HappySqurriel on 17 October 2007
| jman8 said: I think that article title is a bit deceiving simply because budgets can vary so much between any two games. While costs are definitely a lot higher now than in the last generation, I think there are ways to keep them from spiraling out of control like some people fear. The biggest thing developers will have to do be diligent about is recycling game engines. These days I don't think you can just build a single full game from the ground up and plan on keeping a tight budget. You have to either pick an engine off the shelf like the Unreal Engine, or when you're building a game, you have to have plans for sequels and build your engine so that it is versatile enough for use in other unrelated potential titles. Also, the more and more familiar devs become with the hardware the less manpower they'll need to pull off a game. So I don't think we have to worry too much. |
Except that a small team of 6 to 8 people can make a decent game engine in a (reasonably) short period of time; if you include the conversion tools to get your artwork from major tools like 3D Studio or Softimage XSI your team will explode to the 12 to 14 developer range. The reason people licence an engine is more for the consistent high quality tools which reduces the ammount of work the artists have to do.
Artists are expensive and most companies are not looking to produce or licence a large library of assets to reduce development costs at the moment
