| On what grounds other than ad hominem does he dismiss reducing game budgets? Highest selling games of the gen: CoD, NSMB, Wii Sports, Minecraft, Diablo. What do they all have in common? Less than current gen graphics. |
Yeah, and we bitch and whinge about half those games ad nauseum for being repetitive and failing to innovate.
We can't have it both ways. On points like NSMB, I agree with you entirely. But I also like to play games like Far Cry and Gears and I want those games to look stunning. That costs money. And it means that I need to shell out a fair bit of it. That only continues for as long as plenty of other people are shelling out a fair bit of it as well.
As to those making disparaging remarks about reducing game budgets in this thread, many of whom have clearly not studied economics in any capacity, Epic has been at the forefront of this field. The Unreal Engine 3 is a forerunning example of cost-reduction across the industry. Middle-wear and shareable engines are a prime example of strong business practices. And guess what, high end games with a strong graphical focus, character driven story development and large worlds still cost a tonne to make. This is all ignoring the immutable fact that developing new IP is, by its very nature, often highly resistant to models of cost reduction prominent in industries such as manufacturing (a comment I direct at a poster that thought it prudent to compare component reduction in consoles directly to high-end software production for those consoles).
Edit: For clarity, most of this post was not directed at the person I quoted, who's post I use purely for reference.
starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS
