Cross platform development and choice of 'Lead system' *Spinoff*

[ERP]

I'm hoping costs don't sky rocket next gen at a same or higher pace as we saw between PS2/Xbox and PS3/X360. Otherwise, we'll be calling "1M seller" a failure (ludicrous!).

I know of a PC game that slipped 1/2 a million units in its first month and was considered a failure by the publisher and that was 4 years ago.

I know of a PS2 game with > 1million in sales, that was considered a failure.

It's not really about cost, as much as it is expectation, the majority of large developers are publicly traded companies, they don't randomly spend 15+M and hope to make money. The project what they predict they can sell, budget accordingly.

Falures are games that do not meet expections.

Games cost what they do because a certain quality level is required to sell X units, and they are budgetted based on what they are projected to sell. Indeed this is why there are so few novel titles and why in general they are lower budget titles.

What is true is that over the last 10 years the ROI (return n investment) has dropped dramatically in the games industry, but that has as much to do with increased competition in the industry as it does technology pressures.

 

[Barbarian]

Falures are games that do not meet expections.

Absolutely true. I personally worked on a PS2 game that sold 2.5M worldwide and was deemed a failure. It had crazy expectations because it was based on a previously very successful franchise, and somebody smoking something decided they'll be able to sell 5M units just based on the name!

 

[Nesh]

Absolutely true. I personally worked on a PS2 game that sold 2.5M worldwide and was deemed a failure. It had crazy expectations because it was based on a previously very successful franchise, and somebody smoking something decided they'll be able to sell 5M units just based on the name!

It is sad if publishers/developers overestimate their expectations into illogical proportions, deeming a game a failure when it could be not.

What game did you work on btw? Or arent you allowed to reveal?

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Absolutely true. I personally worked on a PS2 game that sold 2.5M worldwide and was deemed a failure. It had crazy expectations because it was based on a previously very successful franchise, and somebody smoking something decided they'll be able to sell 5M units just based on the name!

Or in some cases, we end up working on games which are expected to sell 40 million units because of all the chrome.

I'm assuming at least, that Alstrong was referring specifically to financial failures and not the ludicrous expectations of the publishers and what not. There were games on the PS2 which still would have been financial failures at 1M units sold, but then many of them got the kind of financial investments they did because of what they were. Even the most foolhardy publisher isn't likely to throw down 30 million on a brand new idea. Now throwing down 70 million to make a new Halo? That's a little better... So for instance, you had games like FFX on the PS2, which Square claims cost them a total of ~$50 million all things added up, but they certainly would not have been as willing if it was not FF.

 

[Barbarian]

What game did you work on btw? Or arent you allowed to reveal?

I don't work there anymore so I guess I can reveal it - it was EA's bastardization of GoldenEye called Rogue Agent. Honestly I think the game would've been better received if it didn't have the GoldenEye name, so ironic.

 

[joker454]

There are a lot of factors that affect how much net earnings are seen per unit sold, and the effective spread is actually pretty wide. I've heard figures ranging from as low as $10 to as high as $35 per unit (this is in the US, mind you).

The number I've heard is $20, but as you say it varies. Doing some naive calculations:

To cover $15,000,000 in development costs, they are recouped at:
$20/unit = 750k units sold
$35/unit = 428k units sold

Note that the above only accounts for development costs. Marketing, etc, are not accounted for which means the actual number of units sold to break even is actually far higher. Also, it assumes the games are sold at full $60 price which we know doesn't last long (Assassins Creed can already be found at $40 for example).

Given the large number of hands in the pie nowadays, I'd be surprised if any studio was able to see $35/unit. Hence why 500k units sold for a current gen game is considered a failure, and even 1 million units sold doesn't necessarily make the accountants stop crying.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Given the large number of hands in the pie nowadays, I'd be surprised if any studio was able to see $35/unit. Hence why 500k units sold for a current gen game is considered a failure, and even 1 million units sold doesn't necessarily make the accountants stop crying.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cases where people might think $35 per unit is something like 1st party development, which makes a lot of the hands in the pie basically all the same company. So for instance, money that, for a third party developer would be deductions from the net revenues are for them part of it. Comparatively, our last release was a budget title produced in just over a year and sold for a lower-than-normal retail price... so our share of the pie was probably less than $10... but it was still a success even after only 650k units (now around 1m).

I also think there's something to be said for all the "special edition" things where they include all sorts of penny-worth extras, but their presence warrants a sizeable hike in the retail price which people will gladly pay to say they bought the better one.

 

[nintenho]

I don't work there anymore so I guess I can reveal it - it was EA's bastardization of GoldenEye called Rogue Agent. Honestly I think the game would've been better received if it didn't have the GoldenEye name, so ironic.

I think I heard EA put around 100 people on that game. the interview was a long time ago so I might be wrong.

 

[2real4tv]

Article regarding mutliplatform development:
http://www.developmag.com/interviews/115/Multitalented

 

[fearsomepirate]

I don't work there anymore so I guess I can reveal it - it was EA's bastardization of GoldenEye called Rogue Agent. Honestly I think the game would've been better received if it didn't have the GoldenEye name, so ironic.

What was your role? Engine programmer? Artist? Scapegoat?

I sometimes wonder if games would be more profitable if they actually kept them on the shelves longer and cut the price rather than continually spending the big bucks to replace it with another $50 title out there. I can't count the number of titles where I thought, "Hm, looks interesting...but I'll wait until it's less," and then disappear of the shelves entirely, only to appear sporadically in the used bin. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on games, but only a tiny percentage of that has gone to publishers because there are very, very few games that I will pay more than $20 for. For example, what if instead of releasing a new Need for Speed every year, EA released one every two or three years, but cut the price two or three times (once to $35 and once to $20) and advertised the price drop? Perhaps added a downloadable course at the same time?

 

[assen]

What was your role? Engine programmer? Artist? Scapegoat?

I sometimes wonder if games would be more profitable if they actually kept them on the shelves longer and cut the price rather than continually spending the big bucks to replace it with another $50 title out there.

The retail has a very finite amount of shelves, so they can't keep anything significantly longer. And if they turn them bookstore-style, edge-on, the sales will probably approach mainstream book sales

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

You can go around in that circle for an eternity. Sure, you can say that if a product has prime shelf space longer, it might sell more, but stores need that shelf space for the next new thing, which they themselves need because those are the more profitable titles for them. But in theory, could a game that has the potential to sell well over the long term be denied that chance because of losing its prime real estate to another new title in an old franchise? Maybe, maybe not. It's more likely that the battle over shelf space is inherently doomed to have no victors.

Well, you can also say that the price drops are tied to that. A game that hardly sells within its first month or so is pretty much dead, so its price will drop quickly since the retailers know they can make more money off the used sales (and hence why retailers like Walmart who don't sell used games will not drop the price so quickly). When a game has a lot of momentum, it's not only going to hold onto its starting price longer, but it's also going to be kept front and center on the shelf longer because it's still a big seller and the retailer will anyway have to keep ordering more shipments. Either way, it's only serving to reinforce the idea that the first few weeks are the make-or-break time and the rest of a game's life is often virtually non-existent.

 

[Nesh]

Developers struggle with PS3: A thing of the past
http://www.psu.com/Developers-struggle-with-PS3--A-thing-of-the-past--a0002324-p1.php

It seems that development on the PS3 is improving and it costs only 10% more to develop on the PS3 compared to the 360

 

[scooby_dooby]

Developers struggle with PS3: A thing of the past
http://www.psu.com/Developers-struggle-with-PS3--A-thing-of-the-past--a0002324-p1.php

It seems that development on the PS3 is improving and it costs only 10% more to develop on the PS3 compared to the 360

...for Ubisoft, the worlds biggest publisher. After they've invested heavily in developing multi-platform engines.

That article is fairly meaningless.

Essentially they use a quote from Criterion, one of the only developers using PS3 as a lead platform, a PR quote from Jack Tretton a sony executive, and an old quote from Ubisoft (June) to conclude that PS3 struggles are a 'thing of the past'?

And then they finish off the steller piece of journalism with a PURE PR soundbite from SE: "PS3 is such a powerful machine that the technical possibilities have a great influence over and in the end, the entire game experience"

 

[wco81]

Well based on impressions of AC for the PS3, it doesn't sound like Ubisoft has overcome "PS3 struggles."

 

[Laa-Yosh]

We've just compared the Burnout Paradise demo on PS3 and X360 using a 1080p high quality projector with a 100" screen and HDMI... Very, very nice work. Smooth framerates, lots of detail, nice shaders and so on.
The only difference we've spotted is that colors and contrast is a lot better on the 360, but it's a bit more blury thanks to the lack of AF on the textures. I've been able to tell which one was which on a blind test, but I had to look quite hard for the difference

NFS Pro Street was the other multiplatform game we've had, PS3 was very blurry (quincunx AA?), and it had serious frame rate problems. The 360 version wasn't smooth either, but it was a bit better. We've also had a nice PC running the game at 720p with 4xAA and maximum AF, and the image quality was totally superb. Then again neither of the console ports looks as good as Burnout, which is somewhere halfway between the NFS 360 and PC versions.

I would've liked to look at AC and COD4, but they're practically sold out in every shop around here and even the distributors had no copies to lend us (we've done the test with a journalist guy, I've been asked to participate as an "insider" ).

 

[dobwal]

We've just compared the Burnout Paradise demo on PS3 and X360 using a 1080p high quality projector with a 100" screen and HDMI... Very, very nice work. Smooth framerates, lots of detail, nice shaders and so on.
The only difference we've spotted is that colors and contrast is a lot better on the 360, but it's a bit more blury thanks to the lack of AF on the textures. I've been able to tell which one was which on a blind test, but I had to look quite hard for the difference

NFS Pro Street was the other multiplatform game we've had, PS3 was very blurry (quincunx AA?), and it had serious frame rate problems. The 360 version wasn't smooth either, but it was a bit better. We've also had a nice PC running the game at 720p with 4xAA and maximum AF, and the image quality was totally superb. Then again neither of the console ports looks as good as Burnout, which is somewhere halfway between the NFS 360 and PC versions.

I would've liked to look at AC and COD4, but they're practically sold out in every shop around here and even the distributors had no copies to lend us (we've done the test with a journalist guy, I've been asked to participate as an "insider" ).

Personally, I think other than frame rate difference any visual difference you can find between a PS3 and 360 is pretty academic in most cases. You might find a difference if you examine screen shots comparsion or really try a find a difference if you have both console and both ports. But under normal gaming circumstances the difference will be nil.

Playing a video game and visually studying for differences aren't the same thing.

 

[PARANOiA]

That's odd, Laa-Yosh - all reports I've read and heard (and I've been reading up a fair bit!) state the PS3 to be the clearly superior version, though both versions are of a very high quality.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Regarding Burnout, the PS3 looks better overall because of the AF, but the gamma or something else is screwed and the image is washed out compared to the 360. Again, same projector, same settings, HDMI. It might be easy enough to fix by tweaking the display's settings.

The difference is there, especially if you know what you're looking for, but it's very small in this case. For NFS, it was more obvious; the PS3 was always choppy, sometimes annoyingly so, but the 360 had some smooth moments and the image was definitely sharper (with more obvious aliasing, too - I think both games are 2x, but the RSX uses Quincunx).

We haven't spotted any low-res textures or such, but it's only two games, we couldn't get more on time. There might be another session in a week though.

Oh, and NFS on the Wii wasn't as awful as I've expected, the car looked quite OK with dynamic reflections and a reasonable poly count. Most of the track details were removed though, like crowds and buildings, and shadows weren't really present either.

 

[Arwin]

That's odd, Laa-Yosh - all reports I've read and heard (and I've been reading up a fair bit!) state the PS3 to be the clearly superior version, though both versions are of a very high quality.

The 360 has a default setting for Full Color over HDMI, does it not, that is somewhere between Full RGB and regular, for both cases, where the PS3 can either show Full RGB or Normal. Did you test with both these settings? I don't know what your projector supports, but I know it makes a huge difference on my TV.

In the last comparison that Eurogamer did they mention they took this setting into account (they didn't mention it last time) and such color differences now no longer come up in their comparisons it seems.