Nintendo Wii game development for top titles not as cheap as expected?

[Serenity Painted Death]

Well crap, I guess there go my plans of vacationing this year...

I think two weeks your first year is pretty standard for US companies. You won't start with those two weeks, though, you'll have accrued them by the end of the year.

In France, the legally required time off for employees is 5 weeks. In the US, the equivalent is zero weeks. In practice, obviously, employees in both countries get more time off. I got the 8 week figure for France from this article on CBSNews.

Speaking of compensation and benefits though, it looks like we may be seeing a hike in minimum wage in the US soon. $5.15 an hour is not something you can live on.

Neither is 7.15. Of course, there is a solution to this problem if you're willing to take responsibility in your own life (most aren't).

Of course, if proponents of minimum wage really cared, they'd propose much MUCH higher spikes, but even they know this is economic suicide (as in minimum wage in general). This is why you only see irrelevant token increases intended to placate the rather dull voting public.

 

[Magnum PI]

I got the 8 week figure for France from this article on CBSNews.

In the article some guy explains he has eight weeks of vacation, he doesn't say everyone get so much vacation.

According to the company policy, the number of weeks varies.

In some banks there is a lot of vacations, in some administration, for teachers..

Everything varies a lot some people are well paid and have much vacation and advantages, but, at least in the private sector, people are not that well paid and work more than you would think. IMHO the case cited in this article are not representative, they're among the lucky one, maybe a careful selection resulting from an editorial choice ?

With worktime reduction (legal worktime was 39 hours and became 35 hours), people with the lowest salary have more time, but their are poorer than ever (no salary increase in years and big increase in cost of things) and are limited in the way they can enjoy their free time.

 

[ERP]

By enlarge game development is cheaper in Europe.
Long hours in game developement is not a uniquley USA thing, and people are generally paid less for the same job in Europe.

Now I haven't lived in europe in over 10 years, but I do know that for the most part it's hard for an independant developer in the States to compete with European and Australian developers from a cost standpoint.

 

[Fox5]

When?

When the PS1 was still new?

Anyways I think the high dev cost will be highly temporary.

The Final Fantasys definetely went beyond that cost. And even 7 came out midway through the system's life (like 2 or 3 years after launch), and 8 and 9 were rather late in its life.

BTW, I'd imagine the largest cost of any game (and pretty much any business) is likely the employees, so unless the Wii does something to cut down on the number of employees or time to finish a game, it's budget won't be that much smaller than much better looking consoles. Remember, it takes more expertise to get something good out of lesser hardware.

 

[Skrying]

The Final Fantasys definetely went beyond that cost. And even 7 came out midway through the system's life (like 2 or 3 years after launch), and 8 and 9 were rather late in its life.

BTW, I'd imagine the largest cost of any game (and pretty much any business) is likely the employees, so unless the Wii does something to cut down on the number of employees or time to finish a game, it's budget won't be that much smaller than much better looking consoles. Remember, it takes more expertise to get something good out of lesser hardware.

The number of exmployee's depends on a lot of thing. The great majority is for the art assets. As you go up in resolution, you also need to enhance your textures, which takes more time and therefore more money. This is why many believe the Wii to have much lower costs then the 360 and PS3.

No, it does not take more expertise to get something good out of lesser hardware. This is radically dependent on how easy or hard the hardware is to develop for. In the Wii's case its very easy, tools have been around for awhile, etc. Therefore its really not that hard to get something good out of its hardware.

 

[Nesh]

The Final Fantasys definetely went beyond that cost. And even 7 came out midway through the system's life (like 2 or 3 years after launch), and 8 and 9 were rather late in its life.

BTW, I'd imagine the largest cost of any game (and pretty much any business) is likely the employees, so unless the Wii does something to cut down on the number of employees or time to finish a game, it's budget won't be that much smaller than much better looking consoles. Remember, it takes more expertise to get something good out of lesser hardware.

Well thast why I refered to the nature of these games

 

[Sonic]

What is everyone's thoughts on in-game advertising? Would you be willing to see a loading screen that features Pepsi or Nike while the next level, scene, game, etc. is loading? I think it's a good idea especially if the advertisers pay per game sold. $1 per game sold paid to the dev/pub would be a good way to lessen the cost of development costs and would end up paying more back in the long run.

There may need to be a shift like this in the future if development costs continue to increase but profits start to shrink.

 

[StefanS]

What is everyone's thoughts on in-game advertising? Would you be willing to see a loading screen that features Pepsi or Nike while the next level, scene, game, etc. is loading?

That would be disrupting in my mind. Would you like to watch commercials during the film you just bought on DVD? I don't like to be interrupted by commercials.
Ther could be some product placement, but even that has reached really annoying level in the movies. See the commercial called The Island.
Then there's micropayments. But I don't like paying money just to own the special silver plated magnum. It's ridiculous.

Maybe, something like this could work:
You discover some cool shoes in a game and you'd like to buy them. So you just press a certain button (maybe start menu) and a browser window directs you to the product page / shop.
This would be just product placement without the glaring logos, Plus the power, whether one likes to interrupt the game, would still remain with the user.

 

[Sonic]

I don't see how a loading screen that features an ad would really take away from the game. It's not exactly going to disrupt you in the middle of the game since it shwos during the loading stage. Or how about a small picture on the loading screen in one of the corners. The premise here is to help devs manage increasing costs next generation. There may end up being less independent devs than ever and only the big publishers will be able to survive.

Micropayments may work, but that really is just icing on the cake, and not many games will be able to rely on it.

 

[JacksBleedingEyes]

I don't see how a loading screen that features an ad would really take away from the game. It's not exactly going to disrupt you in the middle of the game since it shwos during the loading stage. Or how about a small picture on the loading screen in one of the corners. The premise here is to help devs manage increasing costs next generation. There may end up being less independent devs than ever and only the big publishers will be able to survive.

Micropayments may work, but that really is just icing on the cake, and not many games will be able to rely on it.

But if I am playing any game, any add would break the immersion. I don't particularly wish to play FFXX and after a few fantastic scenes have a nike ad glaring at me.

PLUS, as far as I am concerned loading times are almost minimal these days. I don't ever remeber seeing a cube Game with a load screen. And aren't we moving away from loading times in the first place?

 

[Skrying]

But if I am playing any game, any add would break the immersion. I don't particularly wish to play FFXX and after a few fantastic scenes have a nike ad glaring at me.

PLUS, as far as I am concerned loading times are almost minimal these days. I don't ever remeber seeing a cube Game with a load screen. And aren't we moving away from loading times in the first place?

Uhh.... NO!

Loading times will only INCREASE as data gets larger and larger. If you have a huge chunk of data and you have to get it from an optical disc then it takes time.

Actually, the NES, SNES, and N64 and all cartidge consoles for that matter had no load times. That was one of the benefits of the cartidge, it allowed virtual instant data transfer. Optical media does not have this benefit.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But if I am playing any game, any add would break the immersion. I don't particularly wish to play FFXX and after a few fantastic scenes have a nike ad glaring at me.

The ads would likely be a little more tailored than that. Sports ads will be plentiful (and already are) in sports games. For fantasy games you need different ads as you're talking to a different audience. So for a racer, you might have a car advert. For a starwars game a link to the merchandise website. For FFXX, you'll get an advert for FF drinks perhaps?

The difficulty is with matching ads to content. Product placement in contemporary titles is easy, but for fantasy worlds you can't effectively plug in a current product. As for loading screen ads, that'd be no different in principle to TV ads. I'm okay having my TV interrupted for 3-5 minutes in the middle of a show. A 10 second ad as the next level loads would be much less disruptive. It's not really what I'd like, but if it has to go that way to produce the games I want, I'd live with it. Ideally the tools will improve dramatically increasing productivity and decreasing costs. I think that's where things need to move.

 

[Powderkeg]

I don't see how a loading screen that features an ad would really take away from the game.

I have trouble picturing how a Fruit of the Loom underwear ad being splashed full screen right in the middle of Resident Evil 5 wouldn't take away from the game.

It's not exactly going to disrupt you in the middle of the game since it shwos during the loading stage.

The disruption comes from a break in the atmosphere of the game. Like the above example, you are playing a horror game and all of the sudden some big, full screen ad that is humorous in nature comes up and it totally destroys the atmosphere.

Or how about a small picture on the loading screen in one of the corners.

Same problem. Only do it if it compliments the game, and I can think of very few games where an ad at a loading screen would compliment it.

The premise here is to help devs manage increasing costs next generation. There may end up being less independent devs than ever and only the big publishers will be able to survive.

Then adopt the movie product placement model.

For instance, in a horror movie have ald crushed cans lying around, but all of the cans could be for Pepsi products, or if your game takes place in a city you've got billboards, posters, magazines and other items where ads would fight right in with the environment. Make your ads work with the game, not be seperate from the game.

Racing games would be the best for in-game ads, as real racing is packed full of ads. It's pretty much expected for any racing fan, and would ad to the authenticity of the environment, rather than detract from it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Then adopt the movie product placement model.

Racing games would be the best for in-game ads, as real racing is packed full of ads. It's pretty much expected for any racing fan, and would ad to the authenticity of the environment, rather than detract from it.

As I said, very limited options there. What products do you place in Halo? Fable? A WWII shooter? That one you could manage some old brands like Cadbury's I guess. What about FF and DQ? Any contemporary setting is a candidate for product placement, which includes sports and racers. Anything fantastical isn't going to have room for such advertising, unless you can shoe-horn it in somehow, such as adding a Coca-Cola brand monster or health item to Final Fantasy without it looking out of place, or Nike brand hardware in Fable. If you think of the film "A Knight's Tale" they got the Nike logo into there, but it was post-modern fantasy. Might not work so well in Oblivion.

 

[Powderkeg]

As I said, very limited options there. What products do you place in Halo? Fable? A WWII shooter? That one you could manage some old brands like Cadbury's I guess. What about FF and DQ? Any contemporary setting is a candidate for product placement, which includes sports and racers. Anything fantastical isn't going to have room for such advertising, unless you can shoe-horn it in somehow, such as adding a Coca-Cola brand monster or health item to Final Fantasy without it looking out of place, or Nike brand hardware in Fable. If you think of the film "A Knight's Tale" they got the Nike logo into there, but it was post-modern fantasy. Might not work so well in Oblivion.

Ads at loading screens are even worse. Now you've effectively added commercials to what should be a continuous gaming experience.

And how well is that Nike ad going to fit in with an Oblivion or FF loading screen? It's not. No matter how you look at it it's going to not fit the game, and thus detract from it. The difference is an in-game placement can be made subtle, while a loading screen ad comes off as a pure commercial.

And as was said by someone before, I don't buy DVD movies expecting commercial breaks in the middle, I wouldn't want to see them in my games either. If you insist on using non-game enhancing ads then why not sell the back of your box, or pages 2-5 in the manual instead of sticking them in the game?

 

[cthellis42]

I have trouble picturing how a Fruit of the Loom underwear ad being splashed full screen right in the middle of Resident Evil 5 wouldn't take away from the game.

I don't, as that would TOTALLY up the scariness quotient of RE!

 

[pc999]

About ads in games I think it could work depending of the game and how it is made.

I mean in a urban setting it could easly be a part of the art (they already have many fake ads anyway), games like UT/Burnout/CS/fighthing (not everyone) etc... it could very well have a ad in the loading (as long as doenst take more time to load) but it would need to be worked by the art team, the problem is those story driven games not in urban settings like Obvilion the only thing I would take is a ad (short) in the start up (it should also be the more efficient one).

Personally I think if they are well done they could work but only if they arent invasive like in the case of TV and radio (and more recent net too, with those flash ).

And it most bring prices down.

 

[Fox5]

I'd personally prefer an ad on a load screen rather than in the game. At least in the EA racing games, the in-game ads are quite distracting and poorly done, just a huge ad plastered on a billboard and positioned so that it won't just be passed by but rather to make sure you get a very clear view of it. On every lap. Sometimes twice on the same lap.
I mean, when I see those McDonald's ads in game, I just get hungry and forget where I'm going, and end up crashing right into the wall!