Layoffs in Gaming (Current State of the Gaming Industry)

[Chrkeller]

Soundwave said:

Chrkeller said:

Not sure who you are arguing with.  I think everyone knows GTA is a unique franchise.  It will sell 30+ million at full price.  And will have plenty of DLC especially for the online portion.  And of course developers need to be strategic with indie, AA and AAA activities.  The movie industry has a wide variety of offerings just like gaming.  Avatar still exists as will big budget games. 

Of course not every game can be big budget, that is common sense everyone agrees with.  

Even $600 million is not feasible, there's only 2 whopping games on the PS4 that have sold over 20 million copies ... GTAV and Spider-Man, nothing else has sold more than that. 

If budgets continue to double from what they are becoming today because a small part of the audience demands bettererererrrererer graphics every 5-6 years, you're going to have a business where a lot of studios simply cannot even play in that sandbox at all. 

Cyberpunk 2077 is already north of $400 million and really that budget is probably more like $600 million anywhere else, they get away with paying people less in Poland. 

Hollywood is also in big trouble, the problem there was all big movies now have a standard budget of $200 million+ ... it's not just "well only Avatar does it", it's every big blockbuster movie basically has to have that as a minimum to even compete. So Aquaman has that budget, The Flash has a $220+ million budget, this freaking movie has a $200+ million budget:

That's the problem, it's not just one game going up in budget, the budgets for all types of games are being pushed upwards every 5-6 years, and the price of the games should really be $90-$100 to account for that. 

In gaming $300-$400 million looks like the new standard cost for a lot of big games already, Spider-Man 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield are all over $300 million. GTA will obviously blow that away. 

AI tools are coming and will reduce development costs.  RT has massive benefits to developers.  More than the benefit to consumers.  More will be coming.  The market will adjust, it always does.  Big games aren't going away.