[eastmen]

One Area I haven't seen discussed. Calander year. WTF devs there is more than just the holiday period to release games. I think the insistance of releasing so many huge games all at once is hurting the industry. COD can sell just as well in June as it can in Nov now , same with gears and halo and other hits. They need to clear out the major sellers from the holiday period and give life to deader time frames and save the holiday period for newer franchises and new Ips

[AmFreak]

Originally Posted by ERP

However the more interesting note is how few games dominate the bulk of the market, and his is where my figures are likely wrong
In the last generation the top 20 games accounted for 40% of the market, in this generation it's more like 80%.
Now I wasn't paying attention when this was presented, so it could have been franchises, and might not have been 20, but the point was that the market is more and more hit driven.
As a publisher you're making a play for that small number of games at the top, or you're fighting over 20% of the market...

That's the scary thing. Take the prime example CoD. Black Ops (the one released at end of 2010) sold over 25 million. That would probably be more than all other fps in that year combined, if both Halo and Battlefield hadn't come out in that same year.
If we look at the fps (tps) genre, it's something like this:
25-30 million: Modern Warfare
>10 million: Halo, Battlefield (with 3 new in that group)
5-10 million: Gears of War
that's it.

So we have one series that is far, far above everything else. Then the 2 next games that together don't reach the first one and one lonely rider sitting in the 5-10 million category. I can't really think of any other fps that reached close to 5 million. MoH, Killzone 3, Dead Space, Resistence 3, Homefront, Golden Eye, Crysis 2, Rage are all far from the 5 million mark (afaik).
Seems fucked up.

[ERP]

Actually I checked my numbers and they are off, but the sentiment still stands.
it was Top 20 titles from ~35% of the market to Top 20 titles approximately 50%.

Yep COD sold in astonishing quantities

[liolio]

I don't think costs are to kill the game industry.
It's more about finding the good channel / evolving the existing channels be it traditional consoles, facebook iOS/Android/win8.

An interesting article from gamasutra about about how studio are experimenting with new business models:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...a_how_big_.php

[Sonic]

Originally Posted by eastmen

One Area I haven't seen discussed. Calander year. WTF devs there is more than just the holiday period to release games. I think the insistance of releasing so many huge games all at once is hurting the industry. COD can sell just as well in June as it can in Nov now , same with gears and halo and other hits. They need to clear out the major sellers from the holiday period and give life to deader time frames and save the holiday period for newer franchises and new Ips

Nope, just not true. There are these things called seasons that are physical reality. These seasons that physically alter the weather around us does influence the market whether you choose to deny it or not. Christmas and the holiday season happen to occur at a rather good time of year to be shopping for things to do while being stuck inside for months because it is really cold outside. Holiday season is the primary factor here, but don't think for a minute that the actual time of year in relation to the weather has no effect. There's a reason why summer time has had slow sales of games in the past, and that is because there is more stuff to do outside to spend money on. I don't know anyone going to Six Flags whatever, I guess Great Adventure for you, in the winter, but I do know a bunch of people playing their games they bought during the holiday season.

Though I'm not entirely against the idea of big selling games being released at various times of the year. Blizz did it with Diablo 3. But yeah, June might be one of the least optimal times to release a game, especially a big one like CoD. Imagine if it only sold 15 million instead of 25 miillion just because it was released in June, while still making a shit ton of money that is a lot of lost sales. Meh.

[Platon]

Why would the costs continue to rise though? How much of these rising costs are a lot of "fluff", like hiring well known Hollywood actors for acting/voice acting (many times I feel like no name actors are better) or other such "I-want-to-be-a-movie-too" extravaganzas that we see so many games trying now. At one point the rising costs would be because of the added time it takes to make hi res models, textures, larger worlds and what not, at least that what "they" said. However, this whole gen and we had hires modelling and what not and on PCs for longer than that. So I don't get it that game creation need to get so much more expensive every new gen anymore...

[Squilliam]

Is there any significant asset sharing/reuse between games and even between different studios?

[ERP]

Originally Posted by Squilliam

Is there any significant asset sharing/reuse between games and even between different studios?

Not that I've ever seen outside of sequels, but even with realistic art styles I wonder how much you could really use. A lot of the style is usually the relative distribution of polygons, and I think that would stick out if you put two disparate models next to each other.

There is also technical reason for it, most game models would look hokey in a different lighting environment, most lighting models in current games are not energy preserving and artists tend to adjust material parameters to make them look good where they are in a scene rather than addressing underlying material or lighting deficiencies.
Often they look off even if you just moven them inside a level.

Most people I talk to see a moderate cost rise for next gen, but nothing dramatic, but that's as much about how much you can afford to spend as anything else.

[Scott_Arm]

Originally Posted by ERP

...
Most people I talk to see a moderate cost rise for next gen, but nothing dramatic, but that's as much about how much you can afford to spend as anything else.

Would it be fair to say that the top end cost may not go up too much, but the bottom end may increase more significantly? What I mean is that the biggest titles might not be impacted too much, but the small titles might see their budgets increase dramatically to stay in line with "next-gen" expectations.

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't see why that'd happen. As digital distribution is well established, developers can target any development budget they want, from a $10,000 two-man effort (or even far cheaper, depending on what options exist next gen such as PSMobile games or XNA, but I think you'd be looking at about that for the cheapest this gen when you need to buy an SDK and pay the bills during development) to a crazy $100 million extravaganza. Devs can take current games and they'll be next-gen enough just with a hgih quality lighting solution, high framerate and IQ, in the same way 2D games are 'next-gen' this gen thanks to being HD. No-one's going to be expecting Crysis/Battlefield graphics from a $100,000 three-man game selling for $10 a pop online.

[ERP]

I think the same marginal increases are likely across the board, all budgets are at some level dictated by potential sales.

[Rodéric]

The article is nicely ignoring Indies... who are our only hope.

[tuna]

Originally Posted by Rodéric

The article is nicely ignoring Indies... who are our only hope.

Hope for what?

[Rodéric]

Originally Posted by tuna

Hope for what?

Diversity and fun games obviously ;p

[tuna]

Originally Posted by Rodéric

Diversity and fun games obviously ;p

I think we have shitloads of diversity on the different gaming platforms (not just consoles). Fun on the other hand is very personal. I think playing Sakura Taisen 3 (サクラ大戦3) is shitloads of fun, for others that would be boring as hell.

[Prophecy2k]

Originally Posted by tuna

I think we have shitloads of diversity on the different gaming platforms (not just consoles). Fun on the other hand is very personal. I think playing Sakura Taisen 3 (サクラ大戦3) is shitloads of fun, for others that would be boring as hell.

Amen to that brother

[Rodéric]

...
Dunno why I thought making a Star Wars reference and using a smiley would be enough for people to get I was half joking
...

[ban25]

Originally Posted by Platon

Why would the costs continue to rise though? How much of these rising costs are a lot of "fluff", like hiring well known Hollywood actors for acting/voice acting (many times I feel like no name actors are better) or other such "I-want-to-be-a-movie-too" extravaganzas that we see so many games trying now. At one point the rising costs would be because of the added time it takes to make hi res models, textures, larger worlds and what not, at least that what "they" said. However, this whole gen and we had hires modelling and what not and on PCs for longer than that. So I don't get it that game creation need to get so much more expensive every new gen anymore...

Those are ancillary costs. The bulk of the cost to publish a game is in the salaries for the team (over the time required to develop the title), followed by marketing.

[Bigduo209]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/23/ub...-new-consoles/

I wonder how many people actually believe that current-gen consoles stifle the creation of new IPs?

Don't get me wrong, I can see how it can limit new (and old) IPs that are on the technically ambitious side. However I think the lack of new IPs in general is a product of existing expectations publishers have conditioned a lot of consumers into, and not a lot to do with the lack of a new console generation.