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[TheBROgamer]

Game development costs since the PS360 era (first HD era), have only continued to rise tremendously.

Many games prior were made by teams of under 100 people, or slightly over.

Here are some examples of the rise in development resources post-gen 7, required to make a AAA game.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Credits - 607 people
Call of Duty - Modern Warfare Remake Credits - 3357 people

Red Dead Redemption Credits - 1273 people
Red Dead Redemption 2 Credits - 7315 people

Gears of War 3 Credits - 533 people
Gears of War 5 Credits - 1689 people

Cyberpunk 2077 Credits - 3545 people

Here is an example of what resources required used to be, one gen prior to PS360 (gen 6).

Devil May Cry 3 Credits - 234 people
Devil May Cry 5 Credits - 1252 people

This is probably why Nintendo is apprehensive about moving forward another gen, technologically.

The more power at your disposal, the more it costs to utilize and Nintendo probably is afraid of what the technical demands will be from consumers.

I think the answer to where the Modern AAA game development is sustainable is a no, and it's why you see fewer indie companies rise up to take on the established giants (EA, Activision, etc).

Those companies rose up when gaming was much less resource and cost intensive.

Games take longer to release than they ever have, and the return needed to break-even is riskier than ever, leading to safer games as a result.

It was common to get entirely trilogies in one gen, now it's literally possibly one game per gen due to the resources required.

I made a thread on gaming geniuses the other day and guess what, nobody's name mentioned were talent that was new or young.

Valve, Epic Games (only makes engines and updates Fortnite now), and other companies know gaming development costs are not sustainable anymore.

Here's an example, which speaks true for the industry at large.

Your thoughts?

 

[SJRB]

Rockstar is probably the worst possible example you could use to make your point.

 

[TheBROgamer]

Rockstar is probably the worst possible example you could use to make your point.

Take a look at the people number of people in the credits, not the company itself.

The actual resources required to develop a AAA, have continued to rise across the industry as a whole.

We got Mass Effect and Dead Space trilogies in one gen, that's just one example.

This kind of output doesn't happen, anymore.

 

[Jennings]

No. Money aside, the games take too long to make. We need smaller, focused, more gameplay-oriented titles. Let classic arcade games be the inspiration here. We need a pipeline of new games with a focus on the word GAME.

 

[kikkis]

Well if companies making them stay profitable I don't see issue if it took 10000 people to make a game. And yes even indie games can rise to the top for instance minecraft, pubg and among us. I don't really buy the "make safer" games due to costs. There is no such thing as safe thing in hit driven business. Secondly if devs are making game they think is amazing and testing implies that as well, I don't see whats the extra risk is, if that title is innovative aka "risky", or its title some might consider "safe"

 

[.Pennywise]

Yes, it is. It's more sustainable than ever.

What's not sustainable is a couple of billionaires expecting to make more billions while cutting corners everywhere.

 

[RJMacready73]

I thought development would get easier as the generations moved on, you have toolsets like UE that just get better and better and can seemingly make any type of game not to mention surely when artists create assets etc they do so at insane details anyway regardless of generation and then downsample to suit the hardware limitations not to mention you have vast pools of cheap resources in India/China that you can utilize for repetitive content and then there's is the absolute waste that goes on, take for example Cyberpunk, they spent years building an insane world with so much detail and it's gonna be utilized in 1 game!?! That's crazy for me, how come they couldn't lease it out to other smaller Devs to create other types of games stories set in that incredible world?? Seems a shame that these incredible open world environments, Red Dead, GTA are all one and done

 

[TheBROgamer]

Well if companies making them stay profitable I don't see issue if it took 10000 people to make a game. And yes even indie games can rise to the top for instance minecraft, pubg and among us. I don't really buy the "make safer" games due to costs. There is no such thing as safe thing in hit driven business. Secondly if devs are making game they think is amazing and testing implies that as well, I don't see whats the extra risk is, if that title is innovative aka "risky", or its title some might consider "safe"

The reason why devs make safer games is due to their being lower risk, in established markets.

Why do you think open world games with a checklist of common attributes are the norm now?

Where do you think arcade racers, extreme sports, and overall more bizarre concepts from AAA games went?

A lot of the big AAA companies of today such as Ubisoft, EA, Activision took way more risks prior, and made more than just one type of game.

Ubisoft is an Assassin's Creed factory
Activision is a Call of Duty factory

I recommend you take a look at the past of these established giants, the term of them becoming safer in their output will make more sense.

 

[k_trout]

id software have like 350 employees

 

[kikkis]

The reason why devs make safer games is due to their being lower risk, in established markets.

Why do you think open world games with a checklist of common attributes are the norm now?

Where do you think arcade racers, extreme sports, and overall more bizarre concepts from AAA games went?

A lot of the big AAA companies of today such as Ubisoft, EA, Activision took way more risks prior, and made more than just one type of game.

Ubisoft is an Assassin's Creed factory
Activision is a Call of Duty factory

I recommend you take a look at the past of these established giants, the term of them becoming safer in their output will make more sense.

People like open world with common attributes and despite novelty arcade racers are mostly dead because people don't really like them enough.

 

[TheBROgamer]

id software have like 350 employees

Doom Eternal (made by id) has 1379 people, in it's credits.

 

[TheBROgamer]

People like open world with common attributes and despite novelty arcade racers are mostly dead because people don't really like them enough.

The return needed to make a profit of an arcade racer regardless of them being liked by the mass majority, are higher than ever.

Companies will say it's not worth the risk, let's release an established known successful IP instead.

RIP games like...
SSX
Burnout 3
Blur
Motor Storm
Split-Second
Midnight Club
etc...

 

[Wildebeest]

Next gen it's going down from 10k people in credits to 300 people + 10 AI models.

 

[nush]

We need smaller, focused, more gameplay-oriented titles.

Yes,but the problem publishers have painted themselves into a corner with is that they need to make games that justify the $70 price tag. The view is that if it's not expensive then it must be shit.

Cliff notes, it's more complicated than that.

 

[UnNamed]

Doom Eternal (made by id) has 1379 people, in it's credits.

It's because they put in the total count the cleaning service as well.

 

[nush]

arcade racers are mostly dead becaus

Arcades are dead and younger home gamers don't know that gameplay style.

 

[radewagon]

Of course it sustainable. Maybe not for companies that are making bad games, but look at Capcom lately. They have become an absolute power house. They have released multiple fantastic titles in the RE series. Heck, they even brought Devil May Cry back from the dead. I think it's important to look at their recent catalogue as it gives some perspective. Those titles have been FUN and focused. They didn't try to cram too much in or weigh them down with freemium-style monetization loops. They provide a specific finely-tuned engaging experience and then call it a day. Finishing one of their games is great. I feel like I got my money's worth and that everyone involved was proud of the game that they made.

 

[RoboFu]

3 things..

- don’t pay attention to given numbers as software development always have bolted numbers simply because the people paying don’t understand it and always think more = faster and better.
So developers always sell themselves with total workforce numbers INCLUDING available outside resources they usually work with.

- there is a whole economic ecosystem based on consultants and out sourcing that won’t be easy to get rid of.

- with middleware libraries and new ai driven content creation dev time is actually getting less complicated and less bloated.

 

[SmokedMeat]

There’s a reason AAA is 100% safe sequels, output is far slower, and Sony’s remastering games twice.

 

[k_trout]

Doom Eternal (made by id) has 1379 people, in it's credits.

so do you think the 1000 extra are like zero hour contracts ?

 

[TheBROgamer]

3 things..

- don’t pay attention to given numbers as software development always have bolted numbers simply because the people paying don’t understand it and always think more = faster and better.
So developers always sell themselves with total workforce numbers INCLUDING available outside resources they usually work with.

- there is a whole economic ecosystem based on consultants and out sourcing that won’t be easy to get rid of.

- with middleware libraries and new ai driven content creation dev time is actually getting less complicated and less bloated.

Game development time is longer than ever, an AAA game today takes at least 4 - 7 years to make.

To put that in to context, some entire gens were that long.

 

[RoboFu]

Game development time is longer than ever, an AAA game today takes at least 4 - 7 years to make.

To put that in to context, some entire gens were that long.

I didn’t say it was shorter now. It’s starting to become less complicated and less bloated. There will be a change in the way the ecosystem currently works because of this. It will just take a few years for that to happen.

 

[Bonfires Down]

I recently played Signalis and that game is primarily made by two people, yet there are 100 Humble Games employees listed in the credits. This is not a good way to measure workload.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I recently played Signalis and that game is primarily made by two people, yet there are 100 Humble Games employees listed in the credits. This is not a good way to measure workload.

For actual AAA companies, it is.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/playstation-4/red-dead-redemption-ii/credits

Big companies don't just nonchalantly put names in credits, for a variety of reasons.

Only talent has had an impact on the games development, get placed in credits.

 

[Dane]

In the west? No, its an absolute shit show where management issues run so rampant that a good chunk of the development is made from cut content and reboots.

In Japan? Its doable because they stick to a plan, that's why you get games being developed in under 4 years.

 

[feynoob]

Nope. People are going crazy with graphics, and return investment is getting risky, as the production cost continues to balloon.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I didn’t say it was shorter now. It’s starting to become less complicated and less bloated. There will be a change in the way the ecosystem currently works because of this. It will just take a few years for that to happen.

Development tools have improved and made things easier yes.

How are things becoming less bloated though?

Companies think bigger = better (gigantic open worlds, at the expense of solid tight pacing of a game).

 

[feynoob]

Yes, it is. It's more sustainable than ever.

Nope it is not.

 

[cormack12]

Yes provided the studio leads cut out what seem to be the biggest issues

1. Ridiculous sized open worlds with bloat. Not every game needs to be 50/60 hours, no matter how crazy good it looks. Scale back. The immersion is lost when im running in a line for 4 minutes between destinations constantly.
2. Creative changes to narrative or story meaning redoing work.
3. Basing your game on new mechanics or things you can't demonstrate working, but then need to programme and they take much longer or end up castrated versions.

 

[TheBROgamer]

Nope it is not.

It's not sustainable, and all the metrics are readily available on the web to learn about what's required (money and resources) to succeed in the modern AAA gaming landscape is readily available for people to read.

The giants of today, would have struggled to become the giants they are if their starting point was today.

They had the advantage of getting into the market when it was young, and games weren't as resource intensive.

To your point, yeah there is no way this is sustainable and I feel bad for younger talent trying to break into the market and hope to reach AAA status in company size.

 

[Irobot82]

I think AI is going to replace at lot of art asset creators and that in the end will reduce costs associated with manpower.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I think AI is going to replace at lot of art asset creators and that in the end will reduce costs associated with manpower.

AI in it's current state, is being heavily over estimated.

 

[Irobot82]

AI in it's current state, is being heavily over estimated.

So was the internet. In less than 10 years time, there will be radical changes.

 

[ReBurn]

I think it's becoming less viable for third party devs and publishers who don't own hardware platforms. We've seen internal consolidation at Activision that's made nearly every studio a Call of Duty studio to be able to get new entries out every year. We learned this week that Ubisoft has canceled games and is cutting costs. Rockstar abandoned GTA single player to focus on being an MMO company.

We, being smug consumers, like to blame poor management or lazy devs. But the truth is that dev cycles being as long as they are and with games costing as much as they do to make these companies are having to wait 5+ years to recoup investment in the games they are making and that's what is making it unsustainable. The inflation of the last two years means they have to sell more copes at higher prices than they did at the start of this gen to get the ROI they need.

Sony is running behind in feeling the effects because they get a 30% cut of third party revenue to supplement cash flow while new games are in development. That's why they're investing so much in live service and why they're fighting so hard for Call of Duty. Microsoft is already feeling it, which is why they're trying to move to a recurring revenue model.

I'm feeling like AAA is a bubble and it's going to burst. But I'm no analyst so I admit I could be wrong.

 

[Philfrag]

Yes, it is. It's more sustainable than ever.

What's not sustainable is a couple of billionaires expecting to make more billions while cutting corners everywhere.

But this is the corporate AAA space we're talking about. There will always be billionaires involved at some level. I don't think it is sustainable, the companies have become so bloated and inefficient without regulation that the issues continue to trickle down to the user experience at a worse rate every year. Sure you have your exceptions but they are becoming fewer. I think the state of the release of Starfield and the next GTA is going to be a big signal going forward for whether the AAA industry is sustainable or not. But to say its more sustainable than ever is strange considering a lot of these AAA companies are now merging or either getting bought out by bigger conglomerates. I wouldn't call that a healthy industry, what it's becoming may one day become 'sustainable' but it would have had to sacrifice so much just to function properly. You'll have less diversity of ideas and game types, less consumer freedom of choice and rights. Personally I think this is inevitable and already kind of happening. The corporate structure isn't a great environment for artistic qualities to flourish. You could say Hollywood today is 'sustainable' but the Hollywood of today is not the Hollywood of 20/30/50 years ago. Its transformed into something else and in that transformation its collapsed and consumed parts of it that made it great in the first place. The same is happening to the AAA video game industry.

 

[TheBROgamer]

I think AI is going to replace at lot of art asset creators and that in the end will reduce costs associated with manpower.

AI in it's current state, is being heavily over estimate

So was the internet. In less than 10 years time, there will be radical changes.

The internet was never over estimated, and AI is an entirely different area of research than what internet's development is.

AI has only been somewhat feasible for around a decade, the internet has evolved for almost 40+ years now.

 

[Irobot82]

AI in it's current state, is being heavily over estimate


The internet was never over estimated, and AI is an entirely different area of research than what internet's development is.

AI has only been somewhat feasible for around a decade, the internet has evolved for almost 40+ years now.

I'm more than happy to revisit this post in 2033.

I think what we'll see is game developers asking AI to create 20 different oaks and maples. To model apples, chairs, desks, etc. All the art assets that get's outsourced that bloat up the numbers. It will all be generated by AI and you'll ask for tweaks to then or manually change a few things. It'll increase production by a factor of 10x easy.

 

[TheBROgamer]

But this is the corporate AAA space we're talking about. There will always be billionaires involved at some level. I don't think it is sustainable, the companies have become so bloated and inefficient without regulation that the issues continue to trickle down to the user experience at a worse rate every year. Sure you have your exceptions but they are becoming fewer. I think the state of the release of Starfield and the next GTA is going to be a big signal going forward for whether the AAA industry is sustainable or not. But to say its more sustainable than ever is strange considering a lot of these AAA companies are now merging or either getting bought out by bigger conglomerates. I wouldn't call that a healthy industry, what it's becoming may one day become 'sustainable' but it would have had to sacrifice so much just to function properly. You'll have less diversity of ideas and game types, less consumer freedom of choice and rights. Personally I think this is inevitable and already kind of happening. The corporate structure isn't a great environment for artistic qualities to flourish. You could say Hollywood today is 'sustainable' but the Hollywood of today is not the Hollywood of 20/30/50 years ago. Its transformed into something else and in that transformation its collapsed and consumed parts of it that made it great in the first place. The same is happening to the AAA video game industry.

Corporate interest and artistic minds, never mesh well.

Why?

Because money is all that matters to the suits.

 

[Knightime_X]

With the rise of AI and how it can dramatically reduce development time across the board, it won't be long until AAA games are made relatively faster and cheaper.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

just to put it in perspective:

100 people enter the movie theater to see avatar 2....but only 30 remain at the end..... isn't that so fucked up?.

is not about the High-Quality aspect of it, is the amount of content people/media expect.

even more baffling. If a game is not full price then is considered as not worth it or to be a lesser product. therefore these companies need to justify that premium price point.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

With the rise of AI and how it can dramatically reduce development time across the board, it won't be long until AAA games are made relatively faster and cheaper.

Nah. the opposite will happen.

 

[Knightime_X]

Nah. the opposite will happen.

What we have seen so far isn't even the tip of the iceberg.
EA is already using AI to vastly improve animations.

 

[ABnormal]

If the game is successful, yes. If not, no.

 

[Graciaus]

Modern AAA games are mostly trash so hopefully not.

 

[22•22]

If the game is successful, yes. If not, no.

This.

But..

Smaller scale games. Focus on the right things. We no need no 20 200+ hour games a year.

 

[qwertz12345]

This is probably why Nintendo is apprehensive about moving forward another gen, technologically.
The more power at your disposal, the more it costs to utilize and Nintendo probably is afraid of what the technical demands will be from consumers.

I'm really happy with where the Switch is... I just hope that Nintendo can make more of a concerted push to get indies on board.

Maybe get more indies to do more boxed releases...

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

What we have seen so far isn't even the tip of the iceberg.
EA is already using AI to vastly improve animations.

A.I. is going to be used (by AAA devs) to make even bigger and "never ending" games.

 

[Jaybe]

I think it's becoming less viable for third party devs and publishers who don't own hardware platforms. We've seen internal consolidation at Activision that's made nearly every studio a Call of Duty studio to be able to get new entries out every year. We learned this week that Ubisoft has canceled games and is cutting costs. Rockstar abandoned GTA single player to focus on being an MMO company.

We, being smug consumers, like to blame poor management or lazy devs. But the truth is that dev cycles being as long as they are and with games costing as much as they do to make these companies are having to wait 5+ years to recoup investment in the games they are making and that's what is making it unsustainable. The inflation of the last two years means they have to sell more copes at higher prices than they did at the start of this gen to get the ROI they need.

Sony is running behind in feeling the effects because they get a 30% cut of third party revenue to supplement cash flow while new games are in development. That's why they're investing so much in live service and why they're fighting so hard for Call of Duty. Microsoft is already feeling it, which is why they're trying to move to a recurring revenue model.

I'm feeling like AAA is a bubble and it's going to burst. But I'm no analyst so I admit I could be wrong.

100% right. The high-end AAA side of the industry will consolidate to fewer publishers and studios and release. The Remedys, Crystal Dynamics, Volitions, and Rocksteadys etc will be pressed to survive with economics as they are. Ubisoft will be mostly an Assassin’s Creed company. BioWare gets what could be its last shot with DA4 and maybe another Mass Effect. High prices, lower cost alternatives, and poor quality contributed to this.

 

[Knightime_X]

A.I. is going to be used (by AAA devs) to make even bigger and "never ending" games.

Which certain parts will be created by AI which will take only a fraction of the time.
Games like Elden Ring are already comically large. AI will help immensely creating that world.

 

[TheBROgamer]

Here's a quote from Ninja Theory, on why they were looking to be acquired.

"About four years ago, we very nearly disappeared as a company. Dozens, if not hundreds of developers like us were closing shop all around us. And we were told there was no future for developers like us: too big to be indie, too small to be truly AAA. We had to tell our team we were facing annihilation, and so we had to find another way."

https://www.polygon.com/e3/2018/6/10/17447264/ninja-theory-microsoft-acquisition