High end graphics are killing the games industry

[Amentep]

Games publishers need to look at what movie studios do. They put out the big 100+ million dollar movies hoping for success, but if they fail due to overspending (looking at you John Carter, probably the only movie to make nearly 300 million and be considered a failure) they are subsidized by the cheap comedies and such that don't gross as much but cost a lot less to make. So if they put out a bunch of 20 million dollar budget games that make 40 million, the 100 million dollar one that makes 85 million isn't such a huge problem.

 

I'm reminded of the quote mentioned about the possibility of a Green Hornet sequel (which made almost twice what it cost to make: cost ~$120 M, made ~$240 M) which was that the studio had no interest in a sequel because they didn't spend $100 million on a film to make $100 million.

 

John Carter made $300 million but reputedly cost $250 million to make*; clearly Disney doesn't want to invest millions of dollars to only show $50 million profit.

 

I can't help but wonder if that's the same problem we're seeing in the game industry. They don't want Tomb Raider to make a tidy little profit, they want it to make a mega profit - otherwise it isn't worth their time and expense.

 

*As I recall John Carter was handicapped by having several years of budget hell money applied to its final cost even though those costs didn't go towards the film that got made.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Amentep

[alanschu]

I'm just guessing, but I suspect Tomb Raider's "lack of success" is more along the lines of "we wanted more than we got" instead of "we lost money on it."

 

I also think people see Tomb Raider as too much of a sole catalyst of Square-Enix's CEO stepping down.

Edited April 15, 2013 by alanschu

[Keyrock]

I'm just guessing, but I suspect Tomb Raider's "lack of success" is more along the lines of "we wanted more than we got" instead of "we lost money on it."

 

I also think people see Tomb Raider as too much of a sole catalyst of Square-Enix's CEO stepping down.

That's a definite possibility.  It may well have been that problems and expenses had already mounted enough where someone's head would likely have to go on the chopping block, and Tomb Raider was a last ditch effort at avoiding that.  They needed it to hit it out of the park.  When it only hit a wall ball double, that wasn't enough to save the job.

[alanschu]

I find a lot of it comes down to how a company does against expectations.

 

Apple can announce that they had made $13 billion in profits over a year (same as last year), on $54 billion in revenue (up 18%), but because the expectations were higher, the stock ends up dropping and Tim Cook feels the heat Link.

 

It gets a bit absurd, but I won't pretend to understand how the stock market works.

[Labadal]

Wada stepping down should have happened a few years ago. Final Fantasy XIV was a disaster. FFXIII sold well, but it was criticized by a lot of people. The sequel tried to fix things but from what I hear, it's a mind**** storywise. Plus, you play as one of the most annoying characters in the series. Final Fantasy Type-0 also took a long, long time to get a release. So long, in fact, that a Western release was not deemed worthy because the PSP is basically dead over here. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still not out on the market 7(8?) years after being revealed. Then we have Dragon Quest X Online. I don't know how well it is doing, but I doubt it is doing as well as S-E hoped for. Their focus on the mobile market is also something I don't understand. Sure, it is a big market, but it isn't going to be the market that keeps your company floating when your company name is Square Enix. Their push for buying Western studios is a good thing, I think. Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus EX, Thief and whatever else they have the rights for. Sleeping Dogs could become an interesting series if they choose to continue partnership with UGF. They also have had a low output of console games directly developed in-house. The Last Remnant, FFXIII and FFXIII-2 are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Compare that to their portable game portfolia for the last 7 years and you can see a baffling difference.

[Labadal]

I find a lot of it comes down to how a company does against expectations.

 

Apple can announce that they had made $13 billion in profits over a year (same as last year), on $54 billion in revenue (up 18%), but because the expectations were higher, the stock ends up dropping and Tim Cook feels the heat Link.

 

It gets a bit absurd, but I won't pretend to understand how the stock market works.

 

I buy and sell a lot of stocks. It doesn't matter if you make a 100 million profit if you were expected to make a 200 million profit. Simply put, the stock market and expectations go hand-in-hand.

[alanschu]

I understand that, I am pretty sure I was trying to say the same thing.... hahaha.

 

 

I guess I said "I don't understand how the stock market works" when I suppose I actually do.

 

My favourites are when stock goes up because a company only loses $400 million when they were expecting to lose $1 billion

Edited April 15, 2013 by alanschu

[Mamoulian War]

Wada stepping down should have happened a few years ago. Final Fantasy XIV was a disaster. FFXIII sold well, but it was criticized by a lot of people. The sequel tried to fix things but from what I hear, it's a mind**** storywise. Plus, you play as one of the most annoying characters in the series. Final Fantasy Type-0 also took a long, long time to get a release. So long, in fact, that a Western release was not deemed worthy because the PSP is basically dead over here. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still not out on the market 7(8?) years after being revealed. Then we have Dragon Quest X Online. I don't know how well it is doing, but I doubt it is doing as well as S-E hoped for. Their focus on the mobile market is also something I don't understand. Sure, it is a big market, but it isn't going to be the market that keeps your company floating when your company name is Square Enix. Their push for buying Western studios is a good thing, I think. Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus EX, Thief and whatever else they have the rights for. Sleeping Dogs could become an interesting series if they choose to continue partnership with UGF. They also have had a low output of console games directly developed in-house. The Last Remnant, FFXIII and FFXIII-2 are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Compare that to their portable game portfolia for the last 7 years and you can see a baffling difference.

 

Maybe if they would be producing more in-house games for consoles, they would be even deeper in red numbers, because of development costs... Their most successful game this generation was Dragon Quest IX for Nintendo DS... And IMO that is one of the reasons, why they shifted more towards handhelds instead of big inhouse AAA...

[Labadal]

I understand that, I am pretty sure I was trying to say the same thing.... hahaha.

 

 

I guess I said "I don't understand how the stock market works" when I suppose I actually do.

 

My favourites are when stock goes up because a company only loses $400 million when they were expecting to lose $1 billion

 

I've made money on that! Company is expected to lose lots of money. Stock brokers says otherwise, I put some money in and make a profit. I've lost some, but I'm doing fine overall. Otherwise, I would never have pledged what I pledged for Eternity. (lol)

[Labadal]

 

Wada stepping down should have happened a few years ago. Final Fantasy XIV was a disaster. FFXIII sold well, but it was criticized by a lot of people. The sequel tried to fix things but from what I hear, it's a mind**** storywise. Plus, you play as one of the most annoying characters in the series. Final Fantasy Type-0 also took a long, long time to get a release. So long, in fact, that a Western release was not deemed worthy because the PSP is basically dead over here. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still not out on the market 7(8?) years after being revealed. Then we have Dragon Quest X Online. I don't know how well it is doing, but I doubt it is doing as well as S-E hoped for. Their focus on the mobile market is also something I don't understand. Sure, it is a big market, but it isn't going to be the market that keeps your company floating when your company name is Square Enix. Their push for buying Western studios is a good thing, I think. Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus EX, Thief and whatever else they have the rights for. Sleeping Dogs could become an interesting series if they choose to continue partnership with UGF. They also have had a low output of console games directly developed in-house. The Last Remnant, FFXIII and FFXIII-2 are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Compare that to their portable game portfolia for the last 7 years and you can see a baffling difference.

 

Maybe if they would be producing more in-house games for consoles, they would be even deeper in red numbers, because of development costs... Their most successful game this generation was Dragon Quest IX for Nintendo DS... And IMO that is one of the reasons, why they shifted more towards handhelds instead of big inhouse AAA...

 

Dragon Quest games are "part of the Enix side". They have always been developed by outside studios, not by Enix themselves.

 

They might make some easy money on the FFX/X-2 HD remakes. KH 1.5 HD will probably also do decent numbers for a HD port. Hopefully, we get Bravely Default over here. It'll probably not sell that great, but might help spread some good word of mouth.

 

We'll see what they will be showing at E3. Hashimoto did tease a new Final Fantasy. Hopefully FF Versus XIII or FFXV.

[Keyrock]

We'll see what they will be showing at E3. Hashimoto did tease a new Final Fantasy. Hopefully FF Versus XIII or FFXV.

I get that Final Fantasy is a traditional cash cow for Squeenix, so I understand them pumping out game after game after game after...  I'm honestly really burned out on the series.  What I want to see is The Worlds Ends With You 2.

[Mamoulian War]

I will be buying the HD edition myself, my PS2 is atm gathering dust most of the time, so it would be good money spent on my convenience

 

EDIT: AAAAnd as a bonus factor, both HD versions would include content which was previously Japanese only, and hopefully they add little bit more... I must say, I am more excited to this than to news about FFvXIII...

 

And yes the teaser has made me little bit angry... "We are announcing that there will be an announcement on E3"

 

 

 

BUT I am willing to bet, that FFvXIII will be presented at E3 as FFXV I will eat whole days only cereals, if I am mistaken, who is willing to participate?

Edited April 15, 2013 by Mamoulian War

[Mamoulian War]

OOOKAAAAY

 

Just found out this article...

 

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/CaimDark/square-enix-expected-tomb-raider-to-sell-nearly-7-million-copies-in-4-weeks-251130.phtml

 

Is that stuff the execs at SE are smoking even legal???

 

This by Jim Sterling is a very similar to what am I thinking now about some people leading stuff... Dark Souls sold 2 mils and people making it were happy as a 2 year olds getting a candy and are making another sequel, while Capcom sold 5 millions of Resident Evil 6 and is crying a river, that it underperformed...

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7121-Dark-Souls-and-Dark-Sales

 

Once again... if that stuff the guys are smoking is legal in EU, I'd definitely would like to have a sample for testing *winks*

[Labadal]

They expect too much all the time lately. Dungeon Siege III, Deus Ex:HR, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman, Tomb Raider. They expect crazy numbers when the games actually do relatively fine.

 

About the HD versions. FFX HD won't get any new content for EU gamers. We got everything the Japanese got. X-2 HD will have more content but I heard it isn't something to cheer about.

 

@Keyrock: I want more Final Fantasy games. I just don't want them to do like they did with the XIII games. Type-0 was good from what I played. (Bad camera, but I enjoyed everything else despite not knowing Japanese.)  FFVII Crisis Core was good despite feeling like a cash grab. I haven't played any of the Dissidia games, but I've mostly heard good things. FFXIV, FFXIII-XIII-2 and Lightning Returns is what bothers me. A Final Fantasy with no involvement from Toriyama is all I want. They have Ito that worked on all of my favorite FF games. get him involved to beging with and go from there.

 

I wouldn't mind if they put focus on other series either. They have Drakengard 3 in development. (Looks really, really bad.) I'd like to see a new good Mana game or a SaGa game or a sequel to The Last Remnant.

[Keyrock]

OOOKAAAAY

 

Just found out this article...

 

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/CaimDark/square-enix-expected-tomb-raider-to-sell-nearly-7-million-copies-in-4-weeks-251130.phtml

 

Is that stuff the execs at SE are smoking even legal???

 

This by Jim Sterling is a very similar to what am I thinking now about some people leading stuff... Dark Souls sold 2 mils and people making it were happy as a 2 year olds getting a candy and are making another sequel, while Capcom sold 5 millions of Resident Evil 6 and is crying a river, that it underperformed...

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7121-Dark-Souls-and-Dark-Sales

 

Once again... if that stuff the guys are smoking is legal in EU, I'd definitely would like to have a sample for testing *winks*

Yeah, that's straight up insanity.  Those are just not reasonable expectations.  The Witcher 2 likely sold less copies than Tomb Raider in its lifetime (it's 5 million for the whole series, I don't know what the split is), and that's a 2 year old game, and those figures are good enough that the folks at CD Projekt RED were high fivin' and expanded their studio enough so they can tackle multiple projects at once.  Funny, that game didn't have any lack of graphics.  CDPR must have gotten a discount on graphics.  Maybe price per pixel is cheaper in Poland?  Black market?  Did they steal their pixels?

[Mamoulian War]

They expect too much all the time lately. Dungeon Siege III, Deus Ex:HR, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman, Tomb Raider. They expect crazy numbers when the games actually do relatively fine.

 

About the HD versions. FFX HD won't get any new content for EU gamers. We got everything the Japanese got. X-2 HD will have more content but I heard it isn't something to cheer about.

 

@Keyrock: I want more Final Fantasy games. I just don't want them to do like they did with the XIII games. Type-0 was good from what I played. (Bad camera, but I enjoyed everything else despite not knowing Japanese.)  FFVII Crisis Core was good despite feeling like a cash grab. I haven't played any of the Dissidia games, but I've mostly heard good things. FFXIV, FFXIII-XIII-2 and Lightning Returns is what bothers me. A Final Fantasy with no involvement from Toriyama is all I want. They have Ito that worked on all of my favorite FF games. get him involved to beging with and go from there.

 

I wouldn't mind if they put focus on other series either. They have Drakengard 3 in development. (Looks really, really bad.) I'd like to see a new good Mana game or a SaGa game or a sequel to The Last Remnant.

 

 

Yes, I do know, FFX in EU is the same content as in Japan, but I am one of the insane in a brain people who actually enjoyed X-2, because I loved its ATB combat system... So I am eager about this new content...

 

First Dissidia was amaying game... last time I checked, my last save got more than 300 hours played... it is highly addictive, but not everybody's cup of tea... I would definitely not recommend it to everyone, but for me it was best SE game released in last 5 years in the west...

[AwesomeOcelot]

Small teams have always been able to make impressive games graphically, look at iD or Crytek, but they're not that common and after initial success they inevitable want wages that match their talent.

...and those figures are good enough that the folks at CD Projekt RED were high fivin' and expanded their studio enough so they can tackle multiple projects at once.

They have a parent company that's doing quite well, sure they can turn a profit from their games, but do we know that the expansion is funded by that?

Maybe price per pixel is cheaper in Poland?

That's a rhetorical question right? Wages are way lower than North America, Western and Northern Europe. Of course there's a lot of talent from Eastern Europe that goes to Western Europe and North America. Edited April 15, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[Keyrock]

Small teams have always been able to make impressive games graphically, look at iD or Crytek, but they're not that common and after initial success they inevitable want wages that match their talent.

...and those figures are good enough that the folks at CD Projekt RED were high fivin' and expanded their studio enough so they can tackle multiple projects at once.

They have a parent company that's doing quite well, sure they can turn a profit from their games, but do we know that the expansion is funded by that?

>>

Maybe price per pixel is cheaper in Poland?

That's a rhetorical question right? Wages are way lower than North America, Western and Northern Europe. Of course there's a lot of talent from Eastern Europe that goes to Western Europe and North America.

 

Actually CD Projekt RED now owns CD Projekt Sp and GOG, they ARE the parent company.  But your point about them having other sources of revenue is correct.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Keyrock

[alanschu]

Yeah, that's straight up insanity.  Those are just not reasonable expectations.  The Witcher 2 likely sold less copies than Tomb Raider in its lifetime (it's 5 million for the whole series, I don't know what the split is), and that's a 2 year old game, and those figures are good enough that the folks at CD Projekt RED were high fivin' and expanded their studio enough so they can tackle multiple projects at once.  Funny, that game didn't have any lack of graphics.  CDPR must have gotten a discount on graphics.  Maybe price per pixel is cheaper in Poland?  Black market?  Did they steal their pixels?

 

 

Again, it's about expectations.  If they wanted 7 million and only got 3.5 million, they'll be disappointed (regardless of whether or not their expectations are sane or not).  It's not all that relevant if the game can break even with only 2.5 million.

 

(Although where games get made can have huge impacts on the cost of developing said game).

[alanschu]

 

Actually CD Projekt RED now owns CD Projekt Sp and GOG, they ARE the parent company.  But your point about them having other sources of revenue is correct.

 

Being private also grants some level of flexibility.

 

Richard Garriott could say "lets take our time" with Ultima because he can just go and plop down some personal investment into Origin when Origin was still private.  "We need $100k to finish this.  Well, I have that...." /signscheque

[Zoraptor]

They're at least partially publicly listed though, aren't they? They took over a company (Optimus?) specifically to get on the Polish stock exchange and a quick check suggests they have shares for sale.

[Mamoulian War]

Small teams have always been able to make impressive games graphically, look at iD or Crytek, but they're not that common and after initial success they inevitable want wages that match their talent.

...and those figures are good enough that the folks at CD Projekt RED were high fivin' and expanded their studio enough so they can tackle multiple projects at once.

They have a parent company that's doing quite well, sure they can turn a profit from their games, but do we know that the expansion is funded by that?

>

Maybe price per pixel is cheaper in Poland?

That's a rhetorical question right? Wages are way lower than North America, Western and Northern Europe. Of course there's a lot of talent from Eastern Europe that goes to Western Europe and North America.

 

 

Believe me, you would be surprised how much is good programmer worth in East Europe, and how big they paychecks are

[mkreku]

 

Small teams have always been able to make impressive games graphically, look at iD or Crytek, but they're not that common and after initial success they inevitable want wages that match their talent.

...and those figures are good enough that the folks at CD Projekt RED were high fivin' and expanded their studio enough so they can tackle multiple projects at once.

They have a parent company that's doing quite well, sure they can turn a profit from their games, but do we know that the expansion is funded by that?

>

Maybe price per pixel is cheaper in P

oland?

That's a rhetorical question right? Wages are way lower than North America, Western and Northern Europe. Of course there's a lot of talent from Eastern Europe that goes to Western Europe and North America.

 

Believe me, you would be surprised how much is good programmer worth in East Europe, and how big they paychecks are

 

 

Oh, I was surprised alright. We hired some from Poland for one fifth of what they would cost in Sweden.

[Mamoulian War]

I said a GOOD programmer

[AwesomeOcelot]

I said a GOOD programmer

That gets recruited to the FSB or crime syndicates.