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From: Black Pearl <j63480576@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: One BEEELLION dollars
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2025 15:37:10 -0600
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Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> 
> So, I guess this is the new reality of game development. Recent
> reports by the UK CMA (the agency that deals with whether or not
> mergers should be allowed) recently noted that triple-A games can cost
> upwards of one billion dollars (with included marketing). Yay?
> 
> It's a ridiculous amount, of course; not only that so much money and
> resources should be poured into what's a completely disposable luxury
> product, but that it should cost so much to begin with. Nobody's
> getting value for money from these overpriced behemoth games; not the
> developers (who are crunched and forced to make mass-market garbage),
> nor the publishers (who risk way too much money for games that have
> such a high probability of flopping, or just breaking even), and
> certainly not the gamers, who are saddled with increasingly excessive
> MTX as the publishers struggle to make their money back.
> 
> And you have to wonder, WHERE is all this money really going? Does
> "Call of Duty CCCLXIV: More Call, More Duty" really look and play so
> much better than "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" released in 2007? That
> game is estimated to have cost $60 million USD (with another $100
> million USD for marketing); even adjusting for inflation, do the newer
> Call of Duty titles really feel like they're offering three times as
> much content? And now let's compare that to "Grand Theft Auto V"; its
> total budget was $250 million USD. How can the latest "Call of Duty"
> (or generally, _any_ modern shooter) justify their cost? Do Activision
> programmers do their programming on solid-gold keyboards or something?
> 
> It doesn't have to be this way. The total budget for "Black Myth:
> Wukong" was $70 million. "Control" was $30 million. There aren't any
> official figures on "Space Marine 2", but the few estimates I saw put
> its total budget at < $100 million. These are all still incredible
> amounts, but a far cry from the wastefulness of the triple-A studios.
> 
> The big studios cry at us that they just HAVE to put all these
> lootboxes and MTX and other nonsense into their games because
> development costs have skyrocketed so much. Arguably, they're right:
> its unlikely that the publishers could make their money back if they
> depended entirely on retail sales as their sole source of revenue. But
> maybe a better solution would be to cut back on the fucking costs
> instead?
> 
> It's not just that MTX/etc. are fucking over games. It's that it's an
> unsustainable business. In order to get Fortnite money, you need
> players to spend incredible lengths of time with your game. Nobody's
> going to spend $500 on cosmetics and DLC on a game they'll only spend
> 30 hours on. But there's only so many hours in a day; you can only
> have so many mega-live-service Fortnite-style games out there. If you
> reaching for that gold ring with your next game, the odds are
> incredibly high that you will miss... and if you spend $1 billion
> developing and advertising that game, that miss (and the subsequent
> fall) is going to be very painful.
> 
> It makes a $30 million flop look almost cozy in comparison.
> 
> Aim lower, triple-A publishers. It's more certain and -while not as
> flashy- will probably net you more cash in the long run.
> 
> 
> 


The problem with Saints Row 3 and GTA V is we have to endure those 
terrible personalities in the game.  I don't play GTA V because I hate 
the mafia guy who is the lead character (although you may switch between 
characters easily).  You get a game like Random Heroes: Gold Edition and 
it's non-stop action.  It's well polished for an Indie game and doesn't 
have some misogynic homocidal jerk as the protagonist.  By them putting 
a whole lot into GTA V and SR 3, we have to suffer these mafia rednecks 
and grandstanding purple knuckleheads.  They put too much into the game. 
  I don't want to see their cigar smoking beer swilling child abusers 
who always have something to say about everything under he sun.  I want 
a GTA V hack where the only thing mafia Sam says is "I t'ought I saw a 
putty tat," because every time he opens his mouth I cringe.

This day was coming.  In 2008 my mom told me to get out of the video 
game industry because studios are spending millions to make a game.