I agree with @MeachtheMonster

[Inertia Creeps]

I agree, but you cant compare movie production budgets to game production. Gaming devs don’t come cheap, plus movies don’t have QA, or utilize so much energy, so those budgets are justified.

As for the other side that would mean the general gaming populace has to accept games like SM2, TLoU2, and Halo Infinite are rarities and not the standard. If not these companies see them as the way forward. I’m record saying that AAA gaming has been trash for a long time interactive movies that hand hold throughout the entire quest. AAA gaming as a whole is formulaic taking no risks, everything George Lucas said about Hollywood can be applied to modern gaming.

Lmao, yes they do. Talk to anyone who actually does tangible work in the industry on twitter/linkedin/etc. or hell, ask any of the thousands of slave wage paid contractors they hire out from overseas to push these AAA tentpoles out during full production crunch how they feel about their pay, benefits, prospects of career advancement... 99% of them gonna tell you voluntarily choosing to enter gaming as a career is a life wasting joke. And that's if they ain't one of the thousands that just this year don't even work at all anymore cause they just got laid off without warning.

The point of the blowback against overinflated AAA budgets is just that; they're overinflated and mismanaged on every level. Day to day coders/developers, and most DEFINITELY not QA testers like you seem to believe, ain't the ones seeing a penny of the hundreds of millions being poured into these games, that's reserved for the "senior" directors, producers, and management at the studios. The problem is that all these billions of dollars aren't actually going into paying the labor or, y'know... MAKING THE GAME GOOD. As evidenced by the plethora of "AAA blockbusters" coming out in completely broken day 1 states with awful PC optimizations requiring 50-100gb day 1 patches or months of continual patching/complete reworking down the line (Cyberpunk) to get to the point they should've been at by the time they went gold originally. All this money is just funneled into upper management/executive pockets and blown on horrible bloated advertising that isn't even helping the game sell more.

When the developers of a game that cost over $300 million says they don't even know where $200 million of it went in practice seeing the final result... that's catastrophic mismanagement. Has nothing to do with "hotshot SUPER SKILLED programmers that command millions in salary" (people like that don't exist in the spaces these companies habitually work/hire from) or "too much QA that industries like movies never have to pay for (cause GAMES DON'T PAY FOR REAL QA EITHER ) I'm afraid.

 

[Batsute]

Lmao, yes they do. Talk to anyone who actually does tangible work in the industry on twitter/linkedin/etc. or hell, ask any of the thousands of slave wage paid contractors they hire out from overseas to push these AAA tentpoles out during full production crunch how they feel about their pay, benefits, prospects of career advancement... 99% of them gonna tell you voluntarily choosing to enter gaming as a career is a life wasting joke. And that's if they ain't one of the thousands that just this year don't even work at all anymore cause they just got laid off without warning.

The point of the blowback against overinflated AAA budgets is just that; they're overinflated and mismanaged on every level. Day to day coders/developers, and most DEFINITELY not QA testers like you seem to believe, ain't the ones seeing a penny of the hundreds of millions being poured into these games, that's reserved for the "senior" directors, producers, and management at the studios. The problem is that all these billions of dollars aren't actually going into paying the labor or, y'know... MAKING THE GAME GOOD. As evidenced by the plethora of "AAA blockbusters" coming out in completely broken day 1 states with awful PC optimizations requiring 50-100gb day 1 patches or months of continual patching/complete reworking down the line (Cyberpunk) to get to the point they should've been at by the time they went gold originally. All this money is just funneled into upper management/executive pockets and blown on horrible bloated advertising that isn't even helping the game sell more.

When the developers of a game that cost over $300 million says they don't even know where $200 million of it went in practice seeing the final result... that's catastrophic mismanagement. Has nothing to do with "hotshot SUPER SKILLED programmers (these don't exist in the spaces these companies work/hire from) that command millions in salary" or "too much QA that movies never have to pay for (cause GAMES DON'T PAY FOR REAL QA EITHER ) I'm afraid.

Bruh I’ve seen total comps and packages for AAA console and Mobile games devs. Maybe you have a different experience or just only have 5 certs.

Didn’t know QA testers were in Hollywood either, and our team had QA rate of one for 20K month that ain’t cheap money. We both can agree the real problem is mismanagement, but that comes down to a lot of things

- devs refusing to climb to the corporate ladder
- sales teams getting those promotions
- poor project planning and deadlines
- insane scope creep
- no contingencies
- stockholder priorities
- no true leadership or passion from the MBAs there

Gaming AAA & AA are gonna have to undergo a fundamental change to survive, but it be just them it’s gonna have to be the consumer as well.

 

[O³ (O cubed)]

Also, how is Microsoft cutting back on game budgets, do they not own Call of Duty and Overwatch?

Are they not pouring 100’s of millions of dollars in bethesda rpgs, and fable, and forza games, and did they not just acquire two disney licenses?

Stop fooling yourself, those small games like pentiment and grounded were in production way before microsoft even acquired them.

the next big game they have coming out is literally leaning on state of the art graphics to sell it and has been in production for like 7 years

Microsoft will cut back on budgets. Right now COD, Diablo, WOW print money.

Activision was making big profits yet laying off dozens of people every year.

In fact this has been the year of layoffs in the gaming industry. Microsoft being one of the many companies to do so.

You can't talk about 2023 in games without talking about layoffs

How is it that 2023 can have been one of the best years in memory for games but also one of the worst years in memory for games, and for the gaming industry?

www.eurogamer.net

 

[The Mad Titan]

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Microsoft will cut back on budgets. Right now COD, Diablo, WOW print money.

Activision was making big profits yet laying off dozens of people every year.

In fact this has been the year of layoffs in the gaming industry. Microsoft being one of the many companies to do so.

You can't talk about 2023 in games without talking about layoffs

How is it that 2023 can have been one of the best years in memory for games but also one of the worst years in memory for games, and for the gaming industry?

www.eurogamer.net

• State of Decay 3
• Hellblade II
• Perfect Dark
• The Outer Worlds 2
• Fable
• Everwild
• OD
• Blade
• Contraband
• Indiana Jones
• Avowed

These are all games that have been in production for over half a decade already. You think it’s cheap to keep games with that many people staffed, for that many years is cheap? Thats where the majority of the money is going to, paying developers.

I will be highly surprised if Blade, Indiana Jones, Fable, Outer Worlds 2, Perfect Dark, Hellblade 2, etc etc. don’t end up costing more than the next Ghost of Tsushima game. The only reason people feel confident saying that they aren’t spending as much money is because microsofts profits and budgets are shrouded in mystery.

This thread is also disingenuous because it assumes every AAA game going forward will have SM2’s budget as a baseline and thats most likely not true

 

[The Mad Titan]

I’ve talked about this on here for over a decade now.

Pretty much everything i’ve said has come to fruition.

Y’all fought me tooth and nail on the topic only for insomniac internal documents to reveal them saying the EXACT same thing i’ve been saying on here.

Ain’t my fault you goofies like to be on the wrong side of things all the time.

I love how they just ignore the information in front of them and stick to what they think





It's actually kind of amazing

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Again, saying “microsft does it too” isn’t the gotcha you think it is.

I already named starfiled as one of the bloated games that fit with the rest of them.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Again, saying “microsft does it too” isn’t the gotcha you think it is.

I already named starfiled as one of the bloated games that fit with the rest of them.

Most of Microsofts games that have been in development for the past 5+ years are gonna have similar development budgets, they aren’t making indie sized games.

Pentiment and Grounded were one offs. Their next big game is literally banking on state of the art graphics to sell it

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Most of Microsofts games that have been in development for the past 5+ years are gonna have similar development budgets, they aren’t making indie sized games.

Pentiment and Grounded were one offs. Their next big game is literally banking on state of the art graphics to sell it

Not really.

Microsoft’s teams are much smaller.

The teams making clockwork, avowed, perfect dark, state of decay, etc are much smaller than the teams making games like starfield and spider-man.

Even arkane making blade is just a fraction of the size of insomniac right now.

On top of that, most of the games aren’t cinematic/cutscene heavy which is where a large portion of the bloated game budgets have been going.

Elder Scrolls and COD fit the huge AAA budget category, but the rest are much smaller in budget.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Not really.

Microsoft’s teams are much smaller.

The teams making clockwork, avowed, perfect dark, state of decay, etc are much smaller than the teams making games like starfield and spider-man.

You realize insomniac is a multi-game studio, right? They didn’t have all 450 devs working on Spider-Man 2, the amount of people working on SM2 was similar in size to the amount of people working on those games.

Even arkane making blade is just a fraction of the size of insomniac right now.

Right now, they will scale up over the next several years and they’re based in Lyon which is almost as expensive as living in Paris. , Arkane is a two game Studio so they aren’t that small either

On top of that, most of the games aren’t cinematic/cutscene heavy which is where a large portion of the bloated game budgets have been going.

Hellblade 2 is literally one big cutscene , and no a majority of the budgets don’t come from cinematics, they come from salaries

Elder Scrolls and COD fit the huge AAA budget category, but the rest are much smaller in budget.

You don’t know what any of those games are or aren’t because you have barely seen them despite them being in production so long. I guarantee none of those games are remotely as cheap as you think they are.

BG3 was over 200m to make also and people here still think it’s a some small “indie” game

 

[MeachTheMonster]

You realize insomniac is a multi-game studio, right? They didn’t have all 450 devs working on Spider-Man 2, the amount of people working on SM2 was similar in size to the amount of people working on those games.

Even cut in half, they are larger than Arkane, which also works on more games than one at a time.

Right now, they will scale up over the next several years and they’re based in Lyon which is almost as expensive as living in Paris.

Maybe.

Hellblade 2 is literally one big cutscene

Made by a small team and doesn’t have lots of different famous actors and dialog.

Same way Plauge tail was able to have top of the line graphics and lots of cutscenes but still not cost $350 million to make.

You don’t know what any of those games are or aren’t because you have barely seen them despite them being in production so long. I guarantee none of those games are remotely as cheap as you think they are.

Most of the budget goes to the size of the team. We can see the size of the teams working on the games. I Guarantee none of them cost $350 mill to make.

BG3 was over 200m to make also and people here still think it’s a some small “indie” game

No one thinks it’s a “small” game, but it is an “indie” by definition.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Maybe.

It’s not maybe, thats how game development works. The blade teaser was literally a recruitment trailer.

Same way Plauge tail was able to have top of the line graphics and lots of cutscenes but still not cost $350 million to make.

Plague tale had good looking enviornments but they weren’t using state of the art motion capture and the type of graphics tech Hellblade is using. Plus, Requiem was only a 3 year development cycle, it’s already been 4 years since Hellblade 2 was announced and 6 years since the last game.

Most of the budget goes to the size of the team. We can see the size of the teams working on the games

And again, team sizes grow through out development. AL will be twice the size it is now by the end of production.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

It’s not maybe, thats how game development works. The blade teaser was literally a recruitment trailer.

Still doesn’t mean the game will reach the size of team and/or budget of spider-man 2.

You made that up. Arkane has never made a game anywhere near that budget.

Plague tale had good looking enviornments but they weren’t using state of the art motion capture and the type of graphics tech Hellblade is using. Plus, Requiem was only a 3 year development cycle, it’s already been 4 years since Hellblade 2 was announced and 6 years since the last game.

Again, the team is much smaller than other $350 million budget teams

And again, team sizes grow through out development. AL will be twice the size it is now by the end of production.

You pulled this outa your ass cause you wanna defend sony

AAA can span from 80m like the size of ratchet to $350+mil the size of GTA6.

Most of microsoft’s games seem closer to the lower end of that range than the higher end.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

You made that up. Arkane has never made a game anywhere near that budget.

Arkane has also never made a licensed Disney game.

Insomniacs games weren’t big budget before spider-man either

 

[Half A $]

Most of microsoft’s games seem closer to the lower end of that range than the higher end.

Why the richest company being so cheap?

Maybe they won't have games stuck in development hell for 4-5 years if they actually spent some money outside of buying studios.