The video game industry is a fascinating place where it is apparently financially impossible to develop and publish games - ThreadSky

aaronvandorn.bsky.social • 20 hours ago

The video game industry is a fascinating place where it is apparently financially impossible to develop and publish games

Reposted from Jason Schreier

BREAKING: Warner Bros. Games is shutting down Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB San Diego, sources tell Bloomberg News.

Warner Bros. is also canceling the Wonder Woman game.

Comments

ninoles.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Not without a big change in how games are built. The way games are built are like reinventing all the time their means of production but, at the same time, are still managing the production itself like games were still shipped on CD-ROM.

1/..

ninoles.bsky.social•13 hours ago

The industry still believes that bugs can be fixed later, using "bug fixes velocity" to estimate how much time the beta will last, crunches are still seen as a badge of honor, and planning is done with large Gantt charts that aren't revisited.

2/..

ninoles.bsky.social•13 hours ago

And I wouldn't go into how the market is now completely dominated by 4 franchises that total over 80% of the play times of all players, letting even big studios fight for the rest. My only hope for it now is for indie studios to finally get some attention, but the public needs to follow.

3/3

sashotodorov.bsky.social•14 hours ago

A big part of this problem is that the boom in the cost and production time of games is relatively recent, meaning that game studios have actually had very few iteration loops to get a grip on how to manage it.

sashotodorov.bsky.social•14 hours ago

E.g. Mass Effect - Mass Effect 2 - Mass Effect 3 are published within about 4.5 years of each other. Barely a few years later and game production cycles are in the 5-7 year range, with massively expanded dev teams, to boot. Longer dev times, much higher cost, much greater risks.

sashotodorov.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is an interesting example of this, as it's a rare case where a studio pushed off release for a long time to ensure that it was in solid shape. It took a studio that only focuses on one game series at least 5.5 years to ship a sequel.

sashotodorov.bsky.social•13 hours ago

And that's a sequel which was, for the most part, generally iterative, though obviously very pretty and incredibly well optimized. In effect: a disciplined, polished, final product by a specialized studio without massive bells and whistles is still a 5-6 year project now.

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•13 hours ago

My main thought is that producing a 3D world on this kind of scale is just fundamentally unprofitable. I think Nintendo has learned that lesson -- they don't sell consoles at a loss -- and they don't sell games they think are going to lose money. Sony and Microsoft don't seem to have learned that.

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•13 hours ago

The most remarkable thing about Breath of the Wind is that it exists.

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Unless you're Nintendo, it would seem.

jnoodles24.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Maybe the monopoly should have been allowed to continue.

jnoodles24.bsky.social•20 hours ago

And the prices of games have gone up no less!

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I mean, if games were what they cost when they cost in 1988 or whatever they'd be pushing $150, so count your blessings!

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•20 hours ago

I genuinely think huge triple A games should probably cost around $200, but no one wants to hear that, even the publishers.

sorosfundedowl.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Well, a AAA game (standard edition) with 2 DLC packs can cost anywhere from $120-190, if one buys them all as they release and not wait for sales.

jnoodles24.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Well if you want the ultra deluxe pre-order version, that is typically the price. At least you a nice useless statue of the main character, enemy, or item.

emceehammerpants.bsky.social•19 hours ago

Whenever I see this argument I think about paying $80 for Chrono Trigger in 1995.

I’ve played many games more complex and expensive to make since then that cost significantly less. No way that shit is sustainable.
(More complex and expensive to make is not a substitute for “better”)

alexremington.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I do, too. And, of course, Chrono Trigger was worth it! It literally remains the high-water mark for its genre, and it's been 30 years. But the economic model that made that cart cost that much was literally unsupportable for games that were not intended to be the Best Game Ever Made.

alexremington.bsky.social•14 hours ago

And not to put a fine point on it, that helps explain why Secret of Mana had serious resource constraints, Xenogears ran out of money, and IIRC, Secret of Evermore shuttered its studio.

emceehammerpants.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Damn. I guess there’s no way to make frivolities that happen to contain incredibly complex programming and design problems and also multidisciplinary artistic achievements consistently profitable and there never really has been. Shit.

jnoodles24.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Yeah but it's higher prices for diminishing quality.

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•20 hours ago

Ha, I'm content with my Switch. And I've got Balatro in my phone. Plenty of value to be found!

jnoodles24.bsky.social•19 hours ago

I mean your indie games and select AAA games sure. But a lot of games today, especially from Big Name Publishers, seem to be based around whatever is the flavor of the month or just the same old, same old from established franchises (I'm looking at you Far Cry and Call of Duty).

proptermalone.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I have to say that I don’t play a lot of AAA games because when I do they’re usually bad

aaronvandorn.bsky.social•13 hours ago

It does seem fascinating that only Nintendo seems to be able to do it in a fashion that is financially successful, and even that seems to have some pretty huge caveats vis a vis worker life.

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