Article: What's Killing the Video Game Industry?

[jammy2211]

the2bears said:

jammy2211 said:

the2bears said:

jammy2211 said:
I'm thinking that publishers are just sort of going to have to bite the bullet now, and accept this is how it is and get on with it. Keep investing money into the HD systems, keep building engines, middleware, get their franchises selling, get more studio's equipped to make HD games and more employees trained to it. Once it's all set up and ready to go costs will fall, eventually, just got to hope Sony and Microsoft don't keep pushing graphics even further with their next consoles. Can't see that happening.

Of course doing that costs money, which to me is why the model of using DS and Wii games to fund HD projects sort of makes sense. They don't bring in huge streams of revenue but when you're releasing stupid amounts of PetZ and MySims spin offs it soon adds up.

In the short-term it'd make more sense just to invest everything into the Wii and DS where profits are easier, but I guess the inevitability is that HD gaming will be a standard accross all consoles next gen and handhelds are getting more expensive too. IT's better getting yourself prepared for HD developement, and getting it as cheap as possible, while you've still got profit streams from other systems.

I can't really see the industry going else where until Digital Distribution becomes the standard, if that happens, and that's a long way off. I do think this article does push hyperbole at points, but the sentiment is accurate.

You don't invest in HD systems.  You invest in a particular hardware platform.  Money put towards either HD box now will only pay out on those platforms, not on some HD platform of the future.  Invest the money where you'll make profit, don't do what you suggest here.

 

 I'm not expert on HD developement but I'd imagine the step up isn't something that will be irellevent in 10 years time even after the next consoles come out. It seems that the experience companies got from developing for the PS2 is being applied to make Wii costs much cheaper, albeit they're cheaper by nature but the point is still the same. It's again in similiar vain to the porting costs of PS3 to 360 and visa versa being much cheaper then one inidvidual game, the assets will all still be the same, just improving them, or whatever.

 Once the new systems come out they don't start all over again, unless whatever the PS4 and xbox 720 is something of an astronimical leap that we had this gen, which it isn't. They might need to upgrade engines or whatever but the core HD developement type scheme will be there.

 Of course I'm no expert so I'd be happy for anyone to correct me, don't think there are many articles on the internet about this.

 

The experience companies have from PS2 development is applicable to *all* current consoles.  There is nothing magical about HD vs. Non-HD. This is experience in managing a game project, managing the flow of assets, etc.  But nothing other than that helped out, certainly not technically, with the Wii.  Except you might have art assets that can be more easily re-used.  Now if you want to re-use graphics again, in 10 years on the PS4 then I suppose there will be some savings.

The expenses in a new generation are tied to learning new hardware, the API that's made available on the boxes, and general additions of things such as built in physics.  A lot of these learning curves are present in the Wii, while some are not due to its Gamecube heritage.

The big expense re:HD graphics (I assume you mean graphics here, and not the other features of the HD consoles) is mostly a matter of size.  The overall number of pixles has been increased by around a factor of 4.  That means a lot more assets to be created.  It means more detail is present, in textures as an example.  This all has a cost in terms of time.  A car in Project Gotham for the XBox might have taken a couple weeks to model... one in a newer version might take a couple months.

Most of your "savings" points deal with porting.  That's re-use of assets, not something "learned" from HD development.

 

 

 

 

 So the main added expense has been quite simply the increase in pixels - that's ramping up the arts and graphics bills right? Well, surely next gen it shouldn't be so bad, as the pixel count won't increase? Just the details I guess. I'm no expert so I can't argue this very well tbh, I just can't beleive every major publisher would be investing in systems that are killing the industry without some long-term reason or logic.

 When you hear that Gears of War games are being made for $10 million that to me suggest just what can be done with a sensible budget, once the game engines are made and middleware is produced etc. Epic are probably some of the tech engineers and programmers and so when making can do it for less - because they've got the talent. For me where companies like Midway are blowing $30 million on average games is that their developers arn't good enough to work on a low budget? Which is where my whole point of 'adjusting' to HD developement comes from...the costs are overblown because current the studio's they're getitng to produce these games simply can't.

 Personally for me when revenue is high and profits are suffering you can't blame the systems but the publishers. They're obviously not yet adjusted to the new markets of this gen and need to adjust to buying trends, which is what they're in the process of doing. As long as revenue is record breaking then profits can be too, it just requires suitable management, not blowing $50 million on a game like This is Vegas which is never going to recoup that sort of figure.

 It still amazes me Capcom are posting profits this year... no 'big' HD game released in the first 3 quarters and 7 in developement... with the strong Yen too. Confusing.