NextGen (ps4/xb720) Game Development Issues

[Rangers]

As Cliff Bleszinski said, the middle tier games industry is dead.

I think there's a lot of truth to that, but also exceptions, one that leaps to mind is Borderlands.

I mean middle tier in sales. I tweeted Cliffyb about this and he responded that Borderlands is triple A (well, he would being it's on UE3). But I think he meant in ambition, whereas his original quote was pertaining to sales.

 

[tuna]

As Cliff Bleszinski said, the middle tier games industry is dead.

Something has to give.

When we see studios like Bizarre Creations, Pandemic Studios, among others shutting down, and most games this gen not turning a profit, the need to do something to change the development/retail process is immediate.

Especially in the face of even greater detail required for xb720/ps4.

I say that those studios made crappy and unfocused games. Quality and market focus rules these days.

 

[Arwin]

As Cliff Bleszinski said, the middle tier games industry is dead.

Something has to give.

When we see studios like Bizarre Creations, Pandemic Studios, among others shutting down, and most games this gen not turning a profit, the need to do something to change the development/retail process is immediate.

Especially in the face of even greater detail required for xb720/ps4.

That has nothing to do with middle tier. The problem here is shifting demographics, genre saturation and (therefore) weak management.

Perhaps it's not what Cliff meant, but I think he's got it exactly backwards. There isn't enough middle-tier. The whole spectrum from smaller to bigger budget titles needs to be filled better. There is only so much room at the top, and only above average developers can compete at the upper budget echelons. This is nothing new to the games industry, but something very common. Diversification is necessary.

 

[TheChefO]

I say that those studios made crappy and unfocused games.

Blur and Saboteur were crappy?

 

[ban25]

1) Are there costs to be saved by further changing the methodology of game development?

The vast majority of the development budget is in the headcount. Imagine if a studio spends $1M to license an engine like UE3. That's well and good, but they might be spending $1M/month for years in headcount. It's critical that schedules line up because when you enter first production and add 100 people to the headcount, things get a lot more expensive. The end of the project is when the team is largest and the project is most expensive -- that's when you can least afford to slip.

The other half of the budget, of course, is marketing. If you've already spent $100M making a game, you'd better spend another $100M making sure people know to buy it.

2) Do you expect a similar increase for development costs to what we saw between ps2 and ps3?

No. Budgets are dictated by the market. If there aren't millions of new customers to draw in, then only one or two franchises can afford to increase budgets.

3) Do you expect an increase in development time?

Not really. As above, time is money.

4) What would you like to see change this gen in software?

As a developer? Maybe shorter dev cycles with more direct to consumer content. It can get tiring going dark for years and years on a title. That's not to say I want to see Facebook/Zynga style 3 month dev cycles.

As a gamer? I like a lot of Japanese titles, and they've become very niche and haven't grown with the rest of the industry. I hope they can hang on somewhere.

5) What do you expect to see change this gen in software?

Definitely expect to see digital distribution dominate packaged goods/retail.

 

[ban25]

The biggest cost difference was and is people, the mistake being made by the big companies is to keep very large numbers of people as permanent staff even when there is no work for them. It makes it impossible to control headcount and as a result cost. I've said for going on 10 years the model the industry should follow is the one used by the special FX business.

You employ your core staff (perhaps 10% of the total) full time and you hire contractors to do the rest, they'd still be in house, and you'd repeatedly hire the same ones, you would just pay for what you need, not pay a cast of thousands for something 10 people could be doing for the next 6 months.

And if we're concentrating on cutting costs does it really make sense to develop games in silicon valley, you're paying people 30-60% more to employ them there than 90% of the country.

Definitely an issue. Unfortunately, there are various employment laws that discourage repeatedly hiring temporary staff. One of the big shifts this generation has been the move to trilogies. You spend the full five year dev cycle on the first game, with the long pre-pro period, but once you're done with that game, the army you hired to finish it goes on to make the second and third installments, which are mostly content anyway. Meanwhile, your core concept, design, and engineering team goes on to pre-pro for the next milestone title.

Of course, only the largest publishers can sustain this kind of development model, and so these days they aren't really any more independently developed AAA titles.

 

[Snyder]

Blur and Saboteur were crappy?

The sad thing is that Blur would have been perfect as a mid-budget game. The (multiplayer) mechanics are brilliant, but to me it seems that its realism-focused high quality assets actually work against it. Hugely.
In addition to being needlessly expensive, they make it hard to market it as a party game - they restrict the potential audience far too much. Which is a shame, because to me it would have had the gameplay potential to best Mario Kart.

 

[fearsomepirate]

2) Do you expect a similar increase for development costs to what we saw between ps2 and ps3?

No. The question is always not a matter of how much can you spend on asset creation to make something look as good as possible, but how much do you need to spend in order to move enough copies of your game on the market to make a profit.

I do agree that the pricing model has got to change. This idea that every game should launch at the same price is silly. In hardly any other industry does every single product have the same sticker price regardless of quality or demand--imagine if DSW tried to sell every pair of shoes for the exact same price! Or notice how widely prices vary on used games, where publishers don't fix prices, with Black Ops still selling for near $50, and Medal of Honor going for around $15.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

BO is expensive second hand because it's also expensive if you buy new.
I've just got AC Brotherhood for 10 GBP, whereas the same webshop offers COD:BO for 28 GBP.
First is about $16 and the second is $44, even though they were released at the same time last year.

 

[rekator]

Black Ops is also difficult to find on second hand, like MW2. Second hand price is driving by the price of new and, probably more, by the asking of second hand market, so for Big retail stores this is base on their own second hand stock in the group.
So some time I'm buying new games on online destock seller and can reselled them in store for the price I paid or for little more. Last was Resonance Of Fate, buy 15€, resell 25€. It rare but sometime I'm looking for this type of deal. You only have to wait some month to find this.

But you can have also the reverse, second hand more expensive than new one, a french retailer is a specialized of this.

 

[tuna]

Blur and Saboteur were crappy?

Yes. Actually playing both games are is not fun. Also, they do not have any game play or content that stand out in the crowded market place. Blur had good multiplayer systems, but that does not help if the underlying game is boring. The Saboteur was just mediocre in its execution.

 

[TheChefO]

The Saboteur was just mediocre in its execution.

I thought it was great.

...and 4.5 million others did too.

 

[fearsomepirate]

BO is expensive second hand because it's also expensive if you buy new.

No, in both cases it's because market demand is still relatively high. And my point was that prices on new games tend to be much stickier than prices on used games...i.e., if market response to a new game is lukewarm, I'll see its price drop on the used shelf usually before the sticker on the new game is cut.

 

[joker454]

The biggest cost difference was and is people, the mistake being made by the big companies is to keep very large numbers of people as permanent staff even when there is no work for them. It makes it impossible to control headcount and as a result cost. I've said for going on 10 years the model the industry should follow is the one used by the special FX business.

You employ your core staff (perhaps 10% of the total) full time and you hire contractors to do the rest, they'd still be in house, and you'd repeatedly hire the same ones, you would just pay for what you need, not pay a cast of thousands for something 10 people could be doing for the next 6 months.

I think one problem with this is that you would lose staff that have families, they would just defect to other industries. It's already difficult enough to work in games and actually watch your kids grow up, so I think removing the perceived safety net of a permanent job (and it's associated benefits) may be the last straw for many and they would just quit the business entirely. Then again maybe that is exactly what needs to happen, less people in the business which would lead to far less games created, we do have a glut of too many games now.

 

[TheChefO]

...we do have a glut of too many games now.

Glad to have you join in the conversation here, Joker!

The statement above does lead me to scratch my head a bit as I hadn't noticed what I would consider too many games. In fact, by this time normally it seemed there would be more games so I looked it up:

Below is a list of games per platform on the lead platform of their generation.

800 nes
784 snes
2418 playstation
2013 ps2
699 ps3
882 xbox360
1219 wii

I'm not seeing a huge upswing of games. I will say that there does seem to be a large number of the same type of games on the market (not enough experimentation/variety) but this goes back to the root of the problem I discussed in the OP.

Game Dev Cost Increase = Game Concept Risk Decrease


As a former dev, I'd love to hear your input on ways to decrease development costs! (not just spitting out $2 iphone "games"!) :smile:

 

[ERP]

I think one problem with this is that you would lose staff that have families, they would just defect to other industries. It's already difficult enough to work in games and actually watch your kids grow up, so I think removing the perceived safety net of a permanent job (and it's associated benefits) may be the last straw for many and they would just quit the business entirely. Then again maybe that is exactly what needs to happen, less people in the business which would lead to far less games created, we do have a glut of too many games now.

Sure the talent argument is the primary reason companies like EA don't do this.
But I have a question for you, given a reasonably deep talent pool available to hire from, what percentage of your current team could you not live without?
IME the set of essential people on most games is surprisingly small.

The way it works in the Special FX world or at least worked (when there were more independent companies) is that companies hire from the same pool of contractors, so you do end up with continuity.

For the shift to happen it would likely require more than just one company to go in that direction, or to tap the existing contractor market in places like LA.

I have several friends who do contract engineering work for various developers, and the group I'm currently in (although it does no direct game development) hires contractors for a lot of work.

The legal issues aren't insurmountable. As I said there are already industries that do this in CA and that's probably about as bad as it gets for employment law.

 

[joker454]

Sure the talent argument is the primary reason companies like EA don't do this.
But I have a question for you, given a reasonably deep talent pool available to hire from, what percentage of your current team could you not live without?
IME the set of essential people on most games is surprisingly small.

That's a bit of a trick question to answer. The only reason there is a deep talent pool right now is because there are still many full time jobs in the game biz. If it switched to a 10% core full time and all the rest temp contractors model then I'd argue that in time the deep talent pool would disappear. At that point staffing up that 90% for a new a project would not only be more difficult, but far more costly as the people who stuck it out in this biz would be able to command a higher rate since they would likely be fielding multiple bids on their skills.

The way it works in the Special FX world or at least worked (when there were more independent companies) is that companies hire from the same pool of contractors, so you do end up with continuity.

For the shift to happen it would likely require more than just one company to go in that direction, or to tap the existing contractor market in places like LA.

I have several friends who do contract engineering work for various developers, and the group I'm currently in (although it does no direct game development) hires contractors for a lot of work.

The legal issues aren't insurmountable. As I said there are already industries that do this in CA and that's probably about as bad as it gets for employment law.

I do know of many artists that exited the game biz along with me, at the time we were all reflecting on the impossible hours and poor work/life balance in games and our lunches often became just us discussing where we were going and why. The movie biz here in LA was one place they could all go, to various special effects studios, etc. But they all avoiding that industry for the reasons you state above, in that it's just temporary work. On top of that I was told by some of them who had tried the movie biz earlier in their careers that the work/life balance is even worse than at traditional game studios. Many of these guys were older like me and have family needs and concerns, in which case the fx biz became a hard sell to their spouses because of the temporary nature of those jobs, and a hard sell to themselves because of a worse work/life balance. Anyways that's just my experience in my little microcosm here in LA, but in general the artists I had worked with avoided the special effects business. Many of them ended up going into mobile actually, and some took ad related jobs.

Oh yeah I know California gets a lot of flack sometimes, but there are some very good benefits to working here. I was disabled for about 7 months long time ago due to a nerve issue, and I got "most" of my salary while on disability leave. That is law as far as I know for full time employees here in California, for contractors though I don't know but generally the few contractors I ever came in contact with had few benefits if any (no medical, no 401k stock matching, etc...) although that was some time ago, maybe it's different now.

 

[joker454]

Glad to have you join in the conversation here, Joker!

The statement above does lead me to scratch my head a bit as I hadn't noticed what I would consider too many games.

I mean there are more games than there are hard core gamers to consume them, leading to many bankrupt studios even when in many cases they made a good product. The hardcore market hasn't expanded enough to support all the games out there in the old model, so the market has tried to adapt by consolidating many companies under one umbrella and vaporizing the rest. The idea was that a bunch of games could fail and it wouldn't matter since uber publisher presumed there would be one blockbuster amongst the 10 games uber publisher releases in a given year. The problem with that is that hardcore gamer expectations went up significantly, while the hardcore gamer market expanded only marginally (relatively speaking) and now you have the situation where even an uber publisher can fail and obliterate numerous companies in the process. The market is now trying to adapt to that primary by releasing more sure things, the COD 12's, Gears 7's, Assassin Creed 9's, etc, because they have to, it's the only semi predictable sales metric that they have. That works as long as each uber publisher has at least 1 such game which so far they do. Whether or not that model is sustainable I have no idea, but one has to wonder how long uber publishers will continue dumping 20 million dollars into each game when 8/10 aren't expected to make profit. Plus with so many games out there the need to buy a game at launch for $60 has greatly diminished, just wait a few months and get it for $30. I have no clue what the solution is to it all but it just all seems unsustainable to me, and it's a situation that I'm glad I'm no longer a part of.

 

[ERP]

Oh yeah I know California gets a lot of flack sometimes, but there are some very good benefits to working here. I was disabled for about 7 months long time ago due to a nerve issue, and I got "most" of my salary while on disability leave. That is law as far as I know for full time employees here in California, for contractors though I don't know but generally the few contractors I ever came in contact with had few benefits if any (no medical, no 401k stock matching, etc...) although that was some time ago, maybe it's different now.

You're probably right in so far as you'd a lot of the older mid tier talent, contractors do tend to be younger though not always, the programmers I know who do contractor work in the games industry are in their 40's.

The contractor tradeoff is usually you get more money for the work, minus the benefits, it's usually a wash for an employer, or the contractor is marginally cheaper. What it gives the employer is the flexibility to control head counts.

Although CA for example is an "at will" state it's still enormously painful for an employer to lay a full time employee off or fire them, it impacts various tax benefits among other things.

The law on the books in CA and for that matter WA that makes it more difficult is that there is a limit to the amount of time you can employ a contractor before you have to either make them full time or not employ them for some additional amount of time.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

The market is now trying to adapt to that primary by releasing more sure things, the COD 12's, Gears 7's, Assassin Creed 9's, etc, because they have to, it's the only semi predictable sales metric that they have. That works as long as each uber publisher has at least 1 such game which so far they do. Whether or not that model is sustainable I have no idea, but one has to wonder how long uber publishers will continue dumping 20 million dollars into each game when 8/10 aren't expected to make profit.

I don't have a much bigger insight to this, but as far as I see there certainly are publishers working on adding new IP to their yearly/bi-yearly product lines. Either they're trying to get more hits from those 10 releases, or they are expecting gamers to get fed up with the endless 'sure' releases, I can't tell. If you're right then either the new titles are going to fail, or the existing ones will lose sales if it's really about limited gamer budgets and not about lack of interest.