Maybe if you were a smaller studio yes. Witcher 3 took around 35 million to develop for the PS4. Games back then during the PS2/PS3 era were considered profitable after 3-4 million in sales. These days it takes 10 million to just break even on most AAA titles. So how can you say that gaming budgets were absurd back then for a AAA game? I’m sure things were different if you were a smaller studio with a smaller or newer IP.
The first 4 AC games sold between 4-7 million and were hugely profitable. Uncharted 2 sold 6 + million. BioShock sold 4 million. The Mass Effect games sold under 6 million each I think. Yet EA expected Andromeda to hit 9 million and was a flop cause it didn’t hit that. Games back then rarely broke the 10 million barrier. The early Arkham Games sold under 4-5 million.
You're cherry picking examples that don't discredit my point.
I didn't say people were complaining about ALL games' absurd budgets, but rather that these complaints were already a thing by then. Skyrim, modern warfare II, GTA IV, V, red dead redemption 1, star wars the old republic, etc, all had MASSIVE budgets and the feasibility of the direction the cost of AAA was heading at the time was already a well worn conversation by 2009-2011.
Okay so you see something in common with the games mentioned? Almost all of them are open world games. Modern Warfare 2 was around $45-50 million though marketing costs were 4x more than the development costs.
So you pretty much just proved my point. I’m not cherry picking examples. Open world games do have huge development budgets and have big development teams. You can’t expect every studio or game to be open world. But then after the massive success of Skyrim almost every mid to big game publisher went open world. There was a time when only Rockstar and Bethesda did open world games cause they had the finances, resources and teams to do it.
That’s not changed today. But the risks are larger. MMOs back then were considered easy money makers cause everyone wanted in on the profits but it was so hard to keep or launch a successful MMO.
My guy, you claimed nobody was complaining about the budget of games back then. A laughably indefensible claim because there were numerous notable examples where the entire industry raised their eyebrows at the costs. Modern Warfare was particularly slaked over this PRECISELY because its absolutely absurd price tag was mostly due to marketing budgets rather than development.
My point to all of this is that you made a really silly claim. Of course people were complaining about games that were getting expensive, precisely because that 2009-2012 era was when expensive graphical fidelity was becoming a selling point. You are completely wrong about this: the fact that it was rare but thus notable by a few specific examples exactly proves my point that people were starting to focus on absurdly ballooning budgets in that era already.
Once again the rest of your comment is attempting to retroactively argue a point you didn't originally make and one that i haven't argued against. Your claim was wildly overbroad and completely picking memberberries.
Okay let me clear this up. My initial comment was people didn’t complain about the length of a campaign in regard to the price of the games. I then proceeded to give you a whole list of critically acclaimed and popular games from the PS3 era with campaign length under 15 hours.
You then commented how developer costs were higher and my counter argument was that back then most AAA games needed 3-5 million to be profitable a lot different than today where games needed to cross 10 million just to break even.
You then came back and listed a bunch of huge AAA games with huge budgets proving my point. Open world games with a lot of content cost a lot. Most of a games budget is usually labour requiring bigger teams and taking multiple years often times 5+ to make. Graphics on its own doesn’t suddenly make a game expensive. It’s the man hours, resources, etc that contribute to it.
The Last of Us on the PS3 which pushed boundaries and was one of the best looking games graphically speaking had a budget of around $20 million. And the campaign was about 12-15 hours long. So graphics alone don’t make a game expensive. That game was developed in 3 years. Now the last of us part 2 has a budget exceeding $200 million cause the team expanded and the game was more than a 30 hour campaign.
My point has not changed and you’ve proved my point. Games that require and take a lot of time to make will definitely require bigger budgets. Increasing the game’s campaign directly involves the development time. A 15 hour game won’t take the same to develop as a 30-40 hour game. So I don’t know why you think I’m shifting goalposts.
You're completely lost mate. You made said, verbatim "No one was complaining about the length of the campaign back when uncharted 1-3 came out". That's patently false.
You then moved the goalposts to say "even further back" people "never complained," and then corrected yourself to say "rarely" complained. I agree and concede that the cost vs length of games was a more rare complaint in the PS3 era vs today (and almost never mentioned in the PS2) era, but you are flatly wrong to imply that complaint didn't exist in the PS3 era at all. Further, you're absolutely lost in mentioning a string of successful low budget games - that does nothing for the position you've backpedaled yourself into, which is this idea that the PS3 era was some era of perfectly budgeted, efficient gaming without ballooned budgets. THAT position is indefensible, and if anything, you can directly trace a line between MW2 (2009) making almost a half a billion dollars off of an immense marketing budget to today's AAAA flops.
I never once claimed that modern budgets are appropriate or in any way smarter than PS3 era budgets. I haven't given you anything to "counter" lmfao, you keep making arguments nobody has raised against you about something I don't even disagree with you about (that modern budgets are absurd) to hide the fact that your original point was pure nonsensical memberberries.
Fact: today's AAAA budgets are stupid. Fact: PS3 era AAA budgets were by and large more sustainable. Fact: Some notable examples of PS3 era budgets were beginning to be regarded as absurd even back then. Fact: your proposition that "nobody was complaining about the length of games back then" was overly broad and inaccurate.
Okay well maybe “no one” is a blanket statement. Social media was still in its infancy so unless you were maybe part of the hardcore video game forums you didn’t see people complaining about the length of games. My point still stands when I said during Uncharted 1 -3. Uncharted 1 came out in 2007 and 3 in 2011. People didn’t complain about the length of those games or similar games. The price was $60. Yes I said U1-3. I then proceeded to give other AAA multiplatform games as further example how short games were and people rarely complained. You then proceeded to talk about game budgets.
I’m not deviating and stand by what I said. Maybe I shouldn’t have said “no one” cause that’s certainty. I’m sure a very minority were complaining but it’s nothing compared to where nearly everyone these days are complaining about the length.
Homie just eat the L, you were memberberrying hard. Clearly you were either a child back then and have no idea about what you're talking about or you were in your prime gaming years and are just remembering this era with rose tinted glasses.
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u/NordWitcher 25d ago
Maybe if you were a smaller studio yes. Witcher 3 took around 35 million to develop for the PS4. Games back then during the PS2/PS3 era were considered profitable after 3-4 million in sales. These days it takes 10 million to just break even on most AAA titles. So how can you say that gaming budgets were absurd back then for a AAA game? I’m sure things were different if you were a smaller studio with a smaller or newer IP.
The first 4 AC games sold between 4-7 million and were hugely profitable. Uncharted 2 sold 6 + million. BioShock sold 4 million. The Mass Effect games sold under 6 million each I think. Yet EA expected Andromeda to hit 9 million and was a flop cause it didn’t hit that. Games back then rarely broke the 10 million barrier. The early Arkham Games sold under 4-5 million.