The Witcher 2 - Preview at N4G

Originally Posted by Tragos
If we decide to make a game and the game sells enough to cover our wages during for the period of development then we have made a successful game.
Everyone got paid and iirc they made a "profit" of 5.000€ .

I don't get the capitalist dream of getting rich and buying more useless crap because you made a good game . Bioware made good money from DAO and you saw what followed …. CDPR can do better without any EA like sharks lashing their sweaty backs.

Making a profit has nothing to do with capitalist dreams of any kind but rather with sound business plans. In order to produce a product of any kind you first need to invest money. If you don't have the money yourself you need investors who will then have influence on your business because they actually pay the current bills. After you sold the product you have to pay them back with interest. And if the product doesn't sell well enough for you to finance the next product yourself you have to go and search investors again.
If you on the other have more money than you have to spend on your next product you have reserves. And you don't have to rely on outside sources (i.e. investors) for capital. And that is exactly the reason why some companies don't have to care about delaying a product for a few months while others simply can't do that.

Atari give them some money. But most of them they had from games distribution (what CDProjekt do here in Poland)…

Originally Posted by kalniel
Dice poker helps.

Especially if you save, and reload if you lose.

Originally Posted by kalniel
Development costs on TW2 should be significantly lower, and getting investment is easier having proved how popular TW1 was.

Why would development cost be significantly lower for TW2? Do you have something that supports that?

Originally Posted by Tragos
If we decide to make a game and the game sells enough to cover our wages during for the period of development then we have made a successful game.
Everyone got paid and iirc they made a "profit" of 5.000€ .

I don't get the capitalist dream of getting rich and buying more useless crap because you made a good game . Bioware made good money from DAO and you saw what followed …. CDPR can do better without any EA like sharks lashing their sweaty backs.

Welcome to the free market and capitalism where enough is never enough. An example A company made made a total of 5 million but was supposed to make 6 million. Now they made more of a profit than last year but there still not happy.

See now you have to tell your lovely investors and shareholders why you didn't make more and there cut is smaller. Money people its all about making more and never satisfied with what they do.

I have to attend meetings like this where oh we made a profit but not as forecasted. We BLAH BLAH BLAH have to increase efficiency and oh we need to lay off more people to save more money. That's how a company operates.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Why would development cost be significantly lower for TW2? Do you have something that supports that?

Since they built a brand new engine I would guess TW2 is the one that cost more. They're likely around the same budget though I bet… I doubt CDP expect to sell more copies than they did of the original, which was already impressive given the market.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Why would development cost be significantly lower for TW2? Do you have something that supports that?

My statement was wrong, as already corrected. I had expected TW2 to cost less primarily because the development time (purely related to TW2 stuff) is less, and because the engine is in-house resulting in lower licensing costs. When you are creating a sequel you also have less design work (characters, protagonist, game mechanics, stat systems, feel etc.) Creating your own engine can cost more, but one way it does so is by increasing the development time - however in this case the development time including engine creation is less than the development time using a licensed engine.

Of course, length is only one way of increasing costs - breadth is the other So I'd guess they have had more people working for them in the shorter development time (for example engine engineers working sooner in the process along with design), and hence costs being around the same and in fact slightly higher already.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Welcome to the free market and capitalism where enough is never enough. An example A company made made a total of 5 million but was supposed to make 6 million. Now they made more of a profit than last year but there still not happy.

See now you have to tell your lovely investors and shareholders why you didn't make more and there cut is smaller. Money people its all about making more and never satisfied with what they do.

But I read that this kind of thinking rather evolved over the last 3 decades … Before that, the policies ? philosophies ? in company were not so much money- and growth-oriented, but rather different.

In an article I read that it began in the 80s, mostly during he Reagan era, where there was quite a rebuilding of the whole financial sector.

In that time - according to the article - business philosophies became more and more money-oriented and profit-oriented, compared against the … I think it was rather an employee-oriented approach/philosophy earlier.

In an Star Wars collecting forum, one put it as such _ In the 70s, there was always a shop employee doing his or her best o satisfy the customer's wishes - oten even ordering single items, if wanted. Customers were persons, then, they were human individuals, and these employees were people one knew personally.

Now, things have changed. we are considered as numbers, as mere tools for giving the companies more profits, shop employees are not personally known anymore, and the tendency would rather be there to punish them if they do ANYTHING that takes away from the most possibly company's income … Like ordering individual items, for example …

The shift I see there is that of a de-humanisation of wole businesses.
And on a meta lvel it is almost as if "money" or rather a firm had become a "meta being" which tries to maintain itself and grow and grow and grow …

Last Wednesday I read a book about dinosaurs. There it was discussed why they became so big.
What astonished me was that there seems to be a natural law in this : Animal groups tend to become bigger over time. As a tendency.
Like some Dinosaur groups did.
And I see a similar law in economics. Companies tend to become bigger over time.
I once wrote about even crystals becoming bigger over time. (Thus dissolving smaller ones in the process, if both are within the same liquid.)
And planets, too. Given they are able to accumulate enough stuff over time.

Growth and a tendency to become bigger appears here, there and everywhere … It's almost like a natural law built into the universe …

On the other side stands the Diversity. Hundreds or even thousands of small and tiny animal and plant species in a given space.

What we have here - imho - is the lack of diversity. U.S. economics - and the U.S. are a role model for quite a lot of countries - have an unhealthy tendency towards growth. Microsoft, Oracle, AT&T and the "Baby Bells", EA etc. …

I actually also think developers want as many people as possible to be able to play their games…..

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
I actually also think developers want as many people as possible to be able to play their games…..

That goes without saying in most cases..

Originally Posted by JDR13
That goes without saying in most cases..

I'm not so sure. I think sometimes devs want to make the game that they would have liked to play. Otherwise we wouldn't get any games for the PC any more or if there were they'd all be browser based

Certainly, my motivations when developing content for persistent worlds was exactly that - I felt there hadn't been something that addressed my wants, so I made it myself on behalf of the (minority) that felt the same way.

Originally Posted by kalniel
I'm not so sure. I think sometimes devs want to make the game that they would have liked to play.

I agree, but that doesn't have anything to do with also wanting to make it playable to others.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I agree, but that doesn't have anything to do with also wanting to make it playable to others.

Well obviously, no one want to put that much effort in something that only 20 peoples will play or see… sames goes for every art form…

I think most developers are trying to juggle pleasing their core audience and branching out to get a lot of new fans and mainstream gamers.

A lot of the time they fail on both ends.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
I think most developers are trying to juggle pleasing their core audience and branching out to get a lot of new fans and mainstream gamers.

A lot of the time they fail on both ends.

I agree totally. Don't you think if they just made a great game irregardless of who it caters too that people would just buy it? kind of like if they build it they will come.

For example i'm an rpg first guy but when I hear of a great fps, strategy, adventure or what ever kind of game I will give it a try. But I will not buy an average fps/rpg or strategy/rpg just because it has rpg elements.

I assume most gamers buy from all genre's if the game is worth it.

Heck, i'm anti-casual games guy and even I got angry birds

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Now, things have changed. we are considered as numbers, as mere tools for giving the companies more profits, shop employees are not personally known anymore, and the tendency would rather be there to punish them if they do ANYTHING that takes away from the most possibly company's income … Like ordering individual items, for example …

Excellent point and your right we are all just numbers and statistics to corporation and to are governments. Remember everyone has a credit score that follows you through life and affects everything you do. You dont have a name just a number.

Originally Posted by sakichop
I agree totally. Don't you think if they just made a great game irregardless of who it caters too that people would just buy it? kind of like if they build it they will come.

The problem is that you won't get funding for the game in the first place from any investor. So you're left with people basically having to work for free on games, which means it's not something you can do as a day job or for any length of time.

That's fine for games like angry birds, but you couldn't do a modern equivalent of ultima 7 for free.

Originally Posted by Zloth
1. Fewer customers, resulting in less money and less people enjoying your game.

2. More pirates, resulting in less money and less deserving people enjoying your game.

How on Earth can creating an additional console version reduce the number of pirates?

Originally Posted by Elwro
How on Earth can creating an additional console version reduce the number of pirates?

That's because it's easier to claim PC are pirates, you don't piss off Sony and Microsoft when you do so.

Console games get pirated and that pirated version is usually the first one released, well before the PC one.

Originally Posted by azarhal
That's because it's easier to claim PC are pirates, you don't piss off Sony and Microsoft when you do so.

Console games get pirated and that pirated version is usually the first one released, well before the PC one.

Yet more people buy games for the console than PC, despite the vastly larger gaming capable PC base.