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[CokeDiet]

Professors don't come cheap ya know

 

[Closer]

The graphics this gen is so crunchy I bet it would taste better with guacamole.

The inflated budget comes from marketing and likeleness (and voice) of known actors. Just kick their butt and hire less known actors. Bet you can save a lot cutting these.

 

[Avid Reading Horse]

This is what I'm wondering. Where did the resources go? Where was the change if not in the product?

Went to her:

And I'm okay with that

 

[Raven117]

Yeah…. I'm not saying that it isn't a correct statement. But I refuse to believe that it's inevitable.

Just look at expedition 33. Kdc2. Done at fractions of the costs

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

And I'm okay with that

 

[sono]

seems to say 5 is more expensive to dev for than 4.

but why is that, doesnt more powerful hardware make it easier in some ways

 

[CGNoire]

Hasnt Sony made 5 times as much money during ps5 than all the other generations combined? This shit sounds fishy as hell.

 

[ToadMan]

Sony should probably pull a Nintendo and stretch this gen out to more like 8 years. And the following gen maybe 10 years. People would be more comfortable paying more for a console that would be latest gen for 10 years.

This would have 2 effects

1. It allows those games that are taking a long time to actually hit the hardware they're targeting, avoiding any expensive refactoring or rewrites and

2. When next gen does come, there is an opportunity for it to look like the genuine generational leap people want to justify a new console.

I mean S2 is a massive success so far off the back of making S1 games look and run so much better, but it took a long in the tooth Switch 1 generation to make that dent.

 

[CoreyFlawless]

They was saying the same stuff 10-15 years ago

 

[Sooner]

So double the price for very little improvements. So, what is the doubling of expenditure going into? Waste?

Diminishing returns. It takes exponentially more resources to produce the same level of jump as the generations go on.

 

[ReBurn]

Rainbow hair dye and septum piercings aren't free you know

 

[Trogdor1123]

Hasnt Sony made 5 times as much money during ps5 than all the other generations combined? This shit sounds fishy as hell.

Well yes but when you don't subsidize hardware anymore, and even increase the price, it makes a huge difference

 

[ToadMan]

seems to say 5 is more expensive to dev for than 4.

but why is that, doesnt more powerful hardware make it easier in some ways

Well I guess there is effectively a price per polygon.

I remember the metric about the increase in polygons for GT cars between PS2, PS3 and then PS4. The modelling time went from days to weeks to months of man hours for a single car in a generational step.

And while that difference was noticeable, we had those standard model cars to bolster the roster in n gT Sport because there wasn't enough time / resources to get everything remodelled.

Games are bigger - but not necessarily obviously better looking (although this isn't aimed at GT - it's the best looking car modelling around).

I think as well there is this desire to get value into the game by stretching it out. Its cheaper to get a team to build assets and make a big long game for $70, than make a smaller 20 hour game that can justify $70.

That smaller game has to be great. A lot of games these days use quantity to mask the lack of quality.

They're paying the staff to sit in their cubicles anyway - may as well have them doing work that generates revenue because great game design comes from a very few people at the core while hundreds work on the assets to support the game.

 

[NickFire]

If this is true I would assume it's less about additional work than other reasons. The games just aren't that much different.

 

[Scrawnton]

Managers should actually be managing. If the development is falling behind, fire the manager; not the developer.

Everyone knows where the bloat is but executives aren't going to eat their own.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Everybody knows graphics peaked at PS3 with MGS4

 

[alabtrosMyster]

But what do we get from it?

I mean, moving from PS2 to 3 I get it, they had to have more artists to create way more assets, textures, etc. even the PS4, it had so much more RAM to play around with all these things.

But these days, you're not going to get much more in scope than before, looks aren't going to be that much better either.

 

[EN250]

I'm sure it's development costs and not actually adding mundane, or meaningless or even stuff that pushes certain agendas, like for example a whole padding side quest in Spider-Man 2 to follow the story of some random ass gay NPCs and their marriage proposal thing or something like it, that amounts to nothing for the story of the game...

 

[LavitzSlambert]

It's not the hardware, it is the massive inflation that started in 2021 and the massively expanded teams as a response to various... initiatives of the late 10s and early 20s.

Scope creep, inflation, and no more cheap loans. Jimbo really screwed things up in record time at Sony.

 

[PixelatedBeast]

Not only do so called AAA PS5 games barely look any better than PS4, they also don't play any differently in terms of game design. The games cost more to make, take longer to develop, and in the end don't sell any better than their predecessors.

I have to call out this bs out, because franky its disingenuous and selectively used against games based on who the publisher is. For the past 20 years, every sequel to a successful IP has followed the same formula. Thats the whole point of making a sequel; to give people more of what they loved from the first game and build on it. If the second game was to deviate too far from what made the first game loved by fans, then it wouldnt be a sequel, it would be a different game. Fromsoft games wouldnt be successul if Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 didnt follow the same formula of Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1. Uncharted wouldnt be a successful franchise if Uncharted 2 and 3 went in a completely different direction than Uncharted 1, and so on. Its been like this since the PS2. Before then you had more of a substantial change in game design because technology improved every generation, giving devs more memory and processing power to evolve gameplay mechanics.

There actually isnt much more space for innovation for flat screen games. We pretty much seen all of whats possible. What innovation are you expecting to see from a game released 5 years later? The future of innovation for gaming comes from VR and AR. Thats the only form of gaming where you will experience a new way of playing. Until generative AI becomes apart of the actual gameplay for flat screen games, you're going to get another COD, Resident Evil or GTA that plays exactly like the last game that released.

 

[Deerock71]

Uh-oh. That probably means they might scale back production to cater to PS4 and Switch 2, and upscale to poor PS5.

 

[Felessan]

Please. This needs to stop, or the industry will implode. This starts in enthusiast and vocal communities like this one, we need to make it clear we are okay with the focus going more on sustainability of game development (and content, and polish) versus the shiny new graphical tech

People like shiny new graphical tech. And if companies will abandon it, someone else will take their place which would lead to massive loss of market share.
It's not as if there is lack of smaller budget games - they just not popular, and "forceful" methods will not make them popular as someone will always break the rule, produce new AAA and mass market will flock back.
Processes should be streamlined, some creativity should be sacrificed to manageability, some more cost should be outsourced. Wukong and Stellar Blade cost ~50 mil each and both looks very good, so having shiny graphical tech AND reasonable cost is doable.

This obsession with high tech graphics is killing western gaming industry.
I'm glad most Japanese devs stopped this pointless graphic chase.

It's same in the East. Games like RE and FF have top level graphics.

Devs need to back off from making AAA and start going smaller to get the ball rolling.
Games like Wipeout......

Smaller games in presence of world of big shiny games - bigger risks

 

[Bonfires Down]

Sony when they realize they can no longer trick people through massive production values and must start delivering high quality gameplay:

 

[Danjin44]

It's same in the East. Games like RE and FF have top level graphics.

Recent Capcom games they are criticized for graphics not being top level.

Heck even FF like Rebirth people weren't happy with their texture work.

 

[ProtoByte]

So double the price for very little improvements. So, what is the doubling of expenditure going into? Waste?

This is the question to ask. And it won't be answered in the mainstream games press because it justifies a lot of the layoffs and increased automation.

This starts in enthusiast and vocal communities like this one, we need to make it clear we are okay with the focus going more on sustainability of game development (and content, and polish) versus the shiny new graphical tech

Fuck that. We've already got barely any shiny graphics tech. Grafix aren't the problem here. It's, unironically, lazy devs.

SCALE DOWN YOUR GAMES idiots. Nobody needs or wants every game to be 80 goddamn hours

Spider-Man 2 was scaled down to basically being the same length as the first game. Reused all the assets from it and MM, and barely looked any better.

It still cost 3 times the original to make, licensing fees or otherwise.

Tears of The Kingdom took 6 years to make too. Why do you think that is? It isn't because of scale.

What Shuhei isn't saying is that the game developer sphere is bloated and emboldened by 10 years of e-picketing. They have high salaries + perks, no-crunch policies, bigger teams to distribute responsibilities and make up completely wasteful ones like "Accessibility", and a general work needs only to facilitate my "life" attitude. They're older than they ever were and are cruising on seniority. They're not a bunch of dudes in their 20-early 30s hungry to compete.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Decima engine doesn't even do ray tracing.

They are letting art style do the heavy lifting while stuck in outdated rendering techniques.

They need real talented devs create a thoroughly modern engine that can be used across entire company.

Or just switch to UE5.

 

[Felessan]

Recent Capcom games they are criticized for graphics not being top level.

Capcom is better at managing costs, but their game still way into AAA territory.

Heck even FF like Rebirth people weren't happy with their texture work.

It mostly engine problems. Still, amount of money invested in IQ, especially in cutscenes, is enormous in Rebirth.

 

[Super Lemon Drop]

 

[Guerilla Munch]

Meanwhile Nintendo first party titles are moving tens of millions of units apiece with PS3 graphics

 

[sendit]

Sony should probably pull a Nintendo and stretch this gen out to more like 8 years. And the following gen maybe 10 years. People would be more comfortable paying more for a console that would be latest gen for 10 years.

This would have 2 effects

1. It allows those games that are taking a long time to actually hit the hardware they're targeting, avoiding any expensive refactoring or rewrites and

2. When next gen does come, there is an opportunity for it to look like the genuine generational leap people want to justify a new console.

I mean S2 is a massive success so far off the back of making S1 games look and run so much better, but it took a long in the tooth Switch 1 generation to make that dent.

Glad you don't make business decisions at a major corporation.

 

[rofif]

Ps4 was godz

This obsession with high tech graphics is killing western gaming industry.

I'm glad most Japanese devs stopped this pointless graphic chase.

yep. Can you imagine even death stranding 2 is getting some shit for graphics? wtf. Kojima shouldve Worked on the game for 15 years. Not only 6.

 

[rofif]

This console gen needs to be extended. (unpopular take i'm sure).

So far the PS5 has been a console to run PS4 games at a better refresh rate.
Removing the fact that PS games are coming out on PC. I've not actually seen a solid reason to pick up a PS5.
A couple of games here and their but you need a solid stack to show off with.
Obviously this is probably the reason.

Devs need to back off from making AAA and start going smaller to get the ball rolling.
Games like Wipeout......

Running same graphics game at 4k60 vs 1080p30 is a huge difference. And the one not raising any costs.
The truth is that graphics are much different. Much better lods and geometry. Much better lighting.

I would still be fine if we had ps4 graphics. Especially because devs really coded nicely to the metal on that console to achieve these results. But there is 0 reason ps5 would increase dev costs. Is implementing ssd taking months more? Is putting 1440p + upscaling in ini file taking more than just 2 minutes? No.

 

[Pimpbaa]

How come Spider-man 2 cost so much more to make (when so much of the city is reused, as well as gameplay mechanics) when they made Spider-man 1 from scratch for less. This isn't just specs that's the problem when so many of their sequels this gen have been rather lazy in the same way as Spider-man 2 (reusing a lot of shit). And it's not like their games are long as far as open world games go. These devs are bleeding money, and it ain't the PS5's fault. I dunno what it is exactly, covid, the economy, trump, tariffs, underwear gnomes, I dunno, but they are doing something very wrong. I mean you expect some more grunt work making new textures and models for the increased graphic fidelity of the ps5, but that causing the massive increase in costs? I don't buy it (probably be handing that shit over to AI to do in the future).

 

[Thebonehead]

Larger dev teams couple with longer development times is the major factor.

If we take the insomniac leak as an example.....

Just for the core staff without including outsourcing is400 developers averaging around $110k/year over 4 years = $176 million in salary costs alone, before bonuses, or benefits.

All those set pieces, just like films take time and plenty of money to develop.

 

[rofif]

Sounds like a PS3 game.

God we could only hope.
8-15h long not open world games are infinitely more replayable than open world bloat. I will replay souls. I ain't touching g Elden ring. And that's better game than most any open world

 

[yogaflame]

The trash Concord failure really deeply affected PS game development. If that did not happen Im sure its a different story.

 

[AGRacing]

You know what's increasing the per game cost of development at Sony? Getting deep into development of a bunch of shit games that nobody wanted or asked for and then being forced to throw them in the garbage right before (or even after!) they're released.

 

[wolffy66]

We noticed. At least it didn't stop them from pretending we all desperately needed one

 

[Cakeboxer]

Labor costs have gone up, and producing flashy cinematics takes a large team and time. Dei consultation isn't cheap either.

 

[Haint]

The problem was/is less the PS5 generational shift and more the world wide multi-deca-trillion dollar money printers inducing extreme Covidflation coupled with their entire teams fake working from home for half a decade, now doing 10% of their previous work for a 50%+ pay bump. Lets not pretend a few extra terraflops and marginally improved assets often requiring 800% side by side zooms to tell apart somehow more than doubled budgets.

 

[Auto_aim1]

Then just make PS3/PS4 quality games running at 1080p and 60fps. Imagine all the cool stuff devs can do with so much processing power for other things.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Why though? how does it double if the games are basically the same

Turns out all the DEI consultants and employees who contribute nothing but get paid a lot to make games worse actually cost a lot of money?

 

[Aces High]

Instead of producing one single 60 hour long game that sells for $70, split it into three 20 hour long episodes and sell them for $40 each.

Also, fire the entire microtransaction dev team to save money.

- Lower barrier of entry for players
- Reduced risk to burn money compared to a full scale game
- $120 vs $70
- No microtransactions = happy customers
- Softer deadlines

 

[Icymanipulator]

They should have just kept things around PS4 level and focused on 60 FPS and good games/mechanics

 

[DenchDeckard]

Im glad somebody said it and no better than Shu.

Gamepass gets so much hate, Sony must be sat happy that the light isn't being shined on them.

They are just as guilty as driving the industry to where isn't is today.

When they were losing, they invested into an unsustainable business model. Xbox tried gamepass but Sony made their cross media business relationships work by utilising insane motion capture and creating the modern day cinematic game. Spending millions upon millions to create fancy cut scenes with fully motion captured actors.

It took years for the industry to catch up and Sony could provide content no one else could, at that level. It was simply too expensive but companies like Naughty dog were given an open check book to blow us away with titles like uncharted 4 and Last of us 2....

But the money dried up and sales reduced from previous titles while budgets sky rocketed and now here we are. In a completely unsustainable market.

Sony is just as much to blame as gamepass and no one could convince me otherwise.

Gamepass will need to die to revert the attention to an equally as dangerous culprit. The only issue now, we won't get games like last of us 2 ever again.

 

[hemo memo]

But Cerny talk though?

 

[DenchDeckard]

So it's now Playstation's fault?!

Equally with others. Absolutely, Yes. They single handedly drove the industry to where it is.

All those years of fanboys complaining that other games dont look like Sonys first party. No one can compare etc.

Exactly right, they couldnt compare because Sony was throwing unattainable funds and resources into their games that others couldnt follow and it negatively affected games and studios from third parties to other first party studios.

Simply, not sustainable and here we are.

 

[DenchDeckard]

This obsession with high tech graphics is killing western gaming industry.

I'm glad most Japanese devs stopped this pointless graphic chase.

And who created this obsession? Sony did. With their fans.

Happy to discuss with anyone if they feel differently, but the book is absolutely dropping at Sonys feet for this fuck up.

 

[Danjin44]

And who created this obsession? Sony did. With their fans.

Happy to discuss with anyone if they feel differently, but the book is absolutely dropping at Sonys feet for this fuck up.

Not just Sony but also most AAA western devs did….they are the one mostly pushing for hyper realistic graphics.

 

[ProtoByte]

Mispost.