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[LectureMaster]

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Dev Says Big Budget Games Are Failing in Part Because Teams Are Over-Scoping Their Projects - IGN

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 dev Tim Willits explains why the game was able to achieve massive success when so many big budget games have failed lately.

www.ign.com

A lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling nearly as well as expected.

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Willits has his own theory on what’s happening. Speaking to IGN, Willits said that the problem isn’t necessarily that triple-A games take too long to develop and thus launch into already abandoned genres. Rather, Willits believes, triple-A developers are tending to “over-scope” their games, which in turn means they fail to do any one thing brilliantly.

For Space Marine 2, Willits explained, Saber made sure to nail the core combat and kept a handle on the scope of the game, so much so that some have praised it for rekindling memories of the Xbox 360 era of action games.

“It is not necessarily the genre that has moved on, because great games will always do well,” Willits insisted. “One of the things that we try to do at Saber, and this is part of my job as creative officer of all the teams, we have a core belief that what you do every second and what happens when you push these buttons and that core gameplay loop is so critical. So we focus on the moment-to-moment interaction in the gameplay and the feeling you have.

“And then we adhere to our core pillars, like be the ultimate Space Marine, melee, ranged, swarms, that's it. And a lot of teams throughout development will over-scope games. They look at some other game that just came out and say, ‘oh, we got to do that, let's add this, we got to do this.’ And they lose focus on the core, what actually makes the game fun.

“We are not in Space Marine 2 doing things that… well, the swarms are new technology, but there isn't some revolutionary new gameplay mechanic that no one's ever seen before. There are gameplay mechanics that people are familiar with, but we do it really, really well. And we execute really, really well.”

What business are we in where you fail if you sell less than five million?

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“We don't need to sell four million units to make it [Space Marine 2] a success,” Willits said. “There are many games, sadly, especially out of North American developers, where if you do not sell five million copies you are a failure. I mean, what business are we in where you fail if you sell less than five million?”


He continued: “There are examples like that, and we do not want to be that business. We want to be a developer that focuses on the core experience, what makes the games actually fun, and then do it really well and then make it affordably.

“Look at SnowRunner! Dude, SnowRunner is literally driving trucks through mud. That's it, I'm done. I just described the game. 15 million people played it because the experience is perfect. Look at World War Z. Like, come on, we're not going to get an Academy Award for that game, but 25 million people have played it because it's just this perfectness, and that's what we do well.”

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[ByWatterson]

Yup.

Feature creep makes no sense for third party devs and publishers. Let the first parties make $200 million epics to push their platform.

Everyone else should just worry about doing a few things well.

 

[FunkMiller]

This is a smart man. He should be listened to.

But then he made a good game that appealed to dudes, so I doubt he will be.

 

[firegamer273]

no lies detected in that statement .

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

He's right, and he gets to talk shit because he just demonstrated how to do it properly.

 

[genesisblock]

Shame that his words will fall to deaf ears to appeal to the "suits". It's like the game industry loves shooting themselves in the foot all in the name of "capitalism". Remember guys, it's not about the money you make, but the feeling that you can make money of out it.

 

[Shits_McGiggles]

Yup.

Feature creep makes no sense for third party devs and publishers. Let the first parties make $200 million epics to push their platform.

Everyone else should just worry about doing a few things well.

What feature creep? None of the games that have these ridiculously large budgets bother doing anything that warrants those budgets. Even the “$200 million epics” are providing basic-bitch gameplay with maybe better than average graphics at best, unremarkable at worst.

 

[hinch7]

Yep gameplay/core game mechanics comes first. The rest will fall into place. Find that a lot of games put too much focus on presentation and adding more (scope creep) than the actual thing that matters. Nintendo+Capcom are a prime examples of how to run successful video games companies and sustainably as well. Release the game in a timely manner and make it fun. Studio's can also be way more creative with less millions on the line with smaller budgets too.

Hopefully with games like Astrobot (and its success), Sony can see the value in making smaller games and not just multi 100's of millions of dollars cinematic experiences that take 5+ years to make.

 

[cormack12]

What feature creep? None of the games that have these ridiculously large budgets bother doing anything that warrants those budgets. Even the “$200 million epics” are providing basic-bitch gameplay with maybe better than average graphics at best, unremarkable at worst.

Probably means stuff like how Valhalla introduced settlement management in AC and they look to have doubled down on it in Shadows. Star Citizen is probably the best example tbh. Could also include God of War 2018 with the pretty meaningless RPG stat elements. No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 were also likely to be affected by it.

It might also mean trying to include RTGI or similar technology that they weren't banking on at first, swapping out/upgrading engine midway through a project etc.

 

[LectureMaster]

Very based guy, and knows what players actually enjoy.

Take far cry 6 as an example, the game slaps in shooting, stealth, skill trees, gun customization, cloths and equipment, RPG elements, base building, vehicle combat, rooster minigame, recruiting and dispatching operations, and so on as if Ubi were worrying players couldn't get enough contents. All it ended up was a bloated mediocrity.

Then think about Elden Ring, even though it is the hugest jump for From's on its beloved genre, the game is really (still) only doing two things: exploration and combat, and it does those two to the finest, and therefore it is the game of the year.

 

[ahtlas7]

I suspect directors who can make brilliance out of over-scoped games are hard to come by, like catching lightning in a bottle.

 

[Hypereides]

This guy needs to be given a megaphone to broadcast this to the rest of the game developers/publishers.

Its absolutely dire those higher budget games can't thrive unless they sell 10 million or so. That's a recipe for self-sabotaging early and promising ideas/IPs that got potential for growth.

 

[Sept Terrion Of Nothing]

That man has a good head on his shoulders. But I think the main problem for companies that they "always" want growth, "always" want to earn/gain more. More and more. Always.

From my childhood I couldn't understand this at all. Maybe it is about capitalism I don't know, but again I don't understand this "more and more" situation. We are living in a finite world with finite people and finite resources. How are these people project that their game will always sell more and more. It maybe possible from time to time but it will not be possible all the time. Especially with this DEI shit stuff.

And this "Need MOAAAAAR selling" policy always puts people (game developers) in stressful situations. How will these stressful environments yield good games? I hate stressful work places. I'm trying to be emphatatic and I cannot fathom how they can produce something good from these kind of work environment.

And if we return to what this dude said, he and his company seem really solved the puzzle for making games. Not putting themselves unnecessary stress, not putting themselves in "GIVE ME MOAAAAR" situation. Perfect.

 

[Sentenza]

Questionable.
I'd argue that on the other hand a lot are failing because things are stagnating way too much.

How long ago it was since some big "triple A" game genuinely introduced some new tech and some "never seen before" mechanics to its formula?
A lot of the major releases these days look and feel like minor variations of the same game. If you are lucky you are just getting a different coat of paint, when even that.

I've also ZERO nostalgia foe the "360/pS3 era" of games and I remember most of them as something far from ideal. I don't miss the over-use of scripted scenes and cinematic, the corridor level design and the abuse of quick time events, for instance.
I liked Space Marine 2 a lot (hell, I probably already spent more hours on it than most of the people in this thread so far): it looks great, it's fun and the setting is my jam... But in a vacuum it's FAR from my ideal of what a game could be and I wouldn't really want any upcoming game to be shaped around its model.

 

[cormack12]

That man has a good head on his shoulders. But I think the main problem for companies that they "always" want growth, "always" want to earn/gain more. More and more. Always.

From my childhood I couldn't understand this at all. Maybe it is about capitalism I don't know, but again I don't understand this "more and more" situation. We are living in a finite world with finite people and finite resources. How are these people project that their game will always sell more and more. It maybe possible from time to time but it will not be possible all the time. Especially with this DEI shit stuff.

And this "Need MOAAAAAR selling" policy always puts people (game developers) in stressful situations. How will these stressful environments yield good games? I hate stressful work places. I'm trying to be emphatatic and I cannot fathom how they can produce something good from these kind of work environment.

And if we return to what this dude said, he and his company seem really solved the puzzle for making games. Not putting themselves unnecessary stress, not putting themselves in "GIVE ME MOAAAAR" situation. Perfect.

Basically you try to always bring in more customers per year than last. That can be because of population growth (e.g. the same reason why governments can say we spent a record high this year on healthcare. Well they had record revenue and may only have spent .1% extra), maybe they have more products for existing customers or they have a product that will appeal to a previously non existing cohort of customers (e.g. GoW 2018) and many other subtle reasons.

The concept isn't particularly bad if you take the ebb and flow but right now they are cannibalising their shared player bases and also driving away their core audiences with poor changes. Only the really big, seminal franchises will be left standing.

Essentially they are trying to make their games do everything, so it appeals to everyone. They are pushing DEI to bring in supposed cohorts of customers who don't play video games because they don't see representation. And the reality is in most cases this is turning away more of their existing players than bringing new ones in.

Now this may he a forecasted loss for 5 years or maybe longer with real gains coming much further in the future. Age out the dinosaurs (us)

 

[JimmyRustler]

I want more 8-10 hour games. I love replaying games and am far more likely to do so when they are shorter. Rather play one game twice in 20 hours then once in 20 hours.

The old models needs to make a comeback. Shorter dev cycles and less risk for devs, more games for us. Everyone wins.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

A lot of recent very expensive bombs did not seem to have an enormous list of features at launch, but perhaps those features were developed and subsequently axed before release, waisting time and driving up the cost of development.

I think the main takeaway from here is to have a very clear and focused vision of what you're trying to make, in order to avoid such waist.

 

[fatmarco]

Am I the only one laughing that he called Tim Willits simply a "space marine 2 dev" lol?

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Am I the only one laughing that he called Tim Willits simply a "space marine 2 dev" lol?

Right? At first I figured it must be a different guy, but nope

 

[ungalo]

On one hand he's right, but current gaming trend for solo games is still to make something big and not focused. That's what modern gamers want in the majority, let's not lie to ourselves. Exploration combat RPG stealth, the checkboxes type of game-design, the uniformization of genres, it's something that's not going away in the next 10 years i believe.

They need to reach a high bar to be profitable, that seems fine for the publishers given they have the potential to reach 10 millions of copies. We see this with Elden Ring, God of War, Assassin's Creed, Baldur's Gate...

While the other publisher that gave up went for live service games.

That's the current state of the market, and although we've seen signs that it could change, it's still up to the players to come back to a more traditional approach. Righ now it's still far away.

 

[Embearded]

The "number of players played X game" doesn't tell me much.
How many actually bought it or bought the DLCs if it was given through GP/Plus?