Has this ever happened before?
2024 may not be kind for game developers.
- Thread starter Silent_Buddha
- Start date
Yes, but not necessarily in 2 weeks
The Day Before announced it's shutdown and stopped purchases 4 days after early access I think but the servers weren't physically shut off until a month later I think.
I guess this might also be dependent on how you count betas/open access/etc. I'm pretty sure there's been MMOs (and some other service games) that ended up never launching after a beta or equivalent.
At this point though, the Concord staff (Firewalk) aren't being axed. We'll have to see what happens. But also, if they do close it's not because of 2024 doom and gloom and economics and entirely because they didn't know what they were doing despite being industry veterans and they wasted all Sony's money! No surprise if Sony closes them then!
davis.anthony
Veteran
I have seen on X that it's cost Sony £100 million for the game, so if they do a cost analysis and conclude it's better to just cut their losses now and take the hit rather then pumping millions more in to the game, it'll be game over for the studio.
It is almost a mess in art direction too. Like trying too much to be "inclusive" and have "representation" for pretty much anything to the point that it represents none.
It's a shame because the game does have a lot of quality work under the hood. It just doesn't click or inspire
Yes. But even then that wouldn't be keeping in with this thread which is more the loss of capable talent than botched startups. Firewalk had freedom to create their game with remarkably confident backing from Sony. It's entirely on the execs that they blew it so badly and if the studio goes under, it's not because the industry is really hard at the moment but because they were really useless.
Don’t think it’s a DEI issue here. OW is very DEI as is Apex Legends and everyone loves their character designs. I think the reality is they didn’t want to copy either of them, and came to this bland, form does not meet function designs that no one is excited about.
Apex does it casually. You wouldn't even notice it in game because it's not highlighted. You know, it's a shooter and blood sport - nobody got time for pronouns and gender politics! It's just supported in the lore and in some character interactions for a bit of background soap opera. Concord slapped it right in the middle of the game where it just feels contrived, like chasing social responsibility marks and maybe trying to get coverage in the mainstream media for the first game to add Pronouns to the character roster. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Firewalk certainly managed to make it feel like they put politics before game. If the game was gobsmackingly good, they maybe would have got away with it, but the game isn't and it doesn't hang together well, as if the design criteria wasn't focussed absolutely on what makes the best game. Like they started with a political message and tried to hang a game off that.
It is like Redfall and Bleeding Edge, combined, but worse….
Wonder how much those cost btw
I don't want to see games developers losing jobs, especially artists who may lose their jobs to AI.
But these 9-figure budgets for AAA games can't be sustainable.
Maybe in a year there would be a half dozen to a dozen titles which sell enough units to return profits on a 9-figure development and advertising budget.
So how typical are these huge budgets? Were they funding dozens of games at $100 million? $200 million?
Some of these games take well over a year to develop. That's a lot of salaries to pay for 1-2 years before they can start selling and getting revenues in.
Meanwhile the studios would have to be funded out of pocket for that time before the games hit the shelves and are available for sale. When interest rates were near zero, then the fronted money was free or relatively cheap. But when they have to pay interest which is 3 or 4x the interest 3-4 years ago, it has to be painful.
But these 9-figure budgets for AAA games can't be sustainable.
Maybe in a year there would be a half dozen to a dozen titles which sell enough units to return profits on a 9-figure development and advertising budget.
So how typical are these huge budgets? Were they funding dozens of games at $100 million? $200 million?
Some of these games take well over a year to develop. That's a lot of salaries to pay for 1-2 years before they can start selling and getting revenues in.
Meanwhile the studios would have to be funded out of pocket for that time before the games hit the shelves and are available for sale. When interest rates were near zero, then the fronted money was free or relatively cheap. But when they have to pay interest which is 3 or 4x the interest 3-4 years ago, it has to be painful.
Frenetic Pony
Veteran
9 figure budgets are perfectly sustainable, for series that are regularly going to make 9 figures or more in returns. Rockstar doesn't have to worry much about GTAVI making it's money back even if it costs $300 million.
The problem is others in the industry all joining the "AAAA Cargo Cult". To explain: During WWII the US established bases all along islands in the Pacific, many of them inhabited by shall we say rather primitive cultures. In order to win over the locals supplies were air dropped regularly during the war. After the war was over the supplied stopped, on several islands the locals built replicas of the planes in the hopes of calling them back or something and getting the supplies again. They understood the link between "supplies" and the planes, but only in correlation, not causation manner.
Many, many execs around the world have the same attitude (heck pretty much all humans do for one subject or another at many points in their lives). For games they see other studios regularly spending $100+ million, and regularly making a profit, and so assume that if they spend $100+ million they too will turn a regular profit. A decent number of people that actually play games know it doesn't work that way, but who said you actually need to understand the market you're in to become big and important and rich in it?
You will still be able to play Redfall and Bleeding Edge next week.
Well, that's why it's not sustainable, because you can't be sure if your investment will have the expected returns. So it probably makes more sense to make many smaller scale games than investing all money into a single huge game.
It's easy to say that if you make a good game, people will buy it. Unfortunately, this is not what happens in the real world. We don't really have a formula to predict which game will be successful beforehand. Note that we do (almost) have a formula on how to make money (see mobile game industry), but I believe that's not what we want, at least for people here.
Therefore, I think for the "AAA" game industry to go forward, we need to reduce the cost of making games significantly. That's not necessarily mean scaling down, but more about how to be more efficient.
There are probably also some kinds of money game involved with some huge AAA game projects, like in the film industry, but let's just ignore them here.
Make them smaller with more meaningful gameplay is what I want to see.
Devs often waste too much to make them bigger and cram them with filling content to excuse the size. That adds costs of development and time while the game itself doesn't get more fun to play.
With some exceptions, 30hs - 100hs is too much.
Jack Attack
Regular
Yeah. I mean, games get announced and then little news is revealed for years. Like with Silent Hill f and all that.
For people who want to play a game months after they viewed the first trailer, it feels like the wait is genuinely prolonged. And I think Konami just did it to shut people up because of the hate they received.
For people who want to play a game months after they viewed the first trailer, it feels like the wait is genuinely prolonged. And I think Konami just did it to shut people up because of the hate they received.
Make them smaller with scope to expand. Or, you know, "Game 2", a sequel, that reuses the engine but increases scope now you know there's an audience.
The kind of sane business the industry used to do. What caused all the dumb?
The kind of sane business the industry used to do. What caused all the dumb?
They started making real money. GTA5 is estimated to have made between 6 and 8 Billion USD over it's lifetime, and it's still going strong. To put that in comparison, Marvel's Avengers Infinity War and Endgame, two of the most successful movies of all time, grossed less than 5B combined. Avatar and The Way of Water combined were about 5.2B. If we go by the higher GTA5 estimate (8B), it would take the combined top 3 highest grossing movies of all time (Avatar, Endgame, The Way of Water) to reach that level. The big publishers are betting big with high budgets hoping for big returns, but it doesn't always happen.
Everyone's chasing those big numbers now.
But one game that can do that is an outlier, not a model for the entire industry. And how much has been wasted chasing those kinds of numbers? It's fundamentally stupid, like gambling. "This guy won €100 million in the Euromillions lottery. Let's buy €25 million in tickets and we can win it too."
Business used to be about robust, reliable strategies for sustainability and growth. Start you local store. Make a profit. Invest that in an expansion. Doing well? Open another branch.
Make a game. Keep it small and affordable. Did it do well? Okay, aim a bit higher. Getting a fanbase now. Want to make a big game? Okay, plan a couple of iterations. Start with something contained, get it out there and make some money, plus learn from it. Make a couple of DLCs for minimal cost to earn more from each player. Apply your learning to the engine update and roll out Version 2.
Heck, that's even exactly what GTA did! It didn't launch at version V and $billions. The game iterated, growing over time, making money from the earlier versions to fund development of the later versions. It seems business these days is wanting to cheat and take shortcuts, ploughing in investor money with the hopes of a huge payout.
And even more ironically, when they do get a hit, often they screw it up and offend their playerbase with changes and end up killing their business.
Business used to be about robust, reliable strategies for sustainability and growth. Start you local store. Make a profit. Invest that in an expansion. Doing well? Open another branch.
Make a game. Keep it small and affordable. Did it do well? Okay, aim a bit higher. Getting a fanbase now. Want to make a big game? Okay, plan a couple of iterations. Start with something contained, get it out there and make some money, plus learn from it. Make a couple of DLCs for minimal cost to earn more from each player. Apply your learning to the engine update and roll out Version 2.
Heck, that's even exactly what GTA did! It didn't launch at version V and $billions. The game iterated, growing over time, making money from the earlier versions to fund development of the later versions. It seems business these days is wanting to cheat and take shortcuts, ploughing in investor money with the hopes of a huge payout.
And even more ironically, when they do get a hit, often they screw it up and offend their playerbase with changes and end up killing their business.