I agree to a certain extent (and guys, if you don't feel like reading the post don't react).

GTA is the biggest franchise in the game industry, period. Rockstar spent $ 100 million because they know they'll get enormous profits, even with those budgets.
They also spent that much money because it's their only important IP and to keep its value it had to be amazing.

There are only a few franchises that can get away with budgets over 50 million.

But real hardcore games can be quite cheap it just depends (like every other story on this site) to your definition of a hardcore game.
Imo games like Suikoden, Fire Emblem, Battletoads, Metroid, Xenogears are hardcore in the sense that they aren't suited for 10 minutes quick gametime.
These games don't require enormous budgets.

There are also other games like FPS and Action-Adventures that could be called hardcore, although these games have more casual appeal. These games will require higher budgets, because they're more dependent on graphics.
You could be right that GTA 4 raises the bar too high.

In any case we have already seen quite some bad results from companies that could be partly induced by ridiculously high budgets.
Install basefor the HD consoles is too low for the 2nd tier games if these 2nd tier games have 1st tier budgets.

i think what he is trying to say is, in simplest terms.

The amount of money that went into GTA4 to make it brilliant will not be available to unproven games and will be on a MUCH tighter budget meaning that gamers might feel like they are missing something since they have experienced how good a HD game can be ie GTA4.

Or those games might actually be good but critics and reviewers will judge it hardsher due to the standard GTA4 produced purely based on the HUGE budget due to it being a WELL establish franchise.

Did I state the money wasn't well spent? I know dam well they spent that money on getting Liberty City to be the best GTA city yet.

""GTA IV is thát good, that it's a threat to the PS360!""

I did not write it was a threat to those systems. I wrote that the threat was developers letting budgets go out of control, and then dumbing down the games instead of spending smarter.

So you didn't really unsderstand my point, as it was not negativity about GTA IV. It's negativity about stupidity. 

Let me correct that. The negativity is about the increasing demand of hardcore games. Mafoo is right, in that not all games would need this budget, but that's for now.

If this sets an unfortunate bar that developers may find themselves having to match or top, this would mean trouble.

I really hope that doesn't happen, but who knows? Titanic proved that a budget double of the current standards could still make money, and now Hollywood thinks $150 million for a blockbuster is reasonable.

Lord, you might want to stop trying. IT seems that a lot of people on this forum are far too defensive and as such, can't fully process everything.

While I think you have a good point, I don't think the issue will really arise. A good way to look at it is by looking at movies. While there have been movies that are made with mega 200+ million dollar budgets, they don't change consumer expectations so that EVERYTHING must be that way. There is still room for smaller budget experimental projects, and publishers would never be willing to risk enough to place a focus on purely such expensive projects.

 I take it you're not a capitalist are you? ;)

 They would not need to match it if 100 had been spent making a crapy game. It wasn't. It was well spent, and now the bar IS set higher, and the gaming community wins.

Ultima set a bar, and the gaming community won.

id studios set a bar, and the gaming community won.

OoT set a bar, and the gaming community won.

Blizzard set a bar, and the gaming community won.

And now GTA sets a bar, and you think it's going backwards? 

I didn't claim all games would go big budget, just the hardcore ones, since they are demanded of such by the hardcore gamers. 

BTW, the reaction to this thread shows just as much defensiveness of GTA IV as there is attacking.

LordtheNightyKnight: I don't think developers think that every game needs that huge of a budget to succeed. We have seen many games succeed with a lower budget. PSN and Live games succeed. Rock Band just sold 10 million songs (4 million in last month and a half). It will be ok.

Not every game needs the budget of GTA, Halo, MGS4, Killzone, etc. Games with lower budgets don't have to sell as much.

It's the same with movies. Not every movie has to have the budget of Cleopatra. I think people sort of naturally understand that. There are "blockbuster" movies and then there are breakout hits from low budgets. There are many paths to success, and 1 game doesn't change that.