KZ2 and game budgeting in general *spin-off

[obonicus]

My point exactly - if it would have made a lot of money compared to the investment, then Sony would certainly try to capitalize on its success.

But now we're talking about a lot of money made? I thought the question was whether they made money, period. That's my point. I don't think it made them crazy amounts of money. Was it profitable? At 1 million copies, I suspect it was, yes. Profitable enough that the IP must be kept alive no matter what? Probably not -- Sony has no lack of IP. If we're using Gears of War as a measure for success, then almost every single HD title fails.

In contrast, look at Uncharted. It also supposedly had a budget of 20 million. It also sold over a million. But we have a sequel lined up for that game. We also have claims from Naughty Dog that Uncharted was, indeed, profitable. They could be lying, naturally. But my point is these 'a game must sell x many copies to succeed' is usually based on huge generalizations and a lot of inaccurate guesswork.

 

[patsu]

Very true. Using nao32 may save a bit on R&D effort, will almost certainly guarantee better visual quality - but the code has to be written anyway, so almost the same amount of money has to be spent. From a fiscal point of view this does not add up to much, even if better percieved image quality can lead to better sales.

... assuming that the alternate path is not more time consuming (or resource intensive) to implement... to overcome excessive bandwidth consumption for example.

Sure, it happens. I've lifted algorithms off the 'net whcih has saved me writing my own. But what dollar figure can be placed on these savings? In the context of multi-million dollar game developments, what is the payback for Sony and developers from Edge etc., principly in regard to what they've got out of KZ2 or other first party games rather than specific developer-tools projects.

Ask Codemaster. They used Edge for GRiD. It's project by project. I assume they made their decision based on real merits. Conversely, KZ2 uses Edge too. As for specific contributions from KZ2, it'd be hard to know since Insomniac, NaughtyDog, NinjaTheory, ... all chipped in in one way or another.

Tech sharing is the cornerstone of today's technology world. The individual project returns only speaks of a limited view. The sharing of info, design and implementation in general help to advance sciences/ideas and minimizes uncertainty, insecurity, pitfall and overhead. PS3 prototypes can be written faster too (to help initiate new businesses/projects). It may also be slightly easier to train staff in PS3 programming in specific areas. People are free to attach their own fiscal values to all these items because it's very specific to their environment and needs. I can't assign the ROI for them. This is mainly because it depends on the developers themselves (How much they internalize the tech, how willing/eager they adopt the changes, how well they execute their plans).

All I can say is there are people who benefited. Those who could not probably have their own reasons, but they don't take away what tech sharing has achieved for other devs.

 

[scificube]

I am perplexed as to why anyone would expect KZ2's tech to propagate through the entire development community in a matter of *weeks*? No tech or concept has done that before and no tech or concept ever will.

It is it also bewildering how KZ2 tech built specifically for the game *should* be expected to be doled out as "turn key" solutions for developers. GG nor Sony ever intended to create a middle-ware package with KZ2 so heaping criticism upon them for not doing so is not fair.

Still, its just plain illogical to conclude that the lessons learned and technology produced during KZ2's development won't benefit 1) Sony 1st party 2) Every other PS3 developer. (many first parties provided GG asistance in making KZ2 in the first place)

Unless you are unable to parse documentation and source code that is available *now* with more coming in the future KZ2 "know-how" will benefit you if you develop for PS3. Solutions and *examples* are both beneficial not just one or the other.

If turn-key solutions are somehow only that which deserves respect then turn to the people who offer them ...EPIC, ID, CRYTEK, etc.

Consequently, those crazy folks at Crtek have found merit in adopting deferred rendering...their approach works on both X360/PS3...and anyone will be able to license the engine should they desire. Crytek has some belief in the concept. Imagine that.

Anyhow, if turn key solutions were able to fix everyone's problems then everyone would be using them...instead of rolling their own solutions as the vast majority have and will continue to do out of necessity.

As for the cost and length of KZ2 development I worry when people would readily accept they comments of an unknown blogger over those from Sony and GG directly.

 

[scificube]

Very true. Using nao32 may save a bit on R&D effort, will almost certainly guarantee better visual quality - but the code has to be written anyway, so almost the same amount of money has to be spent. From a fiscal point of view this does not add up to much, even if better percieved image quality can lead to better sales.

I must disagree.

R&D costs time and money and thus should not be overlooked especially when it can and has saved many other projects from wasting time and money learning lessons the hard way during full production.

Secondly, NAO32 is a concept. One implementation of the concept could never hope to cover the scope of use cases for the concept itself.

The benefit is in knowing what to do or not do and contrasting the benefit of one approach to a problem against another.

It most certainly adds to time and money lost when you don't know what will and won't work and have to attempt (and possibly fail) at figuring out a solution from scratch yourself.

Knowledge may not have an absolutely quantifiable fiscal value nevertheless it does have some value and I would argue in most scenarios its quite significant.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Let us not drift too far from the original point of the thread though; which is game budgets and return of investment in general, and in KZ2s case.

 

[patsu]

Well, the game development duration is over-estimated by 1.5 years (from 4 to 2.5), and team size in the early year is over-estimated as well (First year pre-production don't need so many people). That will affect the rumored game budget significantly. It's still expensive by GG's admission though.

For sales to date, they sold more than 1 million in 1 months+ worldwide and still counting. If they reach greatest hits, the lower price will bring in more sales. We can't really finalize the numbers until what ? 2 years from now ?

For reusable tech, KZ2 advanced the implementation of deferred rendering. As per Sebbbi's post, it remains to be seen whether other devs are able to derive better value from similar tech.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

KZ2 development had to be significantly longer than 2,5 years. They've released the first actual screenshot in july 2007, 19 months before the actual release date. By your count it would had been in development for only 11 months at that time and it already had a working deferred renderer, a lot of the first publicly shown level, several enemy and friendly character models, animations etc.

I also find it problematic that KZ2 was this uber-high budget game that'll beat everything else - but only until it turned out to sell far below fan expectations. Now it's suddenly not as expensive and all the previously cited sources are wrong.

 

[patsu]

KZ2 development had to be significantly longer than 2,5 years. They've released the first actual screenshot in july 2007, 19 months before the actual release date. By your count it would had been in development for only 11 months at that time and it already had a working deferred renderer, a lot of the first publicly shown level, several enemy and friendly character models, animations etc.

They said preproduction lasted 12 months. So the shot was released near end of preproduction. They may have some small team work done way earlier (but funded under another budget ?). Their pre-production may have larger team than usual. As for speed of development, who knows ? What did we say about coming together and sharing technology/findings ? Uncharted used SPURS and some of the base tech a year+ earlier. The crazy Insomniac is able to roll out a large scale FPS game in 3 totally different modes in 2 years. Compared to cross platform devs, these guys only have one platform to optimize for.

I also find it problematic that KZ2 was this uber-high budget game that'll beat everything else - but only until it turned out to sell far below fan expectations. Now it's suddenly not as expensive and all the previously cited sources are wrong.

Ahem.. in the post right above yours, I mentioned "it's expensive to make by GG's admission".

I am saying the rumored budget may be overestimated because they get the parameters wrong. What's more, the project numbers were revealed by GG some time ago. No one paid attention to them. They don't just "suddenly" become like that.

I'd be curious to know their overall outsource contracts (the music, mo-caps, and whatever they dished out for others/contractors to do).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

For reusable tech, KZ2 advanced the implementation of deferred rendering. As per Sebbbi's post, it remains to be seen whether other devs are able to derive better value from similar tech.

And how much money will that net GG or Sony? Sorry to be repetitious, but this thread needs to somehow incorporate value to RnD developments if we're to factor that into game development costs on a wider than per-title basis. We need to be able to ascertain something like '$10 million spent on a first title led to savings of $3 million on the next 5 titles' or '$20 million was spent on the first title netting $14 million in sales, but reusing tech, the sequal only cost $5 million netting $12 million in sales, leading to a total franchise cost of $25 million and net takings of $26 million, a $million proft". At the moment we're stuck with individual costs and profits/losses - 'Game A cost $10 million to make and netted $7 million'. It's all very well and true to say there are other returns than just dollars on game sales, but at the end of the day it's that which these companies need. They need to make more money than they spend over a course of however many titles. If they can factor development costs across several titles, great. ND and Insomniac can assimilate costs into long-term multiple releases in relative safety. If a developer is stuck on a per-title, short time profit requirement, the tech benefit is worthless. Haze may have had a lot of useful technology lessons for Radical, but whatever they were, they couldn't stop them going under!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I am saying it is probably not overestimated. Joker's calculations for the salaries is probably quite conservative, actually, so even if he's wrong about the number of man months, it's more then compensated by his undererestimation of the salaries.

 

[patsu]

And how much money will that net GG or Sony? Sorry to be repetitious, but this thread needs to somehow incorporate value to RnD developments if we're to factor that into game development costs on a wider than per-title basis. We need to be able to ascertain something like '$10 million spent on a first title led to savings of $3 million on the next 5 titles' or '$20 million was spent on the first title netting $14 million in sales, but reusing tech, the sequal only cost $5 million netting $12 million in sales, leading to a total franchise cost of $25 million and net takings of $26 million, a $million proft". At the moment we're stuck with individual costs and profits/losses - 'Game A cost $10 million to make and netted $7 million'. It's all very well and true to say there are other returns than just dollars on game sales, but at the end of the day it's that which these companies need. They need to make more money than they spend over a course of however many titles. If they can factor development costs across several titles, great. ND and Insomniac can assimilate costs into long-term multiple releases in relative safety. If a developer is stuck on a per-title, short time profit requirement, the tech benefit is worthless. Haze may have had a lot of useful technology lessons for Radical, but whatever they were, they couldn't stop them going under!

Same answer. It can't be measured now, but it doesn't mean it's not there. Free feel to attach your own fiscal values to it.

They may very well lose money for this KZ2 game. As for whether Sony will take action, it depends on Sony's outlook (long term or short term).

I am saying it is probably not overestimated. Joker's calculations for the salaries is probably quite conservative, actually, so even if he's wrong about the number of man months, it's more then compensated by his undererestimation of the salaries.

Well, if you know the exact headcount and salary numbers, why don't you take a shot at the budget and itemize it ? Perhaps we'd understand why it's impossible for GG to implement KZ2 in 2.5 years with fewer headcount than expected ? All I have are numbers released by them.

EDIT: Come to think about it, GG ! You owe me a KZ2 party system for your fast 2.5 year implementation.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

And how long would a publisher continue to finance further projects in the hope that they will capitalize on this R&D advantage, if the first title fails to break even?

I'm not saying that KZ2 is going to make a loss, or that there won't be a KZ3, but that publishers just can't look that far into the future, paticularly in the current economic enviroment.

 

[patsu]

And how long would a publisher continue to finance further projects in the hope that they will capitalize on this R&D advantage, if the first title fails to break even?

I think Mirror's Edge is in the same situation ? The sequel has been approved ?

I'm not saying that KZ2 is going to make a loss, or that there won't be a KZ3, but that publishers just can't look that far into the future, paticularly in the current economic enviroment.

Sure, but honestly if it's happening right in front of your eyes, what can you do about it ? Join Sony and take over Kaz's or Shuhei's role ?

If Sony wants to cut cost as a group, they have many other areas to start first (Look at the recent reorg that saves US$3 billion this year alone). Those moves make the group more effective and save $$$ at the same time -- without limiting their potential to make more money. Also they can start by being more prudent and strict in some project spendings. Right now, I think it's more important to learn from their mistakes. If they can understand their customers' spending behaviour and preferences better, starting a game project (first or third party) would be better executed and incur less risk.

 

[neliz]

not sure if anyone dug up the total budget for KZ2, but here it is:

Most expensive movie/media product ever made in holland, zwartboek (black book) €16Million
KZ2: €20Million (sony budget) for 4~5 years of development.

Sony's cost on marketing killzone €2Million.

(in dutch)
http://www.volkskrant.nl/multimedia/article1142955.ece/Hollywood_voor_games_aan_de_Herengracht

 

[Cornsnake]

It says they spend 2 million in marketing in the UK alone.

Also according to this article, the first Killzone sold 2,5 million copies, getting an almost 150 million euro return on the investment.

 

[patsu]

Cool ! If that number is real, 20 mil Euro is definitely less than the US$50+ mil claimed in the OP, and that includes marketing ? So the development cost is smaller.

The 4-5 year development duration may not gel with the lower budget. So perhaps the first 1.5 years (before the 2.5 year of formal development) consisted of very small exploration/prototype team.

 

[Cornsnake]

Cool ! If that number is real, 20 mil Euro is definitely less than the US$50+ mil claimed in the OP, and that includes marketing ? So the development cost is smaller.

Nope. They said it cost over 20 million euro to make, and they expect the total marketing cost to be about the same. That would put it at roughly 40 million euro's.

 

[patsu]

Nope. They says it cost over 20 million euro to make, and the expect the total marketing costs to be about the same. That would put it at roughly 40 million euro's.

Okay, so 20+ million Euro is the full development cost ? 40+ mil Euro will match the US$50+ mil in the OP, assuming 50% goes to marketing. Development cost is still lower than rumored though.

If it sells the same as KZ1, then the ROI will be positive.

 

[obonicus]

Nope. They said it cost over 20 million euro to make, and they expect the total marketing cost to be about the same. That would put it at roughly 40 million euro's.

We generally don't consider marketing to be part of a game's budget, though. Especially in the context of this thread, which is focused on the return on tech investment.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

It wasn't meant to start a new thread, but my original post was about the full budget and I consider marketing to be a part of that. After all, the game has to make enough money to cover both dev and sales costs. For example some quite expensive CGI (E3 2005 trailer and final intro)...
Also, the Euro/USD conversion rate average for the past 3 years is about 1.4 so that's about 28-30 million USD as a budget.

Now I wonder what FFXIII's budget may be...