Fallout 3 - Dialogue Forum Tidbits

I hate those marketers

Ok, here is something to cheer you up, guys

As you know, Bethseda is always looking for new ways to give as many options to the player as possible. Especially those that are really important for roleplaying. Last news is that you will have an option in the game in which you can shove your own head in your ass and become a twisted "headinthebutt" mutant. LOL

I hope Todd gave you permission to post that picture of him, Mareus Durante.

Brother None said:

Why? Publishing models, of course. Technology certainly isn't an inhibitor to low-cost development anymore (nor was it ever, really), but when you're as driven by mainstream hit-thinking as they are...marketers have taken over, really.

Click to expand...

So can I clarify: your answer to my question 'why are development costs so high?' is 'marketers have taken over'?

What exactly do you mean by that? Are development studios wasting money on marketers rather than programmers? If so, why is that the case - shouldn't they be leaving the marketing to the publishers?

kalniel said:

So can I clarify: your answer to my question 'why are development costs so high?' is 'marketers have taken over'?

What exactly do you mean by that? Are development studios wasting money on marketers rather than programmers? If so, why is that the case - shouldn't they be leaving the marketing to the publishers?

Click to expand...

Not really. I mean: that's not really what I said.

When you talk about publishing models you indicate what kind of company you have, how much invested money they put into it and how big the profit margin is.

Now, conventional "marketer" thinking is that titles like NFL 20* and Halo * are "safe, conventional" titles. Those are the ones they pump the most money in. And in case of Halo 3, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a bigger investment in the PR than in the game itself. Doesn't matter, it paid itself back.

But despite what people think, consumers aren't stupid, and they do want to see progress in games. It's just that it doesn't matter where the progress is, really, and what's the most failsafe area to "innovative" in? Well, graphics.

But basically you're making a model where the only viable form of production creeps towards a 20 million USD game that needs to sell 2 million copies. Despite what some seem to think, this isn't some kind of natural development. It's natural that these block-busters exist and even that they dominate the market. The extent to which they dominate the market is...well...pretty unique to the entertainment industry.

Why? Well, I don't know exactly why. It's suits, isn't it? But there are suits everywhere. Yet this typical marketing thinking and language is incredibly pervasive in gaming.

In that sense, gaming is the most mainstream entertainment medium out there. The. Lulz.

Ok you're saying production costs are high (due to marketing etc. expenses), but development costs aren't?

I was asking why development costs are so high. Perhaps they're not, but the impression I got was that actually they are. People like Atari spend virtually nothing on marketing.

Development costs are also higher with more advanced graphics and the like. Tailor making locations with a lot of small touches is a lot more work than procedurally creating a universe a la Elite. Something as mundane as a texture requires more work simply due to increasing resolutions.

Not all elements have increased as much in complexity though. I for instance dont think your average game has many more man-hours put into AI than back in the early 90s.

The big one is the maturation of the game industry into a normal entertainment industry though. Big business goes for sure money, which is solid franchises where investment yields guaranteed returns (you can be fairly sure to get a predictable return on money spent on graphics or a player database in a sports game, but not so much in money spent on smoking up new concepts).

kalniel said:

Ok you're saying production costs are high (due to marketing etc. expenses), but development costs aren't?

Click to expand...

Production costs enfold development costs. They have both risen exponentially.

But take Madden NFL, one of the most expensive games to produce. Why is that, do you think? The game itself doesn't cost that much to produce, but the entire profit margin is slashed out by the enormous percentage that goes to the NFL, Madden and others. Madden NFL has one of the lowest profit margins of all games out there.

Or take Halo 3. It also didn't cost that much to produce, I mean not relatively, but like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they spent more on PR than on game development.

And those are two of the top-selling games of last year.

Then take the fact that gaming has an enormous managerial layer that's just getting thicker and thicker. Bethesda has at least a dozen managers to about 70 developers, a lot of whom are interns. That's ridiculous.

And then, only after all this nonsense, we turn to actual developing costs, and what Zaleukos says is correct, development costs are higher because graphical development is a very capital-intense part of game development.

I think some people fail to see how that is not inevitable. Like I said, I suspect they turned to graphical innovation because while it is capital intense, it's also the safest area to innovate in. Meanwhile you can have overly simple AIs like Radiant AI and just market them off as complex. Marketing!