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Forums - Gaming - Next Gen will be Cheaper to Develop for - not more expensive [According to my Source]

DanneSandin on 08 May 2013
Tachikoma said:
price of development for pc ps4 720 titles is considerably lower than development costs for pc 360 ps3 titles, low enough that the jump in graphical fidelity and texture quality, mesh and shader detail soesnt claw back the costs, a game that cost 5m to make for pc 360 ps3 costs in contrast 800,000 less and takes 4 to 7 months less for pc ps4 720, a single engine works on all 3 platforms with only minor base specific tweaks and texture, mesh and shader detail you see in games of today were originally much higher to begin with then 'toned down' till they suited the engine for a best performance to quality equilibrium, don't kid yourself into thinking developers have a massive task in making assets to suit the new hardware specifications because that isnt the case, most benefits are simply options toggled on and off in current engines because specific platforms couldnt handle them, as a result of near unification of the three platforms, despite their minor differences, development time is reduced and development cost is reduced to a point where hiring additional staff to get the game completed quicker results in little to no additional project costs.

but hey, only worked in the industry a decade, what would i know.

man... you need to use sentences ^^ that's a hard read in one breathe :P

But yeah, that sums it up quite nicely! But what do you know? ;)



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

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DanneSandin on 08 May 2013
crissindahouse said:
DanneSandin said:
ECM said:

This does not align with my in-biz experiences, at least not in the near-term where those that are lucky* enough to score PS4/'Durango' contracts are going on hiring binges.

 *Lucky because mid-to-long term dev contracts (2-5 years out) are getting cut left and right by *big* pubs. There's a big story in there, but we don't actually have any journalists covering the game biz, so you won't hear about it until devs are closing left and right, alas.

I just asked my source, and according to him, devs are hiring because: cheaper+faster+more devs=even more games! So, games might cost just as much as this last gen, but not because games has gotten more expansive to make, but because devs are hiring to make games even faster. Thinking about it it makes sense. Wouldn't you want to make more games, in less time, to the same costs as this gen?

no, i wouldn't like to have the same costs and release them faster because people won't buy more games per year as they already do.  the sales of every single game would decrease on average. i would rather like to release the same amount of games as i already do but have lower development costs per game. sure, same costs and releasing games faster would be better as this gen but lower costs per game and same sales numbers sounds better in my opinion.

I actually agree with you on this, but I'm not sure the devs do...



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

Tachikoma on 08 May 2013
DanneSandin said:
Tachikoma said:
price of development for pc ps4 720 titles is considerably lower than development costs for pc 360 ps3 titles, low enough that the jump in graphical fidelity and texture quality, mesh and shader detail soesnt claw back the costs, a game that cost 5m to make for pc 360 ps3 costs in contrast 800,000 less and takes 4 to 7 months less for pc ps4 720, a single engine works on all 3 platforms with only minor base specific tweaks and texture, mesh and shader detail you see in games of today were originally much higher to begin with then 'toned down' till they suited the engine for a best performance to quality equilibrium, don't kid yourself into thinking developers have a massive task in making assets to suit the new hardware specifications because that isnt the case, most benefits are simply options toggled on and off in current engines because specific platforms couldnt handle them, as a result of near unification of the three platforms, despite their minor differences, development time is reduced and development cost is reduced to a point where hiring additional staff to get the game completed quicker results in little to no additional project costs.

but hey, only worked in the industry a decade, what would i know.

man... you need to use sentences ^^ that's a hard read in one breathe :P

But yeah, that sums it up quite nicely! But what do you know? ;)


im sat in a bar in tokyo with whisky in one hand and my phone in the other, dont be a hater.




DanneSandin on 09 May 2013
Tachikoma said:
DanneSandin said:
Tachikoma said:
price of development for pc ps4 720 titles is considerably lower than development costs for pc 360 ps3 titles, low enough that the jump in graphical fidelity and texture quality, mesh and shader detail soesnt claw back the costs, a game that cost 5m to make for pc 360 ps3 costs in contrast 800,000 less and takes 4 to 7 months less for pc ps4 720, a single engine works on all 3 platforms with only minor base specific tweaks and texture, mesh and shader detail you see in games of today were originally much higher to begin with then 'toned down' till they suited the engine for a best performance to quality equilibrium, don't kid yourself into thinking developers have a massive task in making assets to suit the new hardware specifications because that isnt the case, most benefits are simply options toggled on and off in current engines because specific platforms couldnt handle them, as a result of near unification of the three platforms, despite their minor differences, development time is reduced and development cost is reduced to a point where hiring additional staff to get the game completed quicker results in little to no additional project costs.

but hey, only worked in the industry a decade, what would i know.

man... you need to use sentences ^^ that's a hard read in one breathe :P

But yeah, that sums it up quite nicely! But what do you know? ;)


im sat in a bar in tokyo with whisky in one hand and my phone in the other, dont be a hater.

 


 

Oh nice! What kind of whisky?



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

dahuman on 09 May 2013

Your source is ...... I don't want to insult the guy, but most of the cost is from assets and not the engine or the coding if people use middle-wares. Artists get paid a lot of money to do what they do and that's where the major cost would come from. Thing would only be cheaper if they continue to use the same assets over and over in every game they make, which would result in every game looking the same. Your source has no logic on how things "actually" work.



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DanneSandin on 13 May 2013
dahuman said:
Your source is ...... I don't want to insult the guy, but most of the cost is from assets and not the engine or the coding if people use middle-wares. Artists get paid a lot of money to do what they do and that's where the major cost would come from. Thing would only be cheaper if they continue to use the same assets over and over in every game they make, which would result in every game looking the same. Your source has no logic on how things "actually" work.

That's weird... Because he's a developer... So one would think he knew what he was talking about.



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

xwan on 13 May 2013

Why the hell do we care? Simple economy guys, it will sort itself out. If you are the developer and publisher and you know you can only see 1 million copy, u will budget accordingly. All these talk about developmental cost is their issue. If they can only fill the game with 20% top notch level graphics and texture with their budget then they will do that. It's a business, they will try to make money.

David Jaffe brought up a good point on BR recently. He said, just give the team a set budget and tell them to make something...and it will sort itself out. Give them 10 million and no more than that..they will have to make it work.



fordy on 13 May 2013

I'd say it will be cheaper, but not for the reasons that you've specified. The biggest factor would be the ability to use "tried and true" development environments now that some gaming platforms have switched to the x86/x64 architecture, probably the most compiler-optimised platform in existence now.



zarx on 13 May 2013

As always games will cost as much as the budget allows (with a bit of give or take for how good the producers are at sticking to a budget) if publishers give devs larger budgets then they will hire more people and spend more man hours developing games, if publishers give them less money they will spend less. Better tech in the form of tools, engines and hardware can allow devs to make better content faster and raise the sealing on how much and what quality of content that can realistically be used in a game but that doesn't mean budgets have to go up or down.

Games have been getting easier, quicker and cheaper to make since game development began. But budgets have gone up as games have gotten ever bigger and more complex in scope. Next gen will see games with bigger budgets than ever before, there will also be lots of small teams making cheap small games as well.



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walsufnir on 13 May 2013
fordy said:
I'd say it will be cheaper, but not for the reasons that you've specified. The biggest factor would be the ability to use "tried and true" development environments now that some gaming platforms have switched to the x86/x64 architecture, probably the most compiler-optimised platform in existence now.


Of course. And this is why I see a small advantage for MS. It's because of Visual Studio, DirectX and their decades of knowledge building and providing development-tools.