Why So Many Video Games Cost So Much to Make

[Anomander]

Also Scrum

 

[deuxhero]

Why do you need that many writers, and why do you need to split one character's dialog between multiple writers?

It may make sense to just let someone who is writing a quest write a few lines for certain character who will have small parts for a lot of things, like companions or questgivers, and let whoever is in charge of that character make sure it fits/tweak it latter. For example, were the New Vegas Quests "Things That Go Boom" and/or "Kings' Gambit" made by different people, it wouldn't be too crazy to let the writer(s) of each of those quests write at least a rough draft for the needed lines of Ambassador Crocker. Something tells me that's not what was happening though.

 

[Morgoth]

Greed?

 

[JarlFrank]

Something tells me that's not what was happening though.

The games he was working on weren't RPGs and had no quests, but multiplayer FPS with some characters that needed a bunch of iconic lines.

 

[Iucounu]

Devs will have to start thinking about process optimization, cutting costs, etc.

This was already an important topic long time ago when I brushed with the industry. One of the main issues is completely incompetent management. You'll even find in some of Tim Cain's videos how casually he talked about hiring people with no qualification in such positions or how he handwaves big mistakes he did when he was management. I had the impression he just doesn't know any better which means he never met in his career competent "suits".

Usual result is they'll slow the development even more while trying to improve it, or at the very least generate overtime for no reason.

Is this because small studios were originally managed by one of the former devs, and as the company grew the original manager couldn't handle it? So basically the result of growing too fast?

 

[Hobknobling]

Also Scrum

The Agile Manifesto and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

 

[abija]

It's not agile, or waterfall, or whatever system. It's the management abusing them.

 

[CanadianCorndog]

The high cost is usually due to re-re-re-re-re-re-design.
If a game is projected to take two years to complete, and ends up taking five years, it's not like they were spending that time making 3x the amount of art or getting rid of every bug. What happens is they design, try it out, don't like it, re-design, don't like it, re-design, try it out, don't like it, etc. The design team will ask for extensions, get it, and start on another round of re-re-re-re-design. This constant re-design loop can also be driven by people at higher levels, but it's usually the design team themselves.
While that process is going on, there is the programming team having to constantly re-re-re-re-engineer systems and create new ones. There is a core team of artists who are also making assets for prototyping, demos, and marketing.
Eventually, the studio and publisher puts a gun to the re-re-re-re-re-design team's heads and says, ship or else. And ship it fast.
This is where a shitload of artists are hired to get the project finished. Artists typically finish their sprints with a 95% completion rate. Studios can also crunch them to get even more work out of them for their salaries. Most of the art you see in a game that went one, two, five, or more years over schedule was made in the last year of the project. The current plan to reduce costs is to get rid of the artists, those people who complete tasks and ship games, with AI in the hands of designers. I'm not sure if anyone has looked at the numbers in Jira lately, but I don't think it's going to work like they plan.
This sort of process has been going on for decades in Western games. It has nothing to do with budgets, DEI, or graphics resolution.
You can go back over the past 25 years and see lots of examples of this endless re-design loop.
In the case of games with massive budgets that do ship on time, that is mostly due to marketing.
Last of Us Part 2 dev time - almost six years

For example, Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, released in 2009, cost $20 million. The studio’s most recent game, 2020’s The Last of Us Part II, cost $220 million.

Uncharted 2 dev time - 22 months
Last of Us Part 2 dev time - 70 months
If you take 70 months to make a game, there is no way that the art made in year one is used in the final game. That is at least one and a half console generations.

 

[Inec0rn]

It's not agile, or waterfall, or whatever system. It's the management abusing them.

Most large businesses practice what I call "wagile" anyway, which is a total clusterfuck that wastes millions and produces shit results. The best companies I've seen out there have almost no middle management, I pretty much know immediately if I encounter 3+ managers within a week working in place that the job is going to be fucking terrible.

If a company really does embrace Agile as intended all those managers should be shown the door, they actually intentionally sabotage companies to stay lazy and employed.

 

[Iucounu]

The high cost is usually due to re-re-re-re-re-re-design.

Sounds reasonable, but why has the cost increased tenfold? Are they redesigning ten times as much now as when better, classic games were made?

In the case of games with massive budgets that do ship on time, that is mostly due to marketing.

Not sure I followed, do you mean that massive budget was spent on advertizing?

 

[JarlFrank]

Sounds reasonable, but why has the cost increased tenfold? Are they redesigning ten times as much now as when better, classic games were made?

It's because they work on a fully functional prototype instead of simply designing a game on paper or making a basic skeleton.
And then they scrap a full year's of work to re-design everything from gameplay systems to artstyle to level design.
And then they do it again next year.
And then they do it again next year.
And so you end up with years worth of aborted labor that will never see the light of day, but that people were still paid full salaries for. Complete waste.

 

[abija]

There's also a nasty effect in bigger teams when a bunch of managers need to pretend they are useful. They'll find flaws or feature creep things that are perfectly fine to ship. That's why such a big part of the projects are done during crunch, they cut a lot of nonsense then.

 

[Raghar]

Sounds reasonable, but why has the cost increased tenfold? Are they redesigning ten times as much now as when better, classic games were made?

It's because they work on a fully functional prototype instead of simply designing a game on paper or making a basic skeleton.
And then they scrap a full year's of work to re-design everything from gameplay systems to artstyle to level design.
And then they do it again next year.
And then they do it again next year.
And so you end up with years worth of aborted labor that will never see the light of day, but that people were still paid full salaries for. Complete waste.

I doubt Bloodlines 2 had that many art assets done. They screwed up Mitsoda, and they fucked up development.

Functional prototypes are critical otherwise you end with bad design, or need to redesign nearly finished game. Functional prototypes typically take up to 3 months and about 15 developers (and should be done in parallel). In fact a lot of prototypes are made under 5 days.
Making whole game, and calling it a prototype. Well it's doable, but work must be reusable to speed up development in case there were glaring flaws that were obvious in prototype. Prototype is about speeding up development not slowing it down, and to mitigate risks.

I remember in 90, commercial developers were talking about how experienced people in their team can extremely precisely estimate development time, and split development into stages to ensure it would be finished bug free before deadline. Perhaps cellphone "we love black people" culture isn't able to accomplish that simple task.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It's because people think numbers can be used to cover for weaknesses, hence don't bother getting better at things that need doing. That's how we get a lot of people struggling to do what some small studios and one man operations manage to achieve years ago.

 

[Ezekiel]

Sounds reasonable, but why has the cost increased tenfold? Are they redesigning ten times as much now as when better, classic games were made?

It's because they work on a fully functional prototype instead of simply designing a game on paper or making a basic skeleton.
And then they scrap a full year's of work to re-design everything from gameplay systems to artstyle to level design.
And then they do it again next year.
And then they do it again next year.
And so you end up with years worth of aborted labor that will never see the light of day, but that people were still paid full salaries for. Complete waste.

Speaking of designing on paper first (or having a real design document), directors or lead designers should probably take up drawing. At least get good enough that they can present ideas visually. Often better than relying on a concept artist to understand what you want, and obviously cheaper and quicker. Almost no one draws anymore because of technology.

Ridley Scott's sketches:

Were Team Ico's storyboards drawn by the director? I know the book is called "The World of Fumito Ueda," but I don't have it and am unclear on what he drew.

https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus'_Alternate_Ending

 

[Hobknobling]

Sounds reasonable, but why has the cost increased tenfold? Are they redesigning ten times as much now as when better, classic games were made?

It's because they work on a fully functional prototype instead of simply designing a game on paper or making a basic skeleton.
And then they scrap a full year's of work to re-design everything from gameplay systems to artstyle to level design.
And then they do it again next year.
And then they do it again next year.
And so you end up with years worth of aborted labor that will never see the light of day, but that people were still paid full salaries for. Complete waste.

Speaking of designing on paper first (or having a real design document), directors or lead designers should probably take up drawing. At least get good enough that they can present ideas visually. Often better than relying on a concept artist to understand what you want, and obviously cheaper and quicker. Almost no one draws anymore because of technology.

Ridley Scott's sketches:

Were Team Ico's storyboards drawn by the director? I know the book is called "The World of Fumito Ueda," but I don't have it and am unclear on what he drew.

https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus'_Alternate_Ending

Kurosawa was also famous for painting his movies before he shot them.

Best scene from Ran

 

[Daemongar]

One "issue", though, is that people in general are no longer willing to work insane hours for little to no compensation - or even at all.

No point here. No generation was ever willing to work insane hours for little to no compensation. They didn't work insane hours for little to no compensation in the 80's/90's either, except Cleve - but he got compensated by being right, making others look like idiots, and making a name for himself. Now he's (in)famous!
I worked my way through college, getting to work at 8:00 am and coming home at 10:00 pm at 4 nights a week for about 5 year for what is known in America as an Associates Degree (highly sought after.) I worked pretty hard for little money, and my compensation was future earnings. Someday I'll get that money!

(Also it seems games cost too much because of poor project management. Not keeping teams focused on goals, expenses, and squandering talent.)

 

[mondblut]

I guess next versions of game engines Unreal6/Unity 7/Cryengine should make better tools to get things done quickly.

*Laughs in compiling shaders*

 

[luj1]

The best RPGs we got in recent years - KotC 2, Grimoire, Underrail - didn't cost that much

It's the AAA trash which costs much and doesnt produce quality

 

[Inec0rn]

-Coders refuse to have a public "bug board" (where all the game's biggest bugs are posted w/ names attached to work on them) because they felt personally attacked by it

That is a severe hiring and HR problem there, and i would "performance improvement plan" then sack whomever pushed back on that.

Really seems like open season for new companies in the gaming space.

Thread title should be updated "why slop games cost so much to make".

 

[Tyranicon]

A developer's primary motivation should never be about money. Sure, it should always be a consideration, but never a goal in of itself.

Any true creative's primary goal should be forcing reality to reconcile with their own mad ravings, to smash aside the pale, timid souls that claim to be their competitors, and to dominate your field utterly and thoroughly like the conquerors of old.



... I think I'm in the wrong business. Also I have issues.

 

[Average Manatee]

Making 15k a month sounds insane, if I earned that much I'd be a millionaire in a decade!

Total compensation does not equal actual salary. Depending on location and other factors, your company-supplied health insurance and other benefits could easily clear 30% - 40% of your paid salary. That's not even including other overhead.

I remember learning my total comp package at my last corporate job and it was eye-opening. They paid way too much for me to surf the internet for 8 hours a day.

Throw in taxes and its fairly normal for the cost to the company to be at least twice what your salary is.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

A developer's primary motivation should never be about money. Sure, it should always be a consideration, but never a goal in of itself.

Any true creative's primary goal should be forcing reality to reconcile with their own mad ravings, to smash aside the pale, timid souls that claim to be their competitors, and to dominate your field utterly and thoroughly like the conquerors of old.

The great irony is that Ayn Rand, the arch-capitalist, would agree with you on this point.

 

[thesheeep]

I worked pretty hard for little money, and my compensation was future earnings. Someday I'll get that money!

I am happy, you, uhm... actually believe that
Hey, maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones to make it.

I chose the "pick the right industry" way, apart from the studying time never worked super hard (but always efficient) and so far, things are fine.

(Also it seems games cost too much because of poor project management. Not keeping teams focused on goals, expenses, and squandering talent.)

No doubt about it. The general amount of real talent in the industry was watered down by a ton of people being allowed in who probably shouldn't be.
This is actually where DEI does play a part, but to a much lower degree than some would assume. And also as a symptom and not the cause.
It's more of a "I like this person, therefore hired" problem combined with trying too hard to make people feel good about themselves - which ironically makes them feel worse by not getting shit done and then it's crunch time.

 

[JC'sBarber]

Sounds reasonable, but why has the cost increased tenfold? Are they redesigning ten times as much now as when better, classic games were made?

It's because they work on a fully functional prototype instead of simply designing a game on paper or making a basic skeleton.
And then they scrap a full year's of work to re-design everything from gameplay systems to artstyle to level design.
And then they do it again next year.
And then they do it again next year.
And so you end up with years worth of aborted labor that will never see the light of day, but that people were still paid full salaries for. Complete waste.

Speaking of designing on paper first (or having a real design document), directors or lead designers should probably take up drawing. At least get good enough that they can present ideas visually. Often better than relying on a concept artist to understand what you want, and obviously cheaper and quicker. Almost no one draws anymore because of technology.

Ridley Scott's sketches:

Were Team Ico's storyboards drawn by the director? I know the book is called "The World of Fumito Ueda," but I don't have it and am unclear on what he drew.

https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus'_Alternate_Ending

Drawing might as well be black magic to me. And it's a shame too because I do have ideas I feel are great, but have no way to depict them without spending literal thousands for a professional to do it for me.