The rising cost of videogames, how two companies did something about it

[Bodhesatva]

Legend11 said:

Bodhesatva said:

I think the answer is "make cheaper games and stop pushing the tech envelope."

The problem is that it requires everyone to stop pushing the tech envelope which is of course is impossible since console manufacturers pour money into games in order to show off their systems. That and some genres have become so competitive, especially first person shooters, and their doesn't seem to be a lot of places to push the genre outside of graphics, physics, AI, and all the other things that can push up development costs dramatically.

I totally agree! Lots of problems with slowing down.

But the other choice is drowning the industry in red ink. So what do you do? It's clearly better to slow down than to start losing millions or even billions of dollars.

But what I think is irrelevant. Clearly a lot of developers agree with you -- they're even more afraid of slowing down than they are of the impending financial crisis. Costs keep going up, up, up, and yet there isn't any significant sign that major developers are shifting their development philosophies. I don't just mean to the Wii, I mean more generally -- everyone still seems to be in the same hit-the-young-male-demographic, tech-up attitude, even though profits have been shaved consistently and profoundly for 5+ years straight, and there isn't any logical reason to believe that will change.