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Dorfdad
Gold Member
I voook froward twooo it. Translations be damned!
RPCGamer
Neophyte
From the research I've done:
The scope of the project gets too big and they fill it with current trends (open world, 100+ hour, GaaS, MTX etc) to keep investors interested
The expectations are grossly over estimated
The size of the project requires more people (hired or from other teams in the company etc)
The project takes 4-6 years with delays caused by the size of the team being unwieldy and difficult to manage with every aspect having to be signed off
Potential delays from bugs, change in designs etc
In that time, staff come and go for a variety of reasons
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Little Chicken
Banned
Doubt that includes marketing and advertising.
Sorcerer
Member
I'm guessing Sony looks at Spiderman with a sense of "It's Spiderman, can't fail" thus not trying to even keep the budget in check. Thats probably some of it. Maybe they think having "the game of year" or what have you will compensate for budget costs". Or maybe they think any step down in production will be seen/detected as instant failure buy the end user. Perhaps chasing their own tails on both ends of the spectrum.
Someone over there must be paying the bills and see's what's happening after all.
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AngelMuffin
Member
Didnt that $300M include marketing?Spiderman 2 was $300 million. And they reused the same city for the third game in a row. Western devs are scamming everyone.
What Hacked Files Tell Us About The Studio Behind Spider-Man 2
Internal documents show how a big PlayStation studio plans its futurekotaku.com
Chinese devs make a lot less than their western counterparts.
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That was luck, I wouldn't say all their games will be the same.
Hari Seldon
Member
The western games industry needs to move the hell out of CA if it wants to survive. CA has a culture that is increasingly foreign to the rest of the world. I think this is why games, film, and TV are all simultaneously tanking at the same time. CA culture has been rejected.
tommib
Banned
The China simps trigger me so much, baby.
GHG
Member
At least then they won't have to pay for daycare for the them/they/thats.
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sankt-Antonio
:^)--?-<
40k a year is the cost of an engineer/ software dev. in China. That’s three times cheaper than in the EU / US.
Multiply the cost by three and that’s around the cost of a western studio.
Oh. And they work more hours. Crunch is the norm.
Multiply the cost by three and that’s around the cost of a western studio.
Oh. And they work more hours. Crunch is the norm.
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nnytk
Member
We could've had about 8 different Wukong AA level productions by now. Imagine Sony maybe using a bit more budget per project and using it to create:
Gravity Rush 3
New ICO game
New Shadow of the Colossus
New Katamari Damacy/Noby Noby
New Twisted Metal
And maybe something stupid but fun(?) like Astrobot cart racing.
All of this, instead of Concord.
Be sure to create one for every game that has these scores, in the name of fairness that is.
Sentenza
Member
Incidentally, China (and Asia more in general) ALREADY does a lot of work in most of the triple A games you people play regularly.
A lot of of "asset farms" are located there and big western publishers rely on the them on the regular basis.
It's hard to set very specific boundaries of where their contribution starts or ends, but in general don't be surprised if a lot of the "scenery props" decorating the world of your typical Assassin's Creed come from there, for example.
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RPCGamer
Neophyte
We can't (and shouldn't) try and reduce the wages - they're pretty crap for tech already. It's the scope of the projects I think that's entirely wrong. Have smaller teams working on more smaller projects that are not constantly trying to push for the latest graphics and chasing endless content with big worlds. The problem is, they've spent 10 years training people to expert it now.
You could even re-use tech and assets etc when needed. Like at the Yakuza games for example.
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James Sawyer Ford
Member
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Northeastmonk
Gold Member
1 Concord = Wukong 1, 2, and Wukong 3. Plus DLC and a big marketing budget. Sony really messed up.
sankt-Antonio
:^)--?-<
Cheap Chinese labor is a reality that made western companies billions in the last decades. Now Chinese have the know how to do stuff by themselves. Like in the car industry. Will be interesting to see how this all turns out.
The west can’t just scale back scope as Chinese devs are raising it to become competitive.
proandrad
Member
That still doesn’t mean they are underpaid, the salary is appropriate to the cost of living in the area. Here are the differences between Firewalk studios cost of living location and Game Science according to the website numbeo.
Location is everything. If you want to reduce cost, start by moving out of the west coast.
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bitbydeath
Member
That isn’t true.Spiderman 2 was $300 million. And they reused the same city for the third game in a row. Western devs are scamming everyone.
What Hacked Files Tell Us About The Studio Behind Spider-Man 2
Internal documents show how a big PlayStation studio plans its future
The slides showed it was the budget for all their staff over a period of time. It covered titles like Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, Venom, numerous remasters, and even X-Men.
It wasn’t just Spider-Man 2 because they don’t have everyone working on a single game.
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RPCGamer
Neophyte
In games. I'm not talking about your ring picker who does nothing at the top, I'm talking about the programmers etc who can usually go work at another tech company outside of games for more.
While true, we can't compete in a direct sense. We'll have to be smart about this.
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Mr Moose
Member
Is that Australian $?
Black Myth: Wukong has become a global hit but it's not without controversy
China's first blockbuster video game has sold millions of copies in just days. It brings the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West to audiences worldwide. But its release has also sparked criticism.www.abc.net.au
James Sawyer Ford
Member
Just because comp at another big tech company is much higher doesn’t make their wages in gaming crap
Wages in gaming software dev are comparable or better to most software dev jobs in the country
RPCGamer
Neophyte
For the workload? Definitely not. You've probably heard the stories of crunch, unpaid overtime and how they're thrown out pretty quick after a project. It's a very volatile industry.
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Last Hearth
Member
China has 2 types of jobs. The “996” and the “007”.
( 996 means you work from 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week, 007 means you get home at midnight 7 days a week).
( 996 means you work from 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week, 007 means you get home at midnight 7 days a week).
MALpractice311
Member
Don't forget the Koreans. Stellar Blade and Lies of P were awesome and made for fractions of the cost of Western studios.
proandrad
Member
Don’t buy into the western propaganda, game devs from top video game developers in China aren’t living under bridges with poverty wages.
MALpractice311
Member
Bingo. People have to keep in mind that while wages are lower, the cost of living is also lower.Western Publishers, “China uses cheap labor and underpays its game developers.”
The “underpaid” Chinese game developers
ByWatterson
Member
/thread
But I would also add that China regularly engages in hardcore subsidization of industry in order to undercut western economies.
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clarky
Gold Member
Did i miss the memo? Games, TV and movies are all tanking?
Sure we've had a few flops in all 3 but that's always been the case.
tommib
Banned
We came full circle.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
why not celebrate a developer for making a great game, from a country that’s not non for great games, let alone the first attempt at AAA.
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clarky
Gold Member
I'm sure there are good folks over there. They made a great game, for less. What's up with that?
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Fake
Member
DeadOblivion78
Banned
There's a reason why everything is made in China.
Negotiator
Member
Every US dollar has almost double the purchasing power in China...
Still a lot less than Concord (Sweet Baby fees, hefty marketing campaign etc), though.
CP2077 was also a similar case back in 2020 (it cost a lot less compared to most western AAA games, due to different economics in Poland).
{insert code here}
Member
There's definitely something not right with these Western AAA budgets. Where is all that money going, I'd like to see a line-by-line breakdown for the budget of just one AAA game. As someone who runs a business myself, there could be some interesting info in there.Spiderman 2 was $300 million. And they reused the same city for the third game in a row. Western devs are scamming everyone.
What Hacked Files Tell Us About The Studio Behind Spider-Man 2
Internal documents show how a big PlayStation studio plans its future