GIVE DOUBLE FINE YOUR MONEY (if you have a soul)

[gumby_trucker]

What I don't understand is why consumers continue to support the technical escalation involved with game production when they know it only pushes budgets up to unreachable heights!

If the cost to develop medium sized games was in the area of 1-2 million dollars like it used to be last gen, this kind of model would actually have a chance to be sustainable. As it is, it's pretty hopeless...

According to information from other developers the cost to make a decent sized XBLA or PSN game is twice or even three times what double-fine have managed to gather.

sources:

1. http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_costs
(these numbers almost certainly don't include anything beyond development)

"In 2005 Japanese development reports from CESA (Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association) compiled the average cost of developing a videogame on respective systems.[18] The breakdown was as follows:

Platform - average development cost / number of titles used for calculation

Xbox - 202 million yen ($1.8 million) / 13 titles
PlayStation 2 - 96 million yen ($877,634) / 194 titles
GameCube - 90 million yen ($822,857) / 11 titles
PlayStation Portable - 90 million yen ($822,857) / 6 titles
PlayStation - 80 million yen ($731,429) / 1 title
Game Boy Advance - 53 million yen ($484,571) / 47 titles
DS - 37 million yen ($338,286) / 3 titles
Dreamcast - 25 million yen ($228,571) / 2 titles"



2. http://www.edge-online.com/features/devs-celebrate-double-fines-kickstarter-success?page=2

"What Tim and Double Fine have done is increased awareness of how Kickstarter works as a potential new model to fund indie games. Because of their bold move many more companies and potential investors will look into the Kickstarter model on a smaller scale. I'm glad it paid off for him.

"But the numbers thrown around are just too small to impact mainstream publishing or large developers. Most good XBLA, PSN or Steam indie games cost multiple millions of dollars. So asking for $400,000 (even though that target has now been exceeded) isn't going to net you much. The title Tim wanted to fund made a lot of sense, it's a 2D labor of love based on a dying genre that Tim is known for and publishers wouldn't want to touch."