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FreakyZoid posted:"A part of the market I don't operate in is doomed" - Game Developers, forever. If I could pay  to make this a perpetual thread title, I would. 
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Apr 11, 2013 07:32
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Squeenix's estimates being off is also possiblye the result of a Japanese publisher relatively new to global markets. It sounded like they were shooting for CoD numbers for an action adventure title, and the only way that makes sense is if they're viewing it through the lens of a Japanese market where action adventure games are much more popular than first person shooters.
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Apr 11, 2013 07:35
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Resident Evil 6 crossed 6 million units (selling more in like a month than RE5 sold in it's entire lifetime) and was still considered a disappointment.
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Apr 11, 2013 07:49
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Paniolo posted:Squeenix's estimates being off is also possiblye the result of a Japanese publisher relatively new to global markets. It sounded like they were shooting for CoD numbers for an action adventure title, and the only way that makes sense is if they're viewing it through the lens of a Japanese market where action adventure games are much more popular than first person shooters. Square has a very strong western presence these days, both in Montreal and London (formerly Eidos) so I don't think you can chalk it up to that. They made a calculated bet on hitting a Metacritic target and it paying off. They're not bombing, but the reason this comes up is they're basically saying that their bet to hit a quality bar and be rewarded fiscally didn't pay off like expected. You also need to factor in that they're basically rebooting an MMO right now (FF14) which can't be cheap, so missing targets is harder to absorb.. DancingMachine posted:3.6 million units is almost certainly profitable for Tomb Raider (unless their budget was comically huge and they took 5 years to make it... maybe they did, actually), but it's not SO profitable that it keeps the company afloat. And yeah, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman probably did lose money. Assume the marketing spend for a game of this scope is in the tens of millions and $75 million suddenly isn't so crazy.
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Apr 11, 2013 08:21
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Off topic derail. Flexi-time fukken owns.  /derail.
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Apr 11, 2013 09:27
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Am I crazy for wanting to create a video game commune where we just make the games we want to make? You folks can live on Tesco value food right?
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Apr 11, 2013 13:33
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Am I crazy for wanting to create a video game commune where we just make the games we want to make? You folks can live on Tesco value food right? You mean like this? http://lagamespace.org/alpha/
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Apr 11, 2013 13:39
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Am I crazy for wanting to create a video game commune where we just make the games we want to make? You folks can live on Tesco value food right? 
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Apr 11, 2013 14:07
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Sigma-X posted:The big issue with publicly traded companies is that you need to play the stock market game of having great years, not great products. Square's next year is going to look beautiful, as they're going to have 3+million units of Tomb Raider sold without paying any costs for those, as those have been assigned to the previous year. But this year looks like a bath, because they aren't posting a ROI on the Tomb Raider costs because they only have 2 weeks of sales. Couldn't they just play the EA game of, "Well it shipped in this quarter/year so revenue going out 6 months from it will be attributed to that quarter/year."?
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Apr 11, 2013 14:29
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FreakyZoid posted:If people will stop buying AAA because the graphics stop being so good then the $15 indie game market is hosed. ... and I'll trade you pithy one liner for pithy one liner: "The market that I work in is fine. There is nothing wrong. <adjusts blinders>". Though me being indie right this second doesn't mean I'll stay out of AAA forever, mind. Could well be it'll be fine, too. Hollywood's budgets certainly keep going up, and somehow they keep finding new ways to manage it - maybe IAP integration into next gen consoles will turn out to be our market analog to DVD sales, or whatever. I just hope it doesn't erode game value further. That might gently caress the $15 market, and leave only a shambling mass of casual F2P AAA in its wake... though the idea seems overly post-apocalyptic. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 15:10
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The rumored Bioshock: Infinite numbers are ... yeah. 100MM dev budget + 100MM marketing.
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Apr 11, 2013 15:17
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Aliginge posted:Can you direct me to this? I'd be interested in supporting it. Sure thing. The group is located here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6628203394/ (I think that link'll work) However, it's a closed group and requires people be added to it manually. You can either request an invite from Brian Rubin or just send me a ping and I think I can invite you :P
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Apr 11, 2013 15:28
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Shalinor posted:The set of gamers that buy $60 games generally includes those that buy $15 games, but the reverse is not true. (Also I work in mobile, not AAA)
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Apr 11, 2013 15:34
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FreakyZoid posted:Can you source this? Wondering if it's industry-wide or pc/console-specific. For the past generation, console sales numbers have grown largely through the increasing simplification and streamlining of games in order to win an increasingly casual market. After they're won over, though, I don't have the data for their buying habits - my understanding is that they tend to play a small stable of games and their sequels, with little engagement beyond that. Basically - it's the observation that Halo / GTA / Mass Effect-focused players probably aren't touching XBLA/PSN, breakthrough videos involving famous rappers notwithstanding. ... also, oh, apologies - I kept on picturing you making Metroid (I think?) games, but I suppose you moved on from that years ago. I guess some people probably still picture me making LEGO games 
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 15:37
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Sigma-X posted:A friend of a friend told me that the real issue is that while they're easily going to hit their 5-6 million, and hit a reasonable ROI, Square is disappointed because their three pillars for the year were Sleeping Dogs, Hitman, and Tomb Raider, and one of those went budget quickly (Sleeping Dogs), one of those was a franchise nobody has given a poo poo about for a long time (Hitman), and the other one is doing amazing but only had two weeks of sales for the fiscal year, meaning it can't make up for the loss on Hitman.
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Apr 11, 2013 15:42
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devilmouse posted:The rumored Bioshock: Infinite numbers are ... yeah. 100MM dev budget + 100MM marketing.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:01
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devilmouse posted:You mean like this? http://lagamespace.org/alpha/ Yeah, but better because it's Scottish. devilmouse posted:The rumored Bioshock: Infinite numbers are ... yeah. 100MM dev budget + 100MM marketing. Levine immediately called bullshit on these figures. They're analyst assumptions as per usual.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:15
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Am I crazy for wanting to create a video game commune where we just make the games we want to make? You folks can live on Tesco value food right? Man, it's not a real commune unless we grow our own food and keep animals. Which I would totally be down with.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:51
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I don't trust QA around livestock.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:57
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I don't trust QA around livestock. PRJ_COMMUNE-183245: Cow cannot right itself after being tipped 5/5 100% repro
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Apr 11, 2013 17:05
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I'm more concerned about the implied bestiality. THAT'S RIGHT QA! YOU ARE ALL DOG FUCKERS. No exception.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:10
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I don't trust QA around livestock. Monster w21 Faces posted:I'm more concerned about the implied bestiality. 
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 17:10
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Expected: Cow to not be a horribly designed piece of poo poo
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Apr 11, 2013 17:13
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I'm more concerned about the implied bestiality. Hey! I take offen...ah goddamn it.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:19
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FreakyZoid posted:Can you source this? Wondering if it's industry-wide or pc/console-specific. I can source this and it is true. Source: I sell both types of games and my job is to use more data to make business decisions.
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Apr 11, 2013 18:45
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Levine immediately called bullshit on these figures. They're analyst assumptions as per usual. Yeah $100 million seems way too high even for Bioshock. It's not that games can't have $100 million budgets (though I can only think of one game that did), it's that $100 million is way higher than any other game in the same genre with a comparable level of polish made by a team of a comparable size. Even the Call of Duty games, which had multiple studios working on then, only had budgets in the $50 millions. Sure Irrational had a long development cycle and discarded a lot of stuff, but I have trouble believing that Bioshock is basically the most expensive game ever made (other than GTA4). VVV You're right. I wasn't thinking about MMOs. VVV emoticon fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 20:16
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You're forgetting SWTOR  I do agree that figure seems high for a game that was pretty limited in scope.
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Apr 11, 2013 20:17
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It's not THAT out of band. It's been 5 or 6 years since Bioshock 1, which was the last game Irrational/2K released. I don't know the studio's headcount, but if you assume it probably fluctuated between 50 and 150, with an average salary of 60k (which pulls up to 80-90k once you account for costs for taxes, insurance, etc). You're looking at, for example: 5.5 years * 85k/employee * 100 employees and you're up to almost 50M in head count alone. Oof. I know MMOs love their 100MM budgets!
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Apr 11, 2013 21:09
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It's surprising to me that WOW-style MMOs are still being made, frankly.
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Apr 11, 2013 21:20
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mutata posted:It's surprising to me that WOW-style MMOs are still being made, frankly. Its the same reason companies try to replicate CoD. They see the dollars and don't think of anything else. The high risk / high reward stuff is seriously damaging the AAA market.
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Apr 11, 2013 21:23
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Investors aren't any better... Trion raised $185MM on an amazing story. I shudder to think of building anything that big ever again.
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Apr 11, 2013 21:26
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Sigma-X posted:A friend of a friend told me that the real issue is that while they're easily going to hit their 5-6 million, and hit a reasonable ROI, Square is disappointed because their three pillars for the year were Sleeping Dogs, Hitman, and Tomb Raider, and one of those went budget quickly (Sleeping Dogs), one of those was a franchise nobody has given a poo poo about for a long time (Hitman), and the other one is doing amazing but only had two weeks of sales for the fiscal year, meaning it can't make up for the loss on Hitman. Next year will look better - but not mainly due to the lack of big expenses in the year compared with this - the income doesn't look likely to be deferred if you look at the released accounts. The loss wasn't that huge in the grand scheme (the years of FF and DQ boom sales have left SE as able to absorb the numbers easily) but the reorganisation for trying to make the future have no losses is the big expense this year. I'd like to comment more but am pretty directly affected by the changes, working as I do in an Eidos company, so I can't speculate and only use the publicaly available data in that last statements. What I can say, however, is that the company does seem to be trying to deal with the problem areas rather than laying the blame in places where people had little to no no control. The atmosphere is as a result pretty decent despite the data being released being a bit doom and gloom. (edited to make sense of a sentence I hacked apart to make it totally respecting every possible thing I shouldn't say and made incomprehensible as a result) 19orFewer fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 21:43
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Am I crazy for wanting to create a video game commune where we just make the games we want to make? You folks can live on Tesco value food right? When I was in college, I thought the coolest thing would be to get a loft near our college and have some game development commune with my friends. Now that I'm approaching 30, it has changed to "Long Island Beach House" rather than a loft. Those $100 million estimates seem high, but I could easily see a team of their size having a burn rate of over $1m/month, with 60 months of dev time, plus outsource assets like VO, Mocap, etc. I doubt their ad budget was $100 million, either, but I could see 75/75 being very likely. I'm highly suspect of call of duty being a $50m game, too.
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Apr 11, 2013 21:43
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Its the same reason companies try to replicate CoD. They see the dollars and don't think of anything else. The high risk / high reward stuff is seriously damaging the AAA market. That mentality isn't exclusive to AAA. Of course, the difference is that casual games are much cheaper to produce, and thus, carry lower monetary risk.
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Apr 11, 2013 21:57
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Interviewed at Pocket Gems this week for a position that was probably a little over my head. Found out I didn't get it this afternoon. Welp! As much as I love being a designer, I do get more and more tired of how difficult it is to get jobs. I get more recruiters incorrectly mailing me about engineering jobs than I care to think about. Clearly I need to learn obj-c.
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Apr 12, 2013 02:43
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The communal indie game thing is actually a "thing" right now - http://indiegamehouse.com/. It's not even the only one. I too am thinking more of a beach house lately. It's a cool thing to do if you've never tried a communal house, though.
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Apr 12, 2013 03:25
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Iron Leg posted:Interviewed at Pocket Gems this week for a position that was probably a little over my head. Found out I didn't get it this afternoon. Welp! Are you in the San Francisco area? We're looking for lead and associate designers at our studio! We're hosting some kind of beer and pizza board game night next Wednesday as a booze and schmooze thing -- if anyone is interested I can forward the eVite!
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Apr 12, 2013 04:45
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devilmouse posted:The rumored Bioshock: Infinite numbers are ... yeah. 100MM dev budget + 100MM marketing. I wonder how the length of all the marketing videos they've produced compares to the length of the actual game. On the topic of gaming communes, how about a development co-op? And a beach house? With the oceans rising and all? Maybe in South Carolina. At least there no one is allowed to project whether or not your property will be underwater.
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Apr 12, 2013 05:14
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RoboCicero posted:Are you in the San Francisco area? We're looking for lead and associate designers at our studio! We're hosting some kind of beer and pizza board game night next Wednesday as a booze and schmooze thing -- if anyone is interested I can forward the eVite! Yeah I live in the city. That sounds fun, I'd love to come hang out. I was looking those positions earlier today, but I'm a good bit overqualified for an associate, and hard to say if they'd want me as a lead. PM me the eVite!
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Apr 12, 2013 05:28
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Well, finally landed a supervisory position after too drat long in entry level. Permanent job, salary, benefits, all that grown-up stuff!  There's also the possibility they'll be asking me for recommendations for entry level stuff, so if that happens I'll try and hook up a student/just-graduated goon or two looking for that elusive first experience. 
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Apr 12, 2013 06:06
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