How Can Developers Reduce Video Game Development Budget?
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- Опубліковано 25 тра 2024
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🔴 - Ігри
I wonder why most big studios are located in the most expensive cities in Cali. They be having good salaries but the cost of living over there is crazy.
They say thats where they can get the most talent I think.
Office spaces are already set up there. If they move the studios to distant, cheaper areas, there's no guarantee staff will drive out there. Allowing remote work only does so much. What's 30 miles closer to some employees is 30 miles further to other employees.
Many of these studios started out in California decades before it became the hellscape it is now.
Yeah Rockstar needs to focus less on testicles and unskippable skinning animations and more on improving controls and mission design
I wouldn't know how exactly right now, but I'm pretty sure there's plenty of ways that don't include axing employees.
You'd be wrong. The employee count is where most of the budgets are spent. That said, maybe if employees were willing to move out from California to lower cost centers and take the correlating pay cut.
@@nexuszen769 I mean, you wouldn't be wrong either on the employee costs being high as well. But I feel that sometimes these studios hire more than what they actually need and it ends up biting them in the long run. I was mainly referring to when studios have a properly sized team and those employees get the boot instead of the studio reevaluating their design.
@@TheFlame234
We agree then.
Thing is that everybody was yelling bloody murder when Bungie cut 100 (mostly) non-development related employees from their 1200 person operation. So I usually don't expect someone to be reasonable as you are. Lol
@@nexuszen769 I bet most of the people were just Xbox fanboys using it as a jab and EVERYWHERE else was experiencing layoffs so I don't why Bungie was singled out. I was one of those people that went, "Sony gave them the money for retention so whatever Bungie does to their employees is because of Bungie themselves." and if the rumors are true Sony is willing to whip out the belt if they fuck up again.
Lol, thanks. I try my best to be as reasonable as possible. You do yourself no favors by being an emotional fool.
They can definitely get rid of these meaningless side quest. Give me a solid 10-15 hour experience with a few meaningful side quest for an overall 15-20 hour package and I’ll be more than satisfied.
Also spending time on things that have extreme diminishing returns like making individual blades of grass move realistically needs to be reduced or eliminated.
It's like Mooch always say: "Value is in the eye of the beholder."
I personally think announcements of games super early needs to stop as well. Tons of developers do that shit all the time, I can only imagine how much money went into games like skull and bones, and it’s not even out yet. Imagine a game being announced when you first enrolled at college, and you graduate and go for a masters and it’s still not out💀
A teaser trailer is fine. Anything longer invites potential leaks because the project has been announced. Hi-fi Rush was apparently shadowdropped and beloved within the first few days.
@@Frenzyshark I agree, I was mainly talking about games they announce that’s more than 3 years out. Like what Nintendo did with Metroid prime 4 or Bethesda with elder scrolls 6, knowing damn well they ain’t dropping anytime soon
@@AyoMega_ Yeah I agree. Distant releases don't benefit anyone in general.
Spider man 2 cutscenes cost like 40-50 million. Absolutely ridiculous
Days Gone automatically comes to mind.
Ghost of Tsushima had a relatively small budget for a "AAA" experience but it was definitely a game that could have been shorter which in turn could have lowered the budget even further. The 3rd act could have been cut down. I was lowkey done after the 2nd act tbh. The open world activities in GoT werent engaging enough to justify the time spent running around to do them in that world. GoT is a great game, It probably my 2nd fav game from last gen but its def one of those games thats a tad bit too long imo
There is a level of realism that's immersive and there is a level that's just annoying
The thing is that developers aren't always aware at the start what part of the game will end up good. The filler might simply be the part that was developed earlier and wouldn't be a cost-saver by scrapping it. I see more to gain by simply making less AAA-games and restricting their budget a bit. For the price of an AAA-games you can make 10 games with a substantial budget that will ultimately result in risk diversification. They can afford a couple of those games not being successful while just one AAA-game bombing can mean the developer shutting or scaling down.
I think it's better for a game to be shorter and replayed multiple times than a long game that can be played once. Then you never touch it again.
Games structured with a mission/chapter setup have that advantage of replaying multiple times while keeping things saved are nice. I've replayed so many AC6 missions so it's been a nice setup.
I'd personally agree. But in an industry where like half of gamers don't beat their games and a lot of people never replay games it makes sense to focus on a longer experience
Thats not going to work gamers this days want more content for the sake of content especially now the games are 70 dollars if a game ain’t 50 hours long it mean it ain’t worth full price.Traditional linear games are long gone
@@gtylerbrown2 A longer experience they may never finish.
I was able to play through Hades multiple times because the gameplay was that good. I can't say the same for other games that had a different structure.
@@sakuragi1062 I'm not saying drastically shorter. Just enough that the end goal is reachable. Then the player can choose to replay the game or play another one.
Games that involve level growth for their playable characters end up involving level grinding. It's meant to avoid having to try fighting a boss multiple times because the player lacked some key abilities needed to finish the game.
AC6 is an example of flexible mission design that gives noticeable roadblocks to train a player in game mechanics. The grinding needed to get alternative parts is reasonable. Would giving AC6 10 more missions make the game worthwhile for its price? Maybe. Maybe not. And AC6 gives the player the freedom to replay the game to unlock more things. Or they can beat the game once and move onto something else. When a game is made longer to supposedly justify its price, it runs the risk of never being completed. A $70 50 hour game is questionable if you can only make it to the 20 hour mark because of boring filler missions that don't add anything.
@@Frenzyshark rogue likes are a special case. Hades is like 30 minutes long if you are good.
Plus it's sales don't match up to AAA games
I rather a "short" game that makes me feel throughout with no padding, with quality things to do; instead of a big plotted game with repetitive missions and an overly sized map with nothing in it.
Some ponies on Twitter joke that budget doesn't matter lol. First thing I think of is the rumor that Spiderman 3 will be split into 3 parts. Could that be too help with the budget? IDK
stop blowing the budget on "actors and celebs"
Ding ding ding
That wouldn't help at all. Most of the voice actors and actresses in the game industry are not really known outside of gaming. The issue is the longer cost of game development. Take this basic math, for example. The average salary of a dev is about 100K. Say the studio has 320 devs, and it takes 5 years to make the game. Their salary alone would be $160M. Now imagine having 400? Or even 500? A significant cost of development does not go to actors or celebrities. It goes to the devs
This too
Look at what happen to The Callisto Protocol. Guess we never going to get a sequel.
@@Redemption-64 If there is less money spent on high calibre actors, it means they can use that money on wages or even hire better level designers. The Callisto Protocol basically had this problem.
I'll always say Cyberpunk has the most perfect pacing out of any open world RPG.
You can literally play through the main story in around 20 hours, but if you want more.. you can get over 80hrs when you include the side quests and expansion.
8:06 dont get why that has to be in the game & great point on realistic stuff
I agree with your point but the comparison to RDR2 makes no sense. As you mentioned Rockstar can afford to do this. But more importantly, no other game has tried to do the features you mentioned so it's not an industry problem. Red Dead 2 has more immersive sim elements compared to other open world games. I think the answer is to scale down on cinematics/motion capture and focus on tighter gameplay and level design.
I'd agree that Rdr2 is definitely the biggest culprit in this. They spent so much time on insignificant stuff like horse balls and realstic animations and SPOILERS John Marston doesn't even look like he should in the epilogue I'd keep things like different dialogue based on what you've done in the game so far for the games that do it like CDPR games .
when you livestream do you be on the clock? 😂
If its from 9 to 5 then yes
@@BrokenGamezHDRI respect it 😂
Why dont they cut advertising cost
I would agree on this somewhat too depending on the game
@@BrokenGamezHDR A game like SM2 only spent $30m on marketing, the rest if that $315m went to pure development related cost. Game marketing isn’t that expensive compared to films. I think gamers are still having a hard time wrapping their heads around understanding how much games cost to develop.
I guess they are using their own engine too. It had to be tweaked also that probably will take a while
Pay the CEOs and marketing less, and put all the money on the game and the people working on the game. It's that simple
One of the main problems is scope of projects. Working on games that have graphics that resembles reality. Environments, characters and props. Plus the budget they give to their employees. They are making more than your average career job, which is cool but means you have to be very specialized in the job. Which too makes it harder to get a job in the triple A space without connections.
Lot of those triple A games are starting to get stale in my opinion. So I believe bringing back the PS2 era of double A and indies would benefit the gaming space with unique art styles and styles of play.
Make Games Fun Again
#MGFA
No. Those PS2 games don't even sell today
The reason why these games are expensive is because development is longer than usual. Spider-Man 2 cost $300M because the team got a salary increase (because of the first game's success), and the game was in development for five years, unlike the original. The simple answer is to make these games in less than four years.
Sounds simple, but why did Spider-Man 2 take longer (not even sure if true) despite reusing assets from SM1 and Miles Morales?
So, more crunch?
@@nexuszen769maybe play the game and you’ll see why.
@@blackmanwithcomputerno hersheys
@@nexuszen769spiderman 2 is better than spiderman 1 and miles morales in everyway
We need another The Order of 1886. So call gamers complaining about how long the game.....like I'm getting a 5x better storytelling then a 30 hour games...
I've recently played Perfect Dark with the unoffical PC port and the enemies are soo much more dynamic, they limp with a blood trail, they surrender, they pull out a pistol if their main gun is shot out of their hand, they combat roll and they had different dying animations rather then just ragdolling on the floor.
All these old games have soo much more dynamics that while the games have less detail, they have a lot more character to them but as games bloated in budget a lot of creativity has went in to padding out those hours and making faces and special effects look top tier.
They can't simply because of the internet drama queens who will post about "Puddlegate" and complain about reused animations just to drive clicks. If something doesn't look "better" than a game from 2 years ago then they will complain for clicks. Ultimately "gamers" created this long development cycles because they don't buy them unless they're "next-gen". So these developers invest in pushing the tech in their games.
You need to stop making every game open world especially Ubisoft because they feel that shit with garbage
😂😂😂 I never knew that about RD2 🤷🏾♂️
Nintendo spends less money & they may not always have the best visuals however they have better game design/language keep their budget on check & their 1st party games sell more than Paystation & Bargain Pass. also they actually make money on their hardware from launch because they use older tech & they recycle assets going back to the arcade days when they remained the radarscope arcade cabinet with DK. Not to mention that Nintnedo's hardware is hybrid so there is the convenience factor.
Nintendo is a very unique company. Their success has never been tied to gigantic, lengthy game experiences
And those are the reasons why I don't like Nintendo games, because they don't push the envelope.
Not sure about that. Do you have any real examples of budgets for games in their top franchises? Considering the development time for games like Tears Of The Kingdom and Nintendo's high retention rate for employees (probably have very good pay), I don't think their games are cheap just because they don't have top-tier graphics compared to games on better hardware.
They still have top-tier graphics and optimisation for the machines they are running on. *That costs money.*
Quality is subjective but those reasons you described are why there are gamers who don't like nintendo. They don't try to impress the consumer. Just reuse old formulas and IP
Nintendo doesn’t spend as much money to make games cos their developers are in Japan. I can guarantee you that a 1st party game like Metroid prime 4 developed by Retro studios in Texas will cost more than Tears of the Kingdom developed in Japan. Why? Cos salaries are what makes a game’s development budget. Has nothing to do with “cinematics” and graphics as many would have you believe. Salaries in Japan are far lower than those in the West. So it is what it is
Sometimes I feel bad for those devs, I mean they handrafted every single details in the game, but maybe player just rush through that area for few seconds, those textures, 4k etc. All of this for what?
Some gamers didn't even appreciate it, just looked at Spiderman 2 criticism, those fanboy even criticised insomniac are guilty for reused the assets, when I hear that I just feel bad for devs. I really hope they can stop chasing the graphics, it's a dead end, people already spoiled with AAA graphics, you're gonna lose big time if you don't change your direction.
Definitely agree about shorter games. I dont need games to be 50 or 100 hours long. Give me a tight, concise, 15 hour experience!
Marketing is another thing thats making these games so expensive. I have no idea what the solution to that would be other than to market less and rely more on word of mouth and infulencers to market games for studios?
@@slickdrick I refuse to equate length with value. Miles was absolutely better than Spider-Man 1. Burning Shores was better than Forbidden West. And I personally enjoyed Uncharted Lost Legacy more than Uncharted 4.
@@BenderOfStringsno it isn’t
@@BenderOfStrings
Miles Morales was not better than SM1 in story. Not even close.
@@slickdrickagreed
@@slickdrick bullshit. I'm white and I still liked MM more.
Believe bg forgot to mentioned marketing. That be as much if not more rhan it cost to make the games
But it's very important. Marketing keeps your brand in the subconscious of those that see it regularly.
@Zikk0_o it is but that's what kills them . Tlou 2 was like 300 million to Make but wtf was it's marketing? And did it need it . Just saying cuz I'm no expert
False, game marketing isn’t that expensive at all nor does it cost as much as to develop the game. You have no idea how development works or the costs related to it.
Less cutscenes
BG, the detail in the game that DO matter to you, say for instance a car's driving mechanics or the way a building crumbles during an explosions, all of those are built on the foundations of things that DO NOT matter to you. The team that builds environments often start without even a complete story, so they don't know if there is going to be explosions or limbs being torn apart. They might get the full brief of the story 2 years from starting to build the environment. So in the meantime, they will try to make the world as detailed as possible to accommodate whatever might be needed when it is time to bring the story in the game environment.
Reducing budget dev is not easy. If you do a bit of project management you will understand how things can go out of hand real quick.
That stuff is important. Im not saying details dont matter but the physics on a horse testicles type of details definitely dont matter lol.
@@BrokenGamezHDR That's nothing IMO. The development of that could have started with the logic "what happens to the horse when you shoot it in different parts". And thus concluding to make it realistic. Something that ruined Red Dead for me is them gamifying realistic chores like feeding and bathing the fucking horse every now then. I kinder see your point in that level. But the fact that game development has so many moving parts in motion at the same time, there's bound to be some useless detail.
The cause of EVERY major problem in the game dev industry right now is shitty management, and there is not a single damn thing developers can do about it.
Basically, the people in charge do not care about product quality, they only care about press releases and profit margins. They don't understand that press releases only matter insofar as they RELATE to product quality, and profit margins are DRIVEN by product quality.
If you focus on product quality, the press releases and profit margins take care of themselves - but it's going to take longer, and management would rather tell a bunch of lies for money TODAY than do the work for money TOMORROW.
EDIT: Fun fact, the UA-cam comment editor will LET you add bold and italics to your comment, but removes the words you put them on so your comment makes zero sense.
Ai is a good way honestly
Make smaller games
Those games cost more than ever too.
Gollum cost 16 million lol
Ear bud guy 😂😂😂😂
"Lean Development"🤔
Not reply on too much on realism for every game
Not use expensive technology for all games
Not hire A-list celebrities for modeling and voice acting for most games
Have some games with limited voice acting
Have games that take at minimum a few days to beat
Reduce high bundles of DLC
These are mine suggestions, I'm no expert myself.
Get actors that will act for less money and make the game shorter. That’s simple. 👍 We don’t need a hundred side quests or the game to be over 30hrs long
Is it time for WWP, or y’all still taking a break from taking a break ?
Everyone should do Gamepass that's how you do it. If you want lack luster rushed out games and you want it cheap gamepass is the way to go.
Boy you’re a dumb ass clown huh.
You want studios closing down lmao
@1ajgtwm I was being sarcastic I hate gamepass it devalues games and is a real insult to devs
#JACKISRIGHT
What did he ever say about this?
Less is more
Games, especially sony games are trying so hard to be movies so bad even though they are supposed to be games. this is why Sony games have been playing the same for 2 genereations now. 10min Cutscenes and walking sections dont help the game. They do too much that they dont even have time to implement challenges, new game plus or modes for replay value. Its not like the gameplay either is the best thing in the world because another issue is lack of innovation. So you are left with a game that you play once or twice and then you start to see the product for what it really is, underwhelming. This is where the money and time is going
Made no sense.
Unlike Sony, Rockstar isn't bitching about games being to expensive
Because they have a cash cow in GTA online that's why.
You might not know this, but Sony has far more IPs to invest in and can't send 8-10 years on one single game. Also didn't the CEO of Rockstar say games are too cheap?
Make smaller games as well as the bigger AAA ones?
Less cutscenes and more in game dialogue.
A lot of these text logs and audio logs dont need to be in most games
horror games dont need to cost more than 150 million AAA or not
Cut out the padding and these stupid accessibility options that dont help anyone
We need game development to start being gate kept again. Too many people are able to make and develop games which cases issues like this topic
Too well known as a medium to do that. A crash would have to happen first.
In the large scheme of things, I don't think AAA games cost too much money - they are just finally catching up to hollywood movie costs and inflation in the west has really set in. Some things that could change is especially western-made games pay far too much to CEOs and mid-level management, hiring hollywood stars for mocap/voiceover, often silly marketing costs, less pre-rendered cutscenes. Also games have always taken a long time to make - people point to Baldur's Gate 3 taking around 5 years of development while forgetting that the original Baldur's Gate in the 90s took around the same time.
Probably the biggest thing is to stop making new game engines. CDPR invested an absolutely ridiculous amount of money developing their game engine for Cyberpunk because management didn't want to pay licensing costs for unreal.
Without watching the video, this is what i think they'll do. Reduce numbers of employees like QA and artists. Replacing those with AI etc. Move to Unreal Engine. Focus on sequels/remakes. Use contractors. Reduce accessibility. This is not what it should be but i see them doing it.
Make more studios in 3rd world countries, it’ll save a lot of money
This is exactly what Sony is doing by investing in China, Malaysia and India with the Hero projects. South Korea is also way cheaper than the west too and that’s why they also made the Stellar Blade dev a 2nd party dev. They’re are starting to see the light. AAA game development in the west, especially the USA is far too unsustainable
The length of games is 100% the problem. We need games to go back to 10-15 hours being the norm.
I'm fine with budgets being as big as possible, smaller scale games are always getting published and as far as every dev is getting compensated fairly, I don't care about a corporations margins
AI doing things that don’t necessarily require a human touch is really the way to reduce time and money. People will complain but it is what it is.
But ponies don’t want that
if a person claims Miles Morales is better than Spider-Man 1 or 2, you can dismiss their opinions going forward
one way to reduce games budgets is to cut all the useless HR/PR/marketing/ESG/DEI positions in these studios
you miss so mutch on this subject
Let A.i. make your entire game. Then layoff everyone except a skeleton crews. Plus the game will play you.
I think Sony studios just got too big too fast. They need to either slim down or do support work for other studios.
BG, the cause of this conversation was the leak of Spider-Man 2's budget. Buggy at release, not at the top end of PlayStation 1st party attention to detail, and very lean in length and content. Assets reused like no tomorrow, moreso than most ACs back in the day. Miles Morales was not cheap to make for what it was either. Using Red Dead as the example doesn't fit. Most games ain't doing all that.
Here's the real answer:
1. AI integration. Eventually cuts out a lot of QA, and should help general coding pipelines.
2. Stop coddling employees. Lazy devs absolutely do exist. If they're regurgitating Jason Schreier's socialism, they ain't worth the paycheck. Work consistently or crunch. No more goddamn knitting clubs and diversity training/consultancy.
3. Manageable team sizes. Focus on no more than 1 project at full production and 1 at concept level at a time.
4. Get the market used to regular game price increases. Sorry guys, 70 bucks is still not enough.
That's really it.
To be fair, didn't Spider-Man 2018 also have a buggy launch? Cause I remember the gif's and jokes about them.
1: AI would more than likely help with the coding aspect, but you would still need QA people for the bugs that an AI would probably not catch when play testing.
2: That I would agree. Lazy devs either need to get in line or say bye. But I don't think crunch is a good idea either, since it can lead to employee frustration and then we have another TLOU2 incident because of a disgruntled worker.
3: That wouldn't help IMO, because if games continue to become more expensive to purchase then it's not really gonna even out the stupidly huge budgets since it would make people even MORE picky about buying games. It would probably lead to less sales overall and would make people question more, "Is this game REALLY worth $80 or $90?"
This person has fallen for corporate propaganda. Cut human development, further increase the price consumers have to pay. It's 2024 and people are still falling for it.
Ponies don’t want AI in there games tho 😂😂😂
Ok so lbh its not gaming thats hurting its ONLY PS and the bigger problem is they've cornered themselves...
They already focus on the "shit that dont matter" which is mostly graphics and celeb voice actors and writers..
Sony games have almost ZERO gameplay and thats the problem itll cost ALOT of to make systems they dont have.. Like the bethesda CE complaint applys to PS also..
They still have QTEs in MAJOR games for god sakes.. They have very outdated gameplay systems are afraid to invest in creating new things..
Them back tracking on Jims plan of GAAS isnt good tbh its cause further cornering them to being stuck to one thing and relying on people who will probaly get purchased one day in the future which will keep them in jeporady..
Just say you ain't never played a single player game in the last decade my guy. You don't have to come on here and show the entire Crumbside your ignorance lol