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[SneakyStephan]

Wonder how much of that was pissed away on marketing....

 

[methane47]

Are we sure this doesn't include marketing?

 

[angular graphics]

This is why the industry needs to change. Seriously, $66m for a lot of pretty graphics. I wonder how much Far Cry 3 cost, I imagine Ubisoft did it for less than half that cost, I very much doubt console gamers will be able to tell the difference and since that is where the majority of sales come from Ubisoft will be laughing.

You can't exactly compare them. Ubisoft is not in the engine licensing business. If Crytek can convince with their pretty games people to get their engine then it was worth it.

 

[Eiolon]

To add some perspective to this, Nintendo spent around $40 million on marketing for Wii Fit.

You have a higher allowance for marketing when your games cost 5% of that to make.

 

[robin2]

They went multiplatform to spend way more and sell less (and do worse*) apparently.

*though I still haven't played C3, even if it looks totally like C2+bow from the videos.

 

[angular graphics]

Are we sure this doesn't include marketing?

We aren't sure about anything other than the fact Yerli is always exaggerating.

 

[Sorcerer]

Didn't Sega spend $70 million making Shenmue, that's way back in 1999.

 

[ryz]

Final Fantasy VII had a $145 million budget. ($45 million development, $100 million marketing). This game is from 1997.


Gran Turismo was $80 million, btw.

 

[Fred-87]

What i dont understand is how sequels on the same engine cost so much money to make. I have not much technical knowledge, but would it not be reasonable to assume that such scenario would cost less money then the previous games

 

[scitek]

That's seems like a lot of money for a game with apparently such a short campaign. People said it took 5 hours to beat the game.

Took me 9-10.

 

[Clear]

You have a higher allowance for marketing when your games cost 5% of that to make.

Marketing spend is based solely on projected return. Its essentially an investment, not a "magic wand" that guarantees a profit!

Its also not something you can completely divorce from general development costs, because its all time-critical. You need a product ready to ship when promotion is at maximum efficiency/visibility or else you are throwing money away.

What this means is that milestone dates must be met, justifying additional expenditure on the development side like outsourcing asset production for reasons of time not production capacity.

One last thing. Just because they had engine tech in place already that doesn't mean to say that costs will be any lower. The bulk of the cost goes on staffing and stuff related to that; things that only go away when you lay people off and scale down your office, stop maintaining costly per-chair software licenses etc.

 

[Fabrik]

That's about 10M$ per hour of the single player campaign.

 

[Log4Girlz]

That's not bad really, its cheaper to produce than some Dreamcast games.

 

[foxdvd]

I think the bigger story is how cheap Gears 2 was compared to other AAA games.

Long sp campaign that also can be played Co-Op...

Large MP game that has a huge following...

Used a engine already in place, but worked on it to get more out of it....

Lots of cinemas with voice acting and music....


Who in a development studio is in charge of budgeting? Cliff Bleszinski might be a bigger asset to a company like Crytek for his budgeting strategies and cheap way of doing things than his marketing voice...

 

[Dali]

Marketing spend is based solely on projected return. Its essentially an investment, not a "magic wand" that guarantees a profit!

Its also not something you can completely divorce from general development costs, because its all time-critical. You need a product ready to ship when promotion is at maximum efficiency/visibility or else you are throwing money away.

What this means is that milestone dates must be met, justifying additional expenditure on the development side like outsourcing asset production for reasons of time not production capacity.

One last thing. Just because they had engine tech in place already that doesn't mean to say that costs will be any lower. The bulk of the cost goes on staffing and stuff related to that; things that only go away when you lay people off and scale down your office, stop maintaining costly per-chair software licenses etc.

If the bulk of the programmers that developed the engine are working on the next interation of the engine or some other project why would you count their pay as part of the budget?

 

[jett]

What revenue are you using per copy sold?

I used $30. I imagine that's somewhat realistic, maybe a bit lower than what it really is. Pachter once said Sony gets $48 out of their first party games...I figure that kind of information he actually knows about.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Took me 9-10.

Took me 5 (maybe 5 and a half) in one sitting, and I did a lot of stealthing, bet I could rambo through in 3.5 hours on a second playthrough if I wanted to.

 

[scitek]

Took me 5 (maybe 5 and a half) in one sitting, and I did a lot of stealthing, bet I could rambo through in 3.5 hours on a second playthrough if I wanted to.

So could I with a lot of games. Crysis 3's shorter than 2, but 2 had a lot of levels that can be completed in about 5 minutes. 3 has many more replayable levels IMO.

 

[Clear]

If the bulk of the programmers that developed the engine are working on the next interation of the engine or some other project why would you count their pay as part of the budget?

It doesn't really matter to be honest. The keyword is "Burn Rate"; whatever its costing you to keep your business afloat (payroll, infrastructure costs, business expenditures etc) must be outstripped by your income or you are basically dying at some rate.

The problem that's been eating away at the industry is that as user expectations have risen for top titles, the number of hands on deck needed at peak-production times has spiked to the extent that it's basically unsustainable for all but the biggest of companies.

This results in a situation where staff get hired on short-term contracts or get unceremoniously laid off at the end of a project; which is bad for team-unity, bad for continuity of quality, and especially bad for the workers who are treated like disposable, hot-swappable commodities.

Avoiding that places a massive onus on employers to somehow sustain hugely expensive workforces for a market that is mercurial in the extreme. One flop and suddenly that big team of top talents you've painstakingly assembled is bleeding you out at thousands of dollars a month.

This is not an easy business for anyone.

 

[staticneuron]

So it costs 66$ million to create assets?

Probably not, they are probably including the cost to build the engine in this.

Kinda different to......

Halo 4 : 60m
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/25/spencer-halo-4-is-microsofts-most-expensive-game/

Gears 2 : 10m

God of War 3 : 44m

Gears of War series. When epic talks about the price of that game they exclude how much it cost to build the engine. And advertising (since MS paid for that)

Chances are any current game gen that goes over 40 mill (with the exception of Gran Turismo 5) is probably including marketing budget as well.

Gran Turismo 5 cost $60 million a full year before it came out.
The game was announced at E3 2005, so we can assume it was in development for 3-4 at that time, and they had to scan hundreds of cars and tracks and model them, plus record sounds and built an entirely new engine and deal with online and multiplayer for the very first time.

I would imagine though that GT5rologue and GT PSP alleviated some of that cost and allowed them to continue on GT5. Those entries also sold millions.

 

[Dali]

It doesn't really matter to be honest. The keyword is "Burn Rate"; whatever its costing you to keep your business afloat (payroll, infrastructure costs, business expenditures etc) must be outstripped by your income or you are basically dying at some rate.

The problem that's been eating away at the industry is that as user expectations have risen for top titles, the number of hands on deck needed at peak-production times has spiked to the extent that it's basically unsustainable for all but the biggest of companies.

This results in a situation where staff get hired on short-term contracts or get unceremoniously laid off at the end of a project; which is bad for team-unity, bad for continuity of quality, and especially bad for the workers who are treated like disposable, hot-swappable commodities.

Avoiding that places a massive onus on employers to somehow sustain hugely expensive workforces for a market that is mercurial in the extreme. One flop and suddenly that big team of top talents you've painstakingly assembled is bleeding you out at thousands of dollars a month.

This is not an easy business for anyone.

All good points. I'm simply disagreeing with your notion that an engine already being in place not affecting game budget. What you're talking about is the big picture. The operating cost as a whole. The employees on payroll, liceneses etc.you mentioned, wouldnt be a part of crysis 3s budget if they are doing r&d or whatever to just be on payroll would they? No thatd be budgeted diferently id imagine.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Final Fantasy VII had a $145 million budget. ($45 million development, $100 million marketing). This game is from 1997.


Gran Turismo was $80 million, btw.

FFVII sold something like 10m copies, and GT5 is up to around 9m shipped.

Crysis 3 will struggle to get to 1.5m.

 

[kinggroin]

$66 million? I like the game a lot, but, I don't know. That sounds awfully...irresponsible?

 

[kitch9]

I started another run through of Crysis 1 last night.

Its so much better than 2 & 3 its not even funny.... It even now it looks miles better now I can run it at 1920x1080 at 60fps and 4xMSAA.

 

[staticneuron]

All good points. I'm simply disagreeing with your notion that an engine already being in place not affecting game budget. What you're talking about is the big picture. The operating cost as a whole. The employees on payroll, liceneses etc.you mentioned, wouldnt be a part of crysis 3s budget if they are doing r&d or whatever to just be on payroll would they? No thatd be budgeted diferently id imagine.

It is being a bit disingenuous. They should mention that as well. The engine wasn't made specifically for the game. They made the engine to sell similar to unreal. So they have done more work and spent more time than what was necessary to see the final product.

 

[universalmind]

You might want to add the whole interview to the OP



Best part is he pretty much acknowledges that consolizing Crysis ruined the two sequels.

Funny that the huge budget and they still could not surpass the original game.

Yerli strikes me as a dumbass.

 

[Alexios]

If only all that 66m went into actual content and gameplay rather than cinematic pretenses.

We'd probably have a trilogy's worth of gaming bliss with every single title in the series.

 

[scitek]

I started another run through of Crysis 1 last night.

Its so much better than 2 & 3 its not even funny.... It even now it looks miles better now I can run it at 1920x1080 at 60fps and 4xMSAA.

How? SLI? My GTX 670 and 2500k @ 4.5 GHz gets a wildly inconsistent framerate, with constant dips into the 30s without AA.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I don't understand how this works out. The game is simply smaller in scope than Crysis 2 and has the engine already developed. I would assume the point of Crysis 3 was to help amortize costs from the development of 2--which could be factored into this number here.

I don't believe the game cost 66MM on its own. If it did, just shut down the industry wholesale.

Let's just pin this on Crytek and/or incompetent planning. I think it's possible to make some great games that are AAA but that don't cost 60m to produce. I think many developers will be smart and costs won't go up like some say.

We are dealing with similar HW and the ease of making the games will increase. I also think the indie scene will continue to grow so we will have a good balance.

 

[AranhaHunter]

GT5 and GT5rologue are the same 60M$ budget. Polyphony spends average of 10M$ annualy because they never stop working. Also, their game budgets are heavily inter-sected because they are integrating projects into one-another and also share various developments with non-gaming projects they're working on.

They could spend even less OR create more games faster going forward if they decide to share assets with Evolution studios. Evo car assets are second to none and I expect the tracks will be too. Do you know if that's happening?

 

[Derrick01]

Such a waste of money. Almost $70 million for a 5 hour game that's pretty small in scope compared to the first 2, almost a straight up linear shooter. I hope it bombs heavily, they deserve it.

 

[eso76]

Man, that's a lot of Skullgirls characters.

 

[velociraptor]

I don't understand how this works out. The game is simply smaller in scope than Crysis 2 and has the engine already developed. I would assume the point of Crysis 3 was to help amortize costs from the development of 2--which could be factored into this number here.

I don't believe the game cost 66MM on its own. If it did, just shut down the industry wholesale.

Indeed. It doesn't make any sense to me. The original Crysis was greater in scope and a greater technological achievement (in comparison to now), and it costs $66m?

I thought the whole point of having middleware engines such as Cry Engine 3 was to reduce development costs?

There is nothing about Crysis 3 that screams $66 million. I actually found the SP campaign of Crysis 2 far more impressive on almost every level, and Crysis 3 costs far more?

 

[mephixto]

Is this where they start whinging about PC gaming and piracy again and that's why it didn't sell as well as they wanted?

Nahh, now they gonna whinne about Crysis 3 being Origin only hurt the sales.

 

[KKRT00]

Such a waste of money. Almost $70 million for a 5 hour game that's pretty small in scope compared to the first 2, almost a straight up linear shooter. I hope it bombs heavily, they deserve it.

Says guy who hasnt even played it.

Not only this game is more replayable than Crysis 2, but took me around 10h to complete.

60m$ is quite a lot though, but they created a lot of assets for this one and CE 3.5 is almost like CE 4 compared to CE 3.0.

Ps. Crysis 2 had maybe 7 voice actors, for example voice actor who made voice for one of the black dudes from the first cutscene in submarine were used for at least few CELL soldiers later on in the game.

 

[watchdog]

Such a waste of money. Almost $70 million for a 5 hour game that's pretty small in scope compared to the first 2, almost a straight up linear shooter. I hope it bombs heavily, they deserve it.

Why do you hope the game bombs? I guess if you've purchased Crysis 3 and was let down by it's campaign and multiplayer then I could understand where you're coming from. But even then it still sounds rather harsh saying that you want the game to bomb.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

This is the reason linear games can't be long anymore. Crytek should get back to less detailed and a bit more organic and repetitive levels. Twice the length for one third of the assets.

 

[Whompa]

It was also created in 2008 when the dollar was worth more, $66 million isn't surprising at all for a game of it's type.

lol you think the inflation between 2008 and 2012 makes the difference of 22m and 66m not that different?

 

[Can Crusher]

This is ridiculous and I seriously cannot understand how they can justify the budget. I guess if you slash multiplatform development costs you get a 50 million budget, but even then it's ludicrous because this was a short game, with very very little changes in the gameplay formula, there's very little in the way of voice acting, it's all in one location and the assets seem to be re used a lot as there aren't even many individual human or alien characters (There's like 3 different human characters other than you in the whole game). Engine isn't new.

Halo 4 has bigger production values than Crysis 3, yet the later has a bigger budget.

 

[kikonawa]

Thats like only 60 bugatti veyrons...

 

[Omegasquash]

Crysis always seemed like the BMW of shooters.

I never liked beamers.

 

[ZROCOOL]

MAXIMUM DAMAGE CONTROL

 

[Mystic_Wanderer]

Zero chance the game itself was $66 mil.


Planning + Engine + Development + Marketing? Seems more likely.

 

[Mononoke]

So it took them $66M to make a mediocre 5 hour SP campaign, even with recycled assets from the prequel. Good going, Crytek. I hope your F2P/microtransaction future works out for you (no, I don't).

I actually liked Crysis 3, and I can't agree more with this post. The price just isn't adding up.

 

[Metal-Geo]

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the $66m included marketing. Most, if not all, of the Crysis ads look like they were produced in-house at Crytek. With the biggest costs being timeslot reservations, magazine ad space and the ZZ-Top song licensing.

 

[KKRT00]

This is ridiculous and I seriously cannot understand how they can justify the budget. I guess if you slash multiplatform development costs you get a 50 million budget, but even then it's ludicrous because this was a short game, with very very little changes in the gameplay formula, there's very little in the way of voice acting, it's all in one location and the assets seem to be re used a lot as there aren't even many individual human or alien characters (There's like 3 different human characters other than you in the whole game). Engine isn't new.

Halo 4 has bigger production values than Crysis 3, yet the later has a bigger budget.

From what i know Halo 4 was 8h game [so basically the same as C3] and from what i've seen it has much lower quality assets.

 

[Woo-Fu]

Seems like 66 million would be enough to have a dx10 pipeline, allowing them significantly expand their audience.

 

[Stallion Free]

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the $66m included marketing. Most, if not all, of the Crysis ads look like they were produced in-house at Crytek. With the biggest costs being timeslot reservations, magazine ad space and the ZZ-Top song licensing.

Worst marketing campaign ever. The 7 Wonders stuff was so embarrassing.

 

[GraveRobberX]

Zero chance the game itself was $66 mil.

Planning + Engine + Development + Marketing? Seems more likely.

Engine was already built during 2

Development couldn't be that huge when the 3 takes in the same place as 2

It's not like they moved to a whole brand new location, and new assets need to be created

Marketing could be, but I didn't see a Blitz campaign

Most I saw were most likely Gamestop ads with the Nano Guy not looking at the heli, looking at the user and shooting the Hunger Games bow

I mean Crysis was Open World, 2/3 feel more confined in spaces (linearity) so only reasonable explanation for this huge budget is Hookers & Blow!

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Engine was already built during 2

That doesn't mean all engine and tool development ceases - you can continue to iterate and improve on the engine even after it's "done."