I think it's becoming more and more obvious that around $100-$150 million for a game budget is where things get dicey for these studios. That's *a lot* of money and even if you are profitable, the higher ups at a company who are responsible for delivering that money begin to get more involved with process. That's not play money anymore.
Once you are getting into $150 million budget range projects, you're into a different business altogether and business suits are going to run the show. This is not an after school hobby club when you're talking about that kind of money.
These companies will hire presidents who's no.1 focus is maximizing profit. Which fair enough, when you put $150+ million of your own money into a project, maybe you can let your developers do as they please, but in the real world there are consequences once you want to make games that big. The oversight will inevitably come from up top. No board of directors is going to let a dev studio goof around with $150 million+++++. They're going to want profit maximization. They're going to start asking why the game isn't on platform XYZ, they're going to start asking why they're spending 6-7 years waiting for a return on investment on a product that can be beaten in like a weekend and then there's no more money to collect. Any board of directors is going to want to find new revenue streams when production costs are 3-5x+++ higher.
This is just normal business stuff. This is how the business world works. This is not an afternoon hobby club for nerds to hang out and make their life's ambition in gaming form while burning 100-500 million dollars of money that isn't theirs.
The telling thing about this though is here is a company with the best selling game of last year and they still want to move away from this business model.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 March 2024
