| Rpruett said: Both Portal and TF2 just rely on the HL2 engine. (Which was very very impressive when it came out). It's such an impressive engine that years later they can still make games thats graphics are still good looking. TF2 has different art direction but the graphics are impressive in the game. Portal is essentially just HL2 reskinned in some way, but I don't consider Portal a full game really though. Counter-Strike has excellent graphics are far as I'm concerned. (While not Crysis esque they are quality).
Regardless, The industry needs to change it's production model. (I'm sure they will). Older methods aren't going to work as well as they have. You mentioned artwork being a high cost of development. I agree artwork is an area of high cost but it's not the only area. Look at how much money these developers are spending on R&D, it's astonishing. These types of costs and investments will certainly decrease as time goes on.
The market is there with record revenues, all that needs done is reduction of costs. |
My point is neither portal nor TF2 are games which require lots of very detailed graphical assets.TF2 relies on a few official maps which aren't that big and reuse lots of elements.
Your last sentence is very true, but the rising expenses have been a constant trend for many years, until they became bigger than revenues. This tells me there must be some fundamental changes in the industry, not just the normal cost reductions which happen naturally in a business-as-usual scenario.
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957
