Devs, what type of budget increases should studios expect

[Li Mu Bai]

for the next-generation as opposed to this one? I've heard various numbers from a few industry buds, even my brother-in-law at NST. 2-5x larger budgets & resources than granted the largest games of this generation? (software like LOZ:TP, MGS3, Halo 2, GTA, The Matrix Revolutions, etc.) Sometimes more or less than what I stated? I know that many variables are involved such as usage of middleware, efficient game design, effective toolkits & support, easily manipulated hw aspects, how much system power & available effects the sw is actually using, necessary team size, etc, etc.

The days where a particular niche game (or a justifiable port of a larger franchise) selling 100k+ at full price & devs. either perhaps garnering some profit or at worst breaking even are effectively over? Smaller talented studios will be acquired or cease to exist? (as we have been witnessing as of late, as well as more mergers) What sales number will constitute a succesful endeavor? 300-500k+ minimally? More relative to R&D monetary allocations. How many large scale bombs can even a sigificantly sized studio like Capcom absorb? This will no doubt will curb creativity, & probably innovation as well outside of fpsers & established franchises. (tactical shooters, GTA & RE clones, sports genres, jrpgs, etc.) Publishers & developers alike will obviously be much more reticent to go with truly "original" games & concepts. I saw this firsthand at E3.

Your thoughts? A need for concern I would believe.

 

[therealskywolf]

It depends on the game. For example HAlo2 cost 20 million, God Of War the same, Forza even more, these are very big budget games, next gen i expect these big budget games to start costing 30 million+.

But we cant forget that many times what makes a game have like Half the budget of bigger games is the Marketing portion of the Budget. Sometimes the Marketing budget can become more than HAlf the Whole Budget of a game.

But yes, next gen, costs will increase, because we will need more artists for games, there will be much more detail to stuff, more "little" things, that will require either a Bigger Team or a Bigger Development Time, and games will need better marketing, all that = Quite a bit more $

 

[Qroach]

Halo 2 didn't cost 20 million. it was under 10 million.

 

[_xxx_]

Wtf? I thought Halo2 costs some ~$40-50 in the local store?

 

[Evil_Cloud]

The cost of Shenmue was around $60 million (second most expensive title this generation), while GT4 is believed to have costed around $80 - $100 million. The amount of content in a game can also contribute significantly to the pricetag (because very large teams + work hours are needed + in this case new technologies).

 

[fouad]

The cost means for a lot of cases almost nothing...believe me...

GTA3 costed 1 million $...benefits ? >300 million$
GTA vice city costed 2 million $...benefits ? >400 million$
GTA san andreas costed 4 million $...benefits ? >500 million$

shenmue costed more than 60 million $...benefits ?....heuuuuu....the end of sega as a console hardware manufacturer...this simple...

believe it or not...but its like this...

 

[west]

The cost means for a lot of cases almost nothing...believe me...

GTA3 costed 1 million $...benefits ? >300 million$
GTA vice city costed 2 million $...benefits ? >400 million$
GTA san andreas costed 4 million $...benefits ? >500 million$

shenmue costed more than 60 million $...benefits ?....heuuuuu....the end of sega as a console hardware manufacturer...this simple...

believe it or not...but its like this...

Just curious are you a native english speaker?

 

[therealskywolf]

Halo 2 didn't cost 20 million. it was under 10 million.

The budget for the game was 20 million, how much of that was for marketing i dont know.

 

[therealskywolf]

The cost of Shenmue was around $60 million (second most expensive title this generation), while GT4 is believed to have costed around $80 - $100 million. The amount of content in a game can also contribute significantly to the pricetag (because very large teams + work hours are needed + in this case new technologies).

Nobody really knows how much Shenmue cost Sega, reports go from 20 million to 50 million, the Shenmue MMO has a reported budget of 26 million.

And Gt4 absoluttelly didnt cost such ammount of money, its just not possible, downright Rediculous.

I think the biggest budget game so far was Half Life 2, with a 40 million + Budget.

The cost means for a lot of cases almost nothing...believe me...

GTA3 costed 1 million $...benefits ? >300 million$
GTA vice city costed 2 million $...benefits ? >400 million$
GTA san andreas costed 4 million $...benefits ? >500 million$

shenmue costed more than 60 million $...benefits ?....heuuuuu....the end of sega as a console hardware manufacturer...this simple...

believe it or not...but its like this...

You should really try to improve the quality of your posts, think before posting.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is there anywhere an official site of 'game costs'? Seems to me any idea of price just comes 'through the grapevine' which isn't particularly reliable. I'd like to know official costs of existing games (GT4 for $100 million! ) before tryingto guess how much future games will need (other than more)

 

[AlNom]

some of these figures are just from... well... interviews and stuff like that. Hard to find again.

 

[sonycowboy]

According to the latest Wedbush Report, the average cost of games were/are:

SNES/Genesis - $150k
PSOne - $750k
PS2/Xbox - $2.8M
Next Gen (projected) - $10M
Do you have any actual source for your God of War budget amount? I'd like to see some links to back up those numbers. Now, these are ~average costs and not the "high water" mark games that cost more. They also do not include any royalty or licensing costs that might be associated with a game.

For those that are actually in the bus, how does this line up? (and yes I know budgets vary wildly).

 

[therealskywolf]

According to the latest Wedbush Report, the average cost of games were/are:

SNES/Genesis - $150k
PSOne - $750k
PS2/Xbox - $2.8M
Next Gen (projected) - $10M
Do you have any actual source for your God of War budget amount? I'd like to see some links to back up those numbers. Now, these are ~average costs and not the "high water" mark games that cost more. They also do not include any royalty or licensing costs that might be associated with a game.

For those that are actually in the bus, how does this line up? (and yes I know budgets vary wildly).

I think even Ign mentioned the budget Value in the review Cowboy. It comes from alotta places, 20 million +-, it was quite a Big Budgeted game, no wonder, have you looked into the ammount of Sets on the game?

 

[ERP]

Game budgets really are all over the place.

A lot depends on the production quality and the scope of the game. Internally developed games generally cost more than externally developed game.

PS2 game range from a high $100's of K to $30+Million.

I don't think there is any simple way to predict the cost of next-gen development.

 

[NRP]

If raising the price of nextgen games to $60 (US) will allow smaller developers to stay in business and allow more creative projects to get published, then I'm all for it. Hell, I think it's a small price to pay. Quality and creativity should be rewarded.

 

[Xeno]

I have a hard time believing any console game this generation broke the 20 million development cost barrier. Maybe with advertising and development costs combined you can get those figures and surpass it.

 

[ERP]

I have a hard time believing any console game this generation broke the 20 million development cost barrier. Maybe with advertising and development costs combined you can get those figures and surpass it.

I know of several, but I don't think budgets have ever been officially released for them..

You can get a pretty good ballpark estimate of cost by doing a team head count (including all the managers and producers and sales and marketing people) and multiplying by development time in years and about twice what you think a resaonable salary is on the team.

 

[Johnny_Physics]

I heard that GTA: San Andreas cost upwards of 50 million dollars, but that would surely include all the stuff like marketing, voice actors, script writers etc.


Sounds really high, but given how much the series sells I don't think they would shy away from spending that much money on the game.
But that's just a vague rumor that I've heard.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

Game budgets really are all over the place.

A lot depends on the production quality and the scope of the game. Internally developed games generally cost more than externally developed game.

PS2 game range from a high $100's of K to $30+Million.

I don't think there is any simple way to predict the cost of next-gen development.

Simple? No. Too many possible variables. Although what Wedbush Morgan has projected seems ($10 million minimally) feasible for your standard fare next-genertion game. It's the big budget title costs that will baloon the highest, we have $30+ million dollar projects existing this gen, software approaching the 60 million+ threshold when all is factored in seems quite plausible for the next gen. God help the next developer & publisher that bombs such a title sales-wise.

Regardless, what does this say about the direction of truly original software ideas? Smaller studios that even a $10 million dollar per production game cannot financially handle? So much is looking similar to me currently for the next-gen, what of the Katamari Damacies, Pyschonauts, Chibi Robos, (great game) Seamans, JSRFs, etc.? (it's a dead series, I know but games along this vein) How will genres like the platform RTS that aren't anywhere close to mainstream fare? Is no one else concerned?

 

[SanGreal]

Game budgets really are all over the place.

A lot depends on the production quality and the scope of the game. Internally developed games generally cost more than externally developed game.

PS2 game range from a high $100's of K to $30+Million.

I don't think there is any simple way to predict the cost of next-gen development.

Simple? No. Too many possible variables. Although what Wedbush Morgan has projected seems ($10 million minimally) feasible for your standard fare next-genertion game. It's the big budget title costs that will baloon the highest, we have $30+ million dollar projects existing this gen, software approaching the 60 million+ threshold when all is factored in seems quite plausible for the next gen. God help the next developer & publisher that bombs such a title sales-wise.

Regardless, what does this say about the direction of truly original software ideas? Smaller studios that even a $10 million dollar per production game cannot financially handle? So much is looking similar to me currently for the next-gen, what of the Katamari Damacies, Pyschonauts, Chibi Robos, (great game) Seamans, JSRFs, etc.? (it's a dead series, I know but games along this vein) How will genres like the platform RTS that aren't anywhere close to mainstream fare? Is no one else concerned?

I don't see how Niche titles will fair any worse next-gen than they did any other. Just as they had low relative budgets before, they'll have low relative budgets in the future. There are movies with $150M budgets and movies with $50,000 budgets. Both seem to survive just fine. Will the big publishers pick them up? No, except maybe a 1st party looking for a quirky exclusive but pleny of small niche publishers exist.


The games you list aren't the type of games that benefit from the armies of artists and specialists that will drive up development costs for blockbuster games.