
Cryengine 3 has been able to do these things for a while
Click to expand...

CE3's methods provide a looser approximation and are not very scalable. Of course, the fact that it's real-time is still tremendously helpful in what it does for iteration.

As far as CE3 not seeing widespread use yet, I think it really comes down to market penetration, tools support and the huge pool of developers and artists with UE experience.
 
SolidSnakex said:
You could certainly be right. I know Tim Sweeney had Gears of War 2's budget at 12m, and that took a lot of people by surprise.
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about the staffing situation on GoW, but I do know a bit about the situation at ND from my friends there. So combined with my own (admittedly nascent) dev budgeting experiences, I don't see how $20M is possible.

BTW, the Uncharted 2 figure I got was industry scuttlebutt I overheard at a bar, and was pretty much confirmed via text with someone close to the team.
 
Hiltz said:
We know some of the budget costs of games:

note: some of these games may also include marketing costs

Gears of War - officially $10 million
Gears of War 2 - officially $12 million
Red Steel 1 - officially 12.7 million
Bioshock - officially $15 million
Uncharted 2 - officially $20 million
Resident Evil 5- officially at least $19.3-20 million (as of May 2008)
Crysis 2 - officially $22 million
Killzone 2 - over $20 million
Assasin's Creed 2 - officially over $20 million (roughly 20% higher than AC 1)
L.A. Noire - Not sure about toal cost, but significantly higher than $20 million
Lost Planet - estimated $20 million + $20 million marketing budget
God of War 3 - officially $44 million
Halo 3 - officially $55 million
Halo 4- officially $60 million
Gran Turismo 5 -estimated $80 million
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - estimated $85 million (includes marketing costs)
GTA 4- estimated $100 million

Marketing budgets:

Left 4 Dead - $10 million
Left 4 Dead 2 -around $25 million
Click to expand...

Considering Gears 3 was the worse one and that UC2 was a much better designed game than God of War 3 I don't care how pretty a game is.

Give them less money so they make better games.
 
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