DDL on 21/10/2008 at 12:11
Very! Thanks!
I don't suppose you have dev costing estimates for any more recent games?
I've tried looking for bioshock costs, but nothing concrete so far (I haven't been looking very long, mind you). This rather random link
(
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/16727/2K-Confirms-BioShock-Trilogy-First-Game-Ships-22M-Units/) here seems to suggest that taketwo spend 15-20 million a month on software dev costs, but then that's for..eveything they're making. How many months did Bioshock take to make?
Given that SS2 was made in 1999, and that the team apparently still felt they didn't have nearly enough time to do a decent job, it's not unreasonable to imagine that modern games cost a hell of a lot more than 1.7 million.
(though hey: I'm happy to be proved wrong)
Ostriig on 21/10/2008 at 13:34
Quote Posted by DDL
I don't suppose you have dev costing estimates for any more recent games?
Well then, let's move on to the 21st century, shall we?
Quote Posted by Warren Spector, University of Texas Masterclass 1, Time ~ 1:37:00
Deus Ex 1 (2000) - 5.5 million $
Thief 3 (2004) - 11 million $
Deus Ex 2 (2004) - 12 million $
So yeah, they cost a shitload more than 1.7 million.
I can't quote a source, so the usual grain of salt, but I think I remember reading an article last year that suggested AAA titles nowadays require an investment of over 20 mil for full development.
As for Bioshock, here's a snippet from it's (
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3774/postmortem_2k_boston2k_.php?page=4) postmortem, though no costs are mentioned:
Quote:
Release date: August 21, 2007
Development time: 3 years
Number of full time developers at peak: 93 in-house developers, 30 contractors, 8 on-site publisher testers (see the sidebar on pg. 22 for details)
Papy on 21/10/2008 at 17:55
The point is those high cost are simply due to graphics, animation and other multimedia assets. That's why Wii games cost less. Here's a quote from Ken Levine : "In BioShock we basically spent the budget to make our art assets and the technology to render a lot of art assets at once to make a believable world" (Taken from (
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ken-levine-part-one) here).
In order to add a "hardcore" mode to a mass market game, you don't need a new engine, new textures, new animations... You just need to adjust the gameplay. In the case of BioShock, it's very easy to evaluate what would need to be done in order to turn it with the same kind of gameplay as System Shock 2 because both games, from a design point of view, are very similar. Even level design wouldn't need much changes (except maybe for medical which was far too linear). Apart from the overall gameplay, the only real difference is that BioShock was a shorter game than System Shock 2, but I don't view this as a problem (I played much shorter games than BioShock in the 80s). Saying it would cost 1.5 to 3 millions to adjust the gameplay to make it like System Shock 2, makes no sense.
Chade on 21/10/2008 at 21:45
99% of game development cost is labour. If we go by a rule of thumb which says that the true cost of a computer programmer is roughly twice their salary (I heard that once, but insert usual disclaimers here about me not knowing what I'm talking about) and apply that to other members of the team: 1.5 mill would be about the cost of hiring ten guys for a year.
Which is roughly in line with the sort of work I have previously claimed would be involved. Substantially changing AI and gameplay, testing and prototyping, some resulting level, art, and tech redesign. You'd probably want to change the level design anyway to provide less clues where the player should go.
So if you buy my previous arguments (which of course you don't), then 1.5 million is a reasonable guess. The extra 1.5 million may or may not happen when something goes wrong. Something always goes wrong ...
heywood on 21/10/2008 at 23:30
Chade -
I'm having trouble following your argument.
First, you're basically trying to tell Papy that he wants something different than he's asking for. I think if it's possible for the Bioshock devs to please Papy with just some interface changes, relatively minor AI changes, and resource balancing, then it would be possible to please most of the "hardcore" crowd too.
Second, even if he did accept your argument that changes to the tech, art, and level design would be required, that still doesn't represent an additional cost burden for developing a new game. You're looking at it from the perspective of modifying an already developed game and thus you're double counting the cost of modified art, levels, and tech. In a new game, you're not going to have different art, levels, and tech for the "hardcore" mode than you would for the "console kiddie" mode.
Chade on 21/10/2008 at 23:41
Quote Posted by heywood
I think if it's possible for the Bioshock devs to please Papy with just some interface changes, relatively minor AI changes, and resource balancing, then it would be possible to please most of the "hardcore" crowd too.
...
In a new game, you're not going to have different art, levels, and tech for the "hardcore" mode than you would for the "console kiddie" mode.
I don't see a flood of people declaring that playing BS without vita chambers "changes everything", the way Papy has. I think it's great that Papy has changed his mind on BS, but I haven't seen many others copying him.
Also, I have seen people struggle to navigate through DX:IW's opening level (I have had to help people find Billie Adams apartment, and the lockers next to the basket ball court). You do need different levels. If you want to do it properly, at any rate.
DDL on 22/10/2008 at 08:24
In addition to extra dev costs, don't forget that testing a corridor shooter is a hell of a lot less onerous than testing something like SS2 or DX, too. The more complexity, the more possible actions need testing, so you need more testers, and they need more time.
It all adds up.
Papy on 22/10/2008 at 11:23
Quote Posted by Chade
I don't see a flood of people declaring that playing BS without vita chambers "changes everything", the way Papy has.
That's in big part because I was not such a big fan of SS2 in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I loved SS2, I praised it to other people, but I played it fully only once (ok, maybe twice, I must admit I'm not sure about what I did 8 years ago). So basically, my desire to have a true sequel was not as high as a lot of other people. Also, maybe you are misunderstanding me. Turning off Vita-Chambers change BioShock from an extremely boring game to a very good FPS, certainly the best from my point of view (which I guess is not that difficult since I don't like FPS) but it doesn't change BioShock into a SS2 spiritual successor (from a gameplay point of view).
On the other hand, I am a big fan of Deus Ex. So you can be sure that even if I can turn off auto-heal, I'm almost certain it won't be enough for me. I want a true sequel to Deus Ex and another FPS, no matter how good it is, won't cut it. Having said that, as it now seems obvious Deus Ex 3 won't be a true sequel to Deus Ex, maybe my mourning will be over by the time the game is released and, maybe, I could still view it as an acceptable game... who knows. (Of course, that is if I don't boycott the game.)
BTW, another reason turning off Vita-Chambers worked for me is because the first time I tried BioShock (with Vita-Chambers), I pretty much quit playing immediately. So when I tried it again after the patch, it was still a fresh game for me. If you asked me what was the worse level of BioShock (from a design point of view), I will say without hesitation that it was Medical. The problem is I know I'm probably not objective when I say this. Medical was the level I did the first time I played with Vita-Chambers and this (bad) memory certainly plays a big role in my appreciation of the level. The sad truth is there is a good probability that if I hadn't quit playing immediately, if I had endured the whole game with Vita-Chambers, I probably wouldn't have changed my mind about it, even with Vita-Chambers disabled.
That reminds me of a beautiful girl I knew when I was a teen. Unfortunately, I once saw her in a not so glaring moment. When I saw her again a few days later, she was still as beautiful as before, but the image I was seeing was not how she looked at that instant, but rather how she looked the few days before. The magic was simply broken.
Quote Posted by DDL
In addition to extra dev costs, don't forget that testing a corridor shooter is a hell of a lot less onerous than testing something like SS2 or DX, too.
It is exactly as onerous as it was 10 years ago.
Actually... I will agree this not entirely true. The reason is it is a lot more difficult to hold the hand of the modern gamer in a game like SS2 than it is to let the old hardcore gamer find his own solution and suck it up when he screws up. Look at the thread "You can get forever stuck at one place in Deus Ex even if you don't die?" to understand what I mean. But as a gameplay made for the old hardcore gamer doesn't need to be tested as thoroughly as the gameplay targeted for the modern gamer, the extra cost doesn't apply.
DDL on 22/10/2008 at 12:07
It's not the handholding, it's the making sure the game can handle all the crazy shit that us people who play games the old way can come up with. If you want some nice clever multilinear cerebral stealth game you might be annoyed if you find that one of the ways through a level was unanticipated, and thus fucks the game as a result. The more ways you can do something, the more ways that very something can become horribly borked. It's generally worse nowadays because the games are more complicated technically, and the players are less forgiving.
Plus you have to FIND the "cerebral multilinear gameplay"-appreciating beta testers, first.
And all of this with EA or whoever breathing down your neck asking why you haven't released yet.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying doing all this is unfeasible, it's just..not feasible enough in the minds of the people who handle all the actual money. I didn't say I liked it, either, but I do understand their reasoning.
Much like in evolution, the ones that are most successful are rarely those that do things 'best', they're ones that do things 'just good enough', and do them 'faster and more often'.
