Darkpriest

Hmh, you might be right there. Kate Perry license probably costs a lot, wouldn't be surprised if it's not millions. The games itself are probably cheap to make but all other expenses are very high. I have no idea about the cost of making the core Sims games but the 10+ expansions they release for every one are probably close to zero effort compared to what they make from them. That's what's called a smart move by EA here... this type of game has almost a limitless potential for additional contents and customization options, and people buying this type of the game, love exactly that.

@Gatt I could argue about the demographics... The least I can say is that demographics can be vastly different for each genre and even within one broadly described genre. MMO people are different than MOBA people, which are different than TBS people, etc. You do not have to be surveyed directly. With the new platforms, like Steam / Origin, etc. you are most likely already a part of a CRM system. It would be stupid on the publishers side if they would be creating these tools and not use them also as the Market Intelligence tool which could help them get the demographics right.

I doubt, because of the all the extra features they try to put in, to make it more connected with social media... add to that things with titles that involve H&M clothing, Kate Perry, and a lot of marketing expenses at the launch of the game. I'd say that it definitely is not a small to medium production cost game.

They are in the same category as rest of their cheaply made games with very little effort. To be honest I am a bit amazed by the strategy that EA tries to follow. Their strongest points are within titles, which they created themselves... All of EA sports... for me EA meant quality (got hooked up with NHL 93' and NFS (casual racing)) Sims - that was/is a phenomenon, which they should and are smartly expanding on. FPS with Battlefield series being their flag ship These three above are high budget genres, where they should stick to the formula. On the other hand they are entering the world of application games for social media and handheld devices. It is also a good part, because they can sell tens of millions of copies of these, and their customer base is not consisting of gamers in a traditional sense of this word (i.e. PC / console) What EA is doing wrong though is skipping the middle ground. They have great IPs in their possession and they are butchering them, while they could have made them small/medium budget games with high profitability return. C&C - This IP was so well regarded that they could have been updating just graphics and they would be selling a lot of that... The biggest flaw in their design was not introduction of co-op, because that is actually a nice idea, but how they've tried to go into some sort of hybrid between Dawn of War and C&C with their last C&C... Keep the franchise true to what made it successful in the first place... Syndicate - This... I will just put a veil of silence upon this IP... Mass Effect - turning a great RPG into a space squad-shooter with more dialogs than CoD - no influence system, no non-combat skills, limited choices in dialog, etc. Dragon Age - see above, it will be most likely action oriented hack&slash, but with more dialog than Diablo I guess. DA tries to become ME3 of fantasy setting - that's not what made the IP great in the first game.. Dead Space - They had a great title and with DS3 it seems that they are doing again a wrong step. Ultima - no comment... Now, apparently they also can get some titles right. I have some hope for the latest SimCity Other publishers are more inclined to keep the franchise within its core... Blizzard got it right with SC2, but took something bad with Diablo 3 - if D2 is more playable and enjoyable now than D3 is, then something is wrong. Look also at Beths' Fallout - it got criticized to no end, for being Oblivion with guns, and they turned to people who know how to make falloutish experience to scrap whatever they can from that formula, with Fallout:NV getting much better reception than Fallout 3. It is true, that major publishers do not try to get into the middle ground, like RTS, TBS, core RPG, Simulators, Adventure games.

^^^ you forget about games like Sims in EA's portfolio

erhmm... I do not even know where to start... Do you really think that a celebrity can do better than a pro-orchestra musician? Well, maybe you want people like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPrQndK-h2g&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stGtcuojkx4&feature=related TBH, Youtube is ok, but I have yet to see something, THAT IS NOT a cover of already a grand track, and what would blow my mind off... Also, celebrities tend to take a more money than their work is worth, just because they ARE... Among the celebrities there are not many that actually earned their recognition by talent, most do by looks/shoehorning by publisher, and coupled with some skill...

Well, you surely know the music of the games, that were loved by people who backed this project. I'd rarely go into the direction of guiding the artist what he has to do. I'd show him a picture and ask him to create the music, then evaluate the result... Unfortunately I am away on the road, so I do not have an access to my bookmarks with some great pics. You will have to do with your creative mind and surprise us

There is a difference between going to a publisher, with OWN well established franchise and requiring funding, and going to a publisher for a pitch meeting with an idea for a game... The point is, that they could go to a publisher, which would be willing to deal with PC exclusive... Few publishers are willing for such an exercise, although this could be considered highly profitable franchise in terms of % return, but certainly not a huge budget game... For that, too many compromises would have to be made... You cannot expect Mass Effect graphic / voice over style and BG2/Fallout/Torment writing and IWD/ToEE combat depth with full control over party members...

Ok here it is. Some points, which one should take into consideration. 1) The biggest flaw of the industry, is that they drive into the direction of interactive, immersive movies... That's why they spend a LOT on graphics and physics, a LOT on full voice overs with talented voice actors, a LOT on high quality music. Now, where the cost cutting can go without hurting the "immersive" First Person experience in a very detailed graphical environment? Story and plot length... The less dialog, the less lines of text and the less environments and places to visit -> the less costly the game be, in an already huge production budget 2) Designing games, that we want to hit the largest possible audience, because we need millions of copies sold at high price to even break even... That's why the marketing expenses are huge... They need to create a LOT of hype, so the game will sell in first week to break even, and in second and third week to reach the profit... After the first two-three weeks the sales decline. It is the same rule as with the film industry and cinemas... If we create a game with huge budget, we need to sell millions of copies in first two weeks, otherwise it is a flop... 3) Publishers are smart... they know the demographics, so they target the audience with the type of entertainment, which is easy, pleasing to eye, and not very mentally exercising. Same feature drives the film industry... Ambitious and artistic visions, with deep message, are niche... I personally do not like such movies, because I usually want to be a brain dead while watching some blockbuster with good action and cheap jokes. Games however I like to have more brain involving, because I get easily bored otherwise. Film is 1,5h long, game needs to keep me for far longer time. 4) Blockbusters (films) usually have famous names on the roster and that alone can sell a movie... games... they rely on a franchise in the same way. It is difficult to establish a good name for a franchise, but you can easily try to milk it, if you also own the IP... Actors have more independence than an IP, so they can eventually quit working on some silly projects if a previous one hurt their image too much. The one IP that is always strong among the gaming industry is the Star Wars, just because George Lucas is the only one who can tarnish the franchise Expense type by categories: Production: Salaries and Social Security charges and taxes. - main bulk if the team consist of hundreds of people... Outsourcing and external services (Cinematics, music) - if you want famous names involved, you gonna pay for that... a LOT... Design tools associated solely to the project, which cannot contribute other projects. Things associated with delivery of the product to the Point of Sales and usable condition. Other expenses: Marketing (not directly tied to production costs, but I assume it's measured against a total profitability of a project). Licenses (depreciate over the life time of a license - for example Forgotten Realms license, Star Wars license, etc. or Engine license - if the engine license is over a life time, not per game title) - I would assume that licenses can be a tricky part, since with some right contract conditioning the expenses could be put below EBITDA lines, and EBITDA is basically one of the main factors that shareholders want to see as it usually builds value for transactions Disclaimer: Please note that I do not have insiders knowledge on the industry's finance mechanics, but make some assumptions based on some general rules. I would really want to see someone, who actually works on some more senior position in finance in the gaming industry to contact me, so I could get more knowledge on the rules here. I am all into tech industry, like mobile operators, marketing media and TV, but never touched gaming industry yet :D

The IDEAL FPS games of the 90s: Duke Nukem 3D - you just cannot not love it... especially the special edition... that was very climatic. Doom series. I am not sure if I will not harm this game by calling it an FPS but here it is - System Shock - no contest...

Pray tell, what exactly are the differences between a nineties shooter like Quake or Half-Life and today's shooters that aren't among the differences between nineties space games and Star Citizen? Cut content for later DLC sales

$3-4 million is a drop in the bucket for these people. Banner Saga got $700k? That's nothing. You're not competing with the people who spend $100 million to make GTA IV, $55 million for Halo 3, $22 million on Crysis, etc. Budget-wise they are, at best, five times smaller than the smallest AAA game. If you're a 6 foot tall man, it's like standing next to a 30 foot tall giant. Hell, ti's like standing next to a machine that can churn out 10 30 foot tall giants every year. We really need that kind of machine in the actual game j/k 4 mln USD is a good budget to make a very good game. As I said before, the main part of the production costs are salaries, that's why for example a Polish Game The Witcher 2 had a budget of roughly 5mln USD, but it was made with CGI, Full Voice over in different languages, teasers and stuff... US based company will not be able to afford full voice overs, but it can create a lot of dialog, and graphics is a lot simpler and thus cheaper in terms of workhours to create in the 2.5D isometric game. The team will be what? 20 people? I am fairly sure that Obsidian will fill any possible gaps from their own funds if they would hit some major delays or required to get more people at the same time on the project to get it on time. Either delay or more people would result in additional working hours though... As for the funding.... Well IF the big three-five projects will be involved in the Kicking it forward initiative, they can roll their own budgets through this quasi-profit sharing. So successful sales of these titles and fairly large initial amount of money, might continue to get people invested in crowd funding... The thing is, that 90% of these big titles has to be successful sales wise (around 1mln copies publisher free product will be a hit and a lot of cash for the company), and they need to promote that this was possible to establish this franchise, because of KS initiative... I can easily see these RPGs making 1mln copies sold on the release... If you will look at the sales generated by The Witcher franchise (check only the PC versions), it is possible. After all, TW wasn't done by a major developer / publisher combo and it is based on not so well known fantasy setting. Only now CD Porjekt RED has a lot of goodwill value and they surely keep doing the great job (The Witcher 3 in works, Cyberpunk 2077 in works - yes, The Cyberpunk game, with involvement of the P&P Cyberpunk creator). I can see that this is another studio, which could get the funding via the Kickstarter initiative. Kickstarter will not kick BIG 5 in the balls and will not hurt them, but smaller publishers might want to diversify their portfolio with smaller budget, but high profitability projects... If I see that the goal for Dead Space 3 from EA is to sell 5 mln copies just to BREAK EVEN, it's astounding... Edit: A solely PC game requires less money than a game for three platforms (PC, XBOX, PS3)

Moarz music...

I'd love to see two big cities... One which is on the surface, and the other, which is in equivalent of Underdark, if there is such a place in this realm. The BIG dungeon, could be on of the routes, that connects two "worlds", but not the only one.

Yeah, I would think that marketing is taken out of the global marketing pool of operating expenses. Production budget is just that, production budget... (salaries being the main factor here) Allocation of marketing budget to a title is a whole different story (and then profitability of the project as a whole). You need to remember that the current triple A titles tend to hire HUNDREDS of people (code, graphics, etc), plus usually expensive voice actors. Add to that any outsourced services (for example music) and you get bloated production costs... The team at Obsidian will be what, 20 people?

I want to see an updated graphics of the 15 levels dungeon :D and there is always a chance for the 16th level as well, from the Facebook likes...

If it wasn't the time, where I am in a empty void between resigning from my previous position to finding a new contract, I would definitely pledged more. I am satisfied with my Boxed copy + expansion, but I would certainly love to get at least the collectors edition... First time in my life I was willing to pay for collectors edition :D

I was here mostly for the duration of the Kickstarter campaign to make sure that the overall shape is well known to me. Now I will be staying away from the forum and wait for my boxed copy to appear somewhere in 2014. I want to be SURPRISED by the game :D

Maybe.... 5h is not that much, but if Paypal accounts too, we should be near the 4mln... around 3,9 I would guess, but today's spike is unpredictable where it will end I just hope that if we will miss it by a relatively small margin we will still get those enhancements

I hope they will add some bonus on top, with all the pledges and amount of extra cash - I estimate the total cash at around 3,7-3,8 by the end of the day with all paypal funding added.

great update.. as for a pet, put in some morphling that can shift into a pet from a predefined list (cat, dog, whatever seems fancy enough). If it has no combat influence, you can go crazy with little animals and creatures

I'm about to up my pledge for collectors edition... damn it Obsidian I want that 2,6 mln goal badly...

Thanks for the update... I have all the trust that the music will be grand

It's an RPG, not some Skyrim/ME3 Bull****

It's because people mostly assume the worst case scenarios of said mechanics. For example "partial level scaling" - it can be done right - via clever placing of monsters etc. (very rare solution), and it can be done bad (Elder Scrolls) - Since the bad examples of level scaling are more imprinted in memories - they automatically get called up. Same goes with crafting and other mechanics *shrugs*.