Steam successes shaking up the traditional AAA model. *spawn

[Shifty Geezer]

Gamers want AAA games. That isn't going away.

I don't think anyone was suggesting they were. A shake-up just means a change in attitudes, which could mean more diversification in different scales of project including more AA games.

It's almost pointless to debate when GTA, CoD, Fortnight, etc.... are the black holes of the industry.

That's the key argument - everyone chasing the same Number One position means most titles failing. Instead of wanting the next GTA or Fortnite, make a living creating smaller, more 'niche' (although still millions of players) titles with far less expenditure and, potentially, lower risk.

Every once in a while a AA squeaks in, but BG3 probably cost $100 million with marketing at the end of the day. Not exactly indie in the traditional sense.

BG3 wasn't cited as reason to question the AAA model. The OP points to PalWorld, Helldivers 2 and Manor Lords, all with far (far, far!) lower costs than is being thrown at a lot of titles hoping bigger = more sales.

 

[Cyan]

Hades 2 is on its way to become another phenomenon. It's just Early Access for now.

One Of The Year’s Most-Anticipated Games Just Surprise Released As ‘Hades II’ Hits Early Access

Supergiant Games just surprised us all with the out-of-the-blue release of Hades II.

www.forbes.com

 

[Cyan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1791114602694033570

edit: the links starting with x don't seem to work like twitter post usually did, I had to switch the x in the link to twitter and somewhat it fixed it

 

[Cyan]

A banana-clicking game is already this summer's biggest hit

A wave of banality (bananality?) has swept across the world with the success of Banana on PC platform Steam

www.standard.co.uk

Gaming has gone weird of late. Publishers and developers are being closed, the gaming giants are making hundreds upon hundreds of people redundant. And now millions of people are playing some strange game called Banana, made by a tiny developer.

According to SteamDB, more than 800,000 people are playing Banana at the time of writing. It hit a peak concurrent user count of 884,469 players, and is the second most popular game on PC platform Steam right now, behind Counter-Strike 2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you read the article, it goes on to state most (all because the game is crap) are bots farming items to sell on Steam. This is not a hugely popular game displacing the AAA titles. Sony won't be cancelling Insomniac's next title and setting them to work on a fruit clicker.

 

[Nesh]

This is how it's done

Black Myth: Wukong's Development Only Cost Around $40 Million

Yet another proof that a AAA game's budget doesn't need to be bloated. Or is it?

80.lv

 

[Charlietus]

This is how it's done

Black Myth: Wukong's Development Only Cost Around $40 Million

Yet another proof that a AAA game's budget doesn't need to be bloated. Or is it?

80.lv

Just get a Chinese developer to do all the work. That's the solution

 

[Globalisateur]

Just get a Chinese developer to do all the work. That's the solution

No. The solution is what many of us, me included, thought when watching the first gameplay: this looks so fun to look at and to play! And gameplay, not wannabe movie.

Playing games just for the sake of having good old fun without an agenda being shoved down our throats. This isn't hard at all. Others team (like Team Asobi) are doing the same kind of games for a similar budget, in the costly Japan. It has never been about money.

 

[London Geezer]

No. The solution is what many of us, me included, thought when watching the first gameplay: this looks so fun to look at and to play! And gameplay, not wannabe movie.

Playing games just for the sake of having good old fun without an agenda being shoved down our throats. This isn't hard at all. Others team (like Team Asobi) are doing the same kind of games for a similar budget, in the costly Japan. It has never been about money.

Cheap labour definitely helps though!

 

[Charlietus]

No. The solution is what many of us, me included, thought when watching the first gameplay: this looks so fun to look at and to play! And gameplay, not wannabe movie.

Playing games just for the sake of having good old fun without an agenda being shoved down our throats. This isn't hard at all. Others team (like Team Asobi) are doing the same kind of games for a similar budget, in the costly Japan. It has never been about money.

If the community wants to reduce all videogames to just dumb fun, they can go ahead. It would be a shame.

Dumb fun videogames have always been the majority by a long shot, so this is more like a huge part of the community that wants the other side to disappear.

We get uncharted-god of war-red dead levels of productions like once a year, if only there were more.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No. The solution is what many of us, me included, thought when watching the first gameplay: this looks so fun to look at and to play! And gameplay, not wannabe movie.

Actually it's more 'sell to the Chinese market'. If you took the budget, include the marketing as the article says that $40 million is only development, and look at only the non-Chinese sales, you get a game financial performance not radically different from others. A $70 million game selling maybe 2 million units.

Now take a ridiculously expensive AAA game that sold 5M, say, and increase that by 25 million selling to China, now you've got far better returns and an argument that spending more nets you more.

So, GOD:Ragnarok. $200 million supposed budget, and 15 million sales. If it could penetrate the Chinese market the same way BMWK did, you'd be looking at 80 million sales...

At the end of the day, Wu Kong is an outlier. There are many variables that suggest this performance can't and won't be repeated by other games, so until numerous titles have duplicated BMWK's success, it's not indicative of a trend. Anyone trying to draw conclusions is just going to interpret the limited data based on their own feelings and assumptions.

The only useful consideration here is what BMWK suggests about spiralling AAA development. Did BMWK achieve better economies proportional to the costs? Given an $80 million development budget scaled for Western costs, would a Western studio not be able to make something comparable? Is the quality and scope of content of BMWK superior for the budget? From what little I've seen, it looks like a Souls-like in terms of scope of content, perhaps with more variety but then UE5 has Epic's megascans as assets anyone can use. So is it really doing anything special in terms of development?

 

[Nesh]

Cheap labour definitely helps though!

But how cheap though?

 

[Nesh]

Actually it's more 'sell to the Chinese market'. If you took the budget, include the marketing as the article says that $40 million is only development, and look at only the non-Chinese sales, you get a game financial performance not radically different from others. A $70 million game selling maybe 2 million units.

Now take a ridiculously expensive AAA game that sold 5M, say, and increase that by 25 million selling to China, now you've got far better returns and an argument that spending more nets you more.

So, GOD:Ragnarok. $200 million supposed budget, and 15 million sales. If it could penetrate the Chinese market the same way BMWK did, you'd be looking at 80 million sales...

At the end of the day, Wu Kong is an outlier. There are many variables that suggest this performance can't and won't be repeated by other games, so until numerous titles have duplicated BMWK's success, it's not indicative of a trend. Anyone trying to draw conclusions is just going to interpret the limited data based on their own feelings and assumptions.

The only useful consideration here is what BMWK suggests about spiralling AAA development. Did BMWK achieve better economies proportional to the costs? Given an $80 million development budget scaled for Western costs, would a Western studio not be able to make something comparable? Is the quality and scope of content of BMWK superior for the budget? From what little I've seen, it looks like a Souls-like in terms of scope of content, perhaps with more variety but then UE5 has Epic's megascans as assets anyone can use. So is it really doing anything special in terms of development?

But let's ignore the sales at the moment and focus on the quality of production. Minus some performance issues the game is up on par with GoW if not better in many areas, and that's from a smaller studio whose previous titles were mobile games. The game is fun to play, is not filled with pointless quests, it doesn't require 100 hours to finish and the presentation and story are simply brilliant. They are doing something right. It has the recipe for success, regardless how it performs in the west. The final product output is amazing for just $40 million.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But how cheap though?

That's in the article. Average salaries are about 50% in China, so you could roughly double that $40 million to $80, and add $30 million supposed marketing (from the article) and you have a budget of $110 million if the same game was made in NA or the EU. That's not a magical formula or price-tag.

But let's ignore the sales at the moment and focus on the quality of production. Minus some performance issues the game is up on par with GoW if not better in many areas, and that's from a smaller studio whose previous titles were mobile games. The game is fun to play, is not filled with pointless quests, it doesn't require 100 hours to finish and the presentation and story are simply brilliant. They are doing something right. It has the recipe for success, regardless how it performs in the west. The final product output is amazing for just $40 million.

A lot of those points have nothing to do with the cost. "Fun to play" isn't based on budget but design. "Story" is a literary classic, so no real work there, plus good writing doesn't cost more or less and just needs talent. Less quests means less spend, so the point there is simply, "AAA games can cut back on filler," which again isn't anything particular about BMWK. But at the same time, if those100 hour games didn't have that much, would they have sold less? If BMWK had more content, would it be selling better?

The only point relevant to the price-tag is the production, and that's mostly because they used UE which is an enabler. But it also has drawbacks.

If you want to compare it with a game like GOW, it needs to be done to an exacting standard if you want to glean meaningful information from that comparison. Like, how does performance compare? What resolution and framerate are the two games getting? How much content is there? How was that content sourced (created in house or just using bought assets). There may be a clear argument that using UE is better than using a bespoke in-house engine for economies, or that some content-creation methods are excessive and unnecessarily costly, but that needs a proper investigation and debate - it's not revealed by simply saying "Wu Kong only cost $40 million".

Edit: I've played neither BMWK nor GOW, so can't talk from experience. However, a quick look up the cinematics of both games, GOW is clearly a tier above BMWK with far better animation and performance. They definitely aren't the same level in terms of quality, and quality costs exponentially. It's the kind of difference between a high quality Hollywood indie film and a top-tier AAA Hollywood movie. It's good, but not the same and the production values reflect the budget.

 

[Nesh]

A lot of those points have nothing to do with the cost.

Thats exeactly the point. You do not need to spend hundreds of millions to make a fun and captivating game. Not only that they achieved the same quality as titles that required more than double of that to make after you adjusted for salary costs. In other words other devs are overspending on areas that do not necessarilly contribute to a game's improved experience. They spend on the creation of content that do not necessarilly add value on the fun factor and experience of the game. Sometimes they even do the opposite.

Even after you doubled the salaries Wukong is still half the cost of TLOUS 2, GoW and 1/3 the cost of Forbidden west.
Black Myth's team was around 140 people. Sony's exclusives were made out of 300+ people.
TLOUS2's $200 million cost is just the development without marketing. The same is most likely true for GoW Ragnarok which is also reported $200 to make. With Sony's marketing the costs probably reach 250-300. Still a huge difference compared to your predicted $110 including marketing which requires some assumptions regarding the devs salaries to reach that value.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You don't need to spend $40 million to make fun and captivating games either. What did Vampire Survivors cost to make? I bet that has more play hours than most of these other games added together!

So I think the real argument being made is Big Studios are overspending, but then you need to clarify on what? Is their money achieving nothing at all, or is it achieving something. I think it's achieving a higher-tier production value. If so, then the argument against is that the level of production value the are targeting isn't necessary and they should all cut back on spending and employees to craft games with good writing, fun gameplay, and weaker execution.

Or, the argument is that you don't need to spend that money to elevate the production value and exactly the same results can be achieved spending less. At which point, the evidence of that needs to be presented showing cheaper games are achieving the same or better quality.

Which of those points does Wu Kong demonstrate?

 

[Deleted member 2197]

Development of Black Myth: Wukong wasn't all that easy according to this article. As a small studio they needed financing and got it at a vital moment.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/02/chinas-hero-games-shares-whats-next-after-its-hit-black-myth-wukong.html#:~:text=People walk past the image,province on August 20, 2024.

Hero Games had already spent three years investing 60 million yuan (about $8.5 million today) in two failed projects from Game Science when the developer approached Ying and his team in August 2020 about Black Myth: Wukong, he said.

“We’re very lucky, we didn’t give up on Game Science before it succeeded,” Ying said, noting his business partner Daniel Wu, now CEO of Hero Games, had first discovered the startup.

Two days before Game Science planned to release a promotional video for Black Myth: Wukong, the company showed it to Ying and asked his team for at least 100 million yuan more, he said. If not, he said the startup planned to ask Bilibili, a major Chinese video streaming and game platform.

After watching the video, Ying said he told his team that “I really don’t want to miss this opportunity because this is the best game that I have seen in my life.”

Tencent then bought a 5% stake, but said it would not interfere with Game Science’s plans, Ying said. “Because this was an AAA game, under the normal process of a big business, there was no way it would have been approved.”

Hero Games’ initial investment in Game Science was for a 20% stake.

 

[Globalisateur]

Actually it's more 'sell to the Chinese market'. If you took the budget, include the marketing as the article says that $40 million is only development, and look at only the non-Chinese sales, you get a game financial performance not radically different from others. A $70 million game selling maybe 2 million units.

Now take a ridiculously expensive AAA game that sold 5M, say, and increase that by 25 million selling to China, now you've got far better returns and an argument that spending more nets you more.

So, GOD:Ragnarok. $200 million supposed budget, and 15 million sales. If it could penetrate the Chinese market the same way BMWK did, you'd be looking at 80 million sales...

At the end of the day, Wu Kong is an outlier. There are many variables that suggest this performance can't and won't be repeated by other games, so until numerous titles have duplicated BMWK's success, it's not indicative of a trend. Anyone trying to draw conclusions is just going to interpret the limited data based on their own feelings and assumptions.

The only useful consideration here is what BMWK suggests about spiralling AAA development. Did BMWK achieve better economies proportional to the costs? Given an $80 million development budget scaled for Western costs, would a Western studio not be able to make something comparable? Is the quality and scope of content of BMWK superior for the budget? From what little I've seen, it looks like a Souls-like in terms of scope of content, perhaps with more variety but then UE5 has Epic's megascans as assets anyone can use. So is it really doing anything special in terms of development?

Add Metaphor to the list of numerous "outliers" released those last few years. Another rather cheap, old school, fun, politically neutral and with great aesthetics game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why is "outliers" in inverted commas?

How is Metaphor an 'outlier'? What has it done different?

 

[GhostofWar]

An easier thing to do is maybe compare it to other ue5 games, maybe the numbers get a bit muddy when your developing/maintaining/upgrading your own engine. It at least competes with hellblade 2 as far as quality and release state goes for ue5 games (I think it's beats it but that's my opinion). Do we have any idea what hb2 cost to make? would maybe show a clearer picture of east vs west dev costs.