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Soundwave on 16 March 2024
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RedKingXIII said:
Soundwave said:

Control is also a game that largely takes place in a very confined environment (an office tower) and can be beaten in 5-7 hours so it doesn't have the scope/scale of Spider-Man. Also Remedy being based in Finland probably helps them, not too many game studios in Finland, so if you have some artistic talent and don't want to move to a different country, working for them is probably your best bet even if the salary may not be as high. Whereas if you're a game designer/artist whatever in the UK, USA, France, Japan, etc. you will have multiple big studios bidding for your talent, so they have to pay you well to keep you or you can just walk elsewhere. 

A remaster of a existing game where the main things they added are ray tracing and a new Peter model should cost less than making a new game.

It also should be a smaller project than Control, even though it is game with a small scope made in Finland.

But no, instead... it's a $39m game. They didn't even remade anything from the ground up. It's a simple remaster.

The Insomniac staff have likely earned multiple pay raises over the years as the studio has grown. You either pay those people what the feel they are owed or you let them go, but you let them go and what is your studio then if you're losing a lot of your talent. 

CD Projekt Red also has kinda gone through this, when Witcher 3 was started the main team had 150 people and the game cost $81 million dollars. The team grew to 250 people over the course of Witcher 3's development. 

Cyberpunk 2077 cost $340 mill (marketing included) with DLC, but that's all-in more than 4x the budget of Witcher 3. Huge increase. The same team by next year will have about 450 people on it. I'm gonna guess Witcher 4 is not going to cost any less than Cyberpunk 2077 did, probably talking a 400 million dollar+ budget, maybe 500 mill+. 

Those people earning 100k, 150k, 250k+ per year ... they got to be paid every 2-4 weeks on the clock. Maybe 5-6 years ago they were at only making 75k. But when you have success as a studio, you have to pay more to keep your staff and then you also have to pay more to bring on new staff because they will want to be paid comparably to other people within the company. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 16 March 2024