Video Games: May the force of your wallet be with you

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I agree that The Witcher 3 is a phenomenal game that blows other open world AAA RPGs of its time out of the water. I hope Bethesda and Bioware etc... up their game for their next projects (or in Bioware's case, retreat somewhat from the open world genre if EA lets them). But it's worth pointing out that The Witcher 3's budget was huge for a single player RPG, outstripping anything a developer like Bioware (and I think Bethesda too) get for producing a game like Mass Effect Andromeda or Fallout 4. And just as importantly, Polish labour laws allow CD Project Red to pay their employees much less and to make them work many more hours constantly.  It won't be easy for any North American/Western European studio to compete with what CD Project Red can offer. And of course, this raises all sorts of ethical questions about the treatment of workers in the video game industry, which is bad enough in even the best studios.

Witcher 3 was I think $70-80 million, which is about the same for Skyrim but a way below Fallout 4 (Fallout 4 was well above $100 million, maybe closer to $120 million including marketing, which is still relatively cheap given its sales and profile; a GTA or new CoD game has about twice that).

W3 was probably a fair bit more than Mass Effect 3 and way more than ME1 and 2, but Mass Effect: Andromeda was likely more expensive, as it went so massively over schedule and over budget, and sold below expectations, to the extent that EA has effectively frozen the franchise. W3 was probably more than Dragon Age: Inquisition's budget, but that was a much faster development time (only 3 years, or less than a Bethesda game or The Witcher 3). Interesting to see what the hell EA is doing with Dragon Age 4 and whether they pull back from the half-arsed open-world design that caused problems for both DA:I and ME4. But DA:I apparently sold really well, so that may have encouraged them to double down on it.

Seeing what the budget is for Cyberpunk 2077 is will be interesting. They started pre-production work on it with their second team in 2012, then ramped up to full-scale after W3 came out, so it'll be maybe six and possibly closer to seven years in development when it comes out, which is remarkable (ha, getting up to Star Citizen devleopment times but far less high-profile).

Incidentally at 22 hours I've just reached Novigrad for the first time. This game is ridiculously huge, I don't think I'm anywhere near done on the main quest and I've got a ton of contracts and secondary missions queued up for when I get to the right level. I did stumble on a wyvern nest and took out 2 normal wyverns and a royal wyvern at about 10 levels below the recommended level, but it was extremely long-winded and tedious.

[Red Tiger]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Witcher 3 was I think $70-80 million, which is about the same for Skyrim but a way below Fallout 4 (Fallout 4 was well above $100 million, maybe closer to $120 million including marketing, which is still relatively cheap given its sales and profile; a GTA or new CoD game has about twice that).

W3 was probably a fair bit more than Mass Effect 3 and way more than ME1 and 2, but Mass Effect: Andromeda was likely more expensive, as it went so massively over schedule and over budget, and sold below expectations, to the extent that EA has effectively frozen the franchise. W3 was probably more than Dragon Age: Inquisition's budget, but that was a much faster development time (only 3 years, or less than a Bethesda game or The Witcher 3). Interesting to see what the hell EA is doing with Dragon Age 4 and whether they pull back from the half-arsed open-world design that caused problems for both DA:I and ME4. But DA:I apparently sold really well, so that may have encouraged them to double down on it.

Seeing what the budget is for Cyberpunk 2077 is will be interesting. They started pre-production work on it with their second team in 2012, then ramped up to full-scale after W3 came out, so it'll be maybe six and possibly closer to seven years in development when it comes out, which is remarkable (ha, getting up to Star Citizen devleopment times but far less high-profile).

Incidentally at 22 hours I've just reached Novigrad for the first time. This game is ridiculously huge, I don't think I'm anywhere near done on the main quest and I've got a ton of contracts and secondary missions queued up for when I get to the right level. I did stumble on a wyvern nest and took out 2 normal wyverns and a royal wyvern at about 10 levels below the recommended level, but it was extremely long-winded and tedious.

Witcher 3 was 46 million in development, 35 in marketing.

For clarification purposes.

[Werthead]

18 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

Witcher 3 was 46 million in development, 35 in marketing.

For clarification purposes.

$81 million in total, which seems to track.

That's pretty good going.

Quote

 

And just as importantly, Polish labour laws allow CD Project Red to pay their employees much less and to make them work many more hours constantly.  It won't be easy for any North American/Western European studio to compete with what CD Project Red can offer. And of course, this raises all sorts of ethical questions about the treatment of workers in the video game industry, which is bad enough in even the best studios.

 

Poland is part of the EU so has to adhere to EU standards on pay, holidays etc, which are a lot more stringent than the US. However, there are ways of getting round that so that's not necessarily the whole story. 

More to the point, the cost of living in Poland is ridiculously far below that of the UK or USA, so the money just goes a lot further. But apparently they did have to bring in some outside help from the US, so they'd have to be paid at US rates and the marketing costs in the UK and US would have been quite high.

An interesting one to look at is 4A Games, who made Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light (and are currently making Metro: Exodus) whilst based in Kiev, Ukraine. They were working with a reasonable budget (for Ukraine) but still on a lot of constraints, but to the point where their US publishers had to order decent office furniture for them.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Got a Vr headset for PS4 for xmas

played a bit of skyrim, Resident Evil 7, the x-wing mission for atsr wars battlefront, and star trek.  Very immersive though nausua can be a problem aftrt a while

[Caligula_K3]

On 12/24/2017 at 7:41 PM, Werthead said:

Witcher 3 was I think $70-80 million, which is about the same for Skyrim but a way below Fallout 4 (Fallout 4 was well above $100 million, maybe closer to $120 million including marketing, which is still relatively cheap given its sales and profile; a GTA or new CoD game has about twice that).

W3 was probably a fair bit more than Mass Effect 3 and way more than ME1 and 2, but Mass Effect: Andromeda was likely more expensive, as it went so massively over schedule and over budget, and sold below expectations, to the extent that EA has effectively frozen the franchise. W3 was probably more than Dragon Age: Inquisition's budget, but that was a much faster development time (only 3 years, or less than a Bethesda game or The Witcher 3). Interesting to see what the hell EA is doing with Dragon Age 4 and whether they pull back from the half-arsed open-world design that caused problems for both DA:I and ME4. But DA:I apparently sold really well, so that may have encouraged them to double down on it.

Seeing what the budget is for Cyberpunk 2077 is will be interesting. They started pre-production work on it with their second team in 2012, then ramped up to full-scale after W3 came out, so it'll be maybe six and possibly closer to seven years in development when it comes out, which is remarkable (ha, getting up to Star Citizen devleopment times but far less high-profile).

Incidentally at 22 hours I've just reached Novigrad for the first time. This game is ridiculously huge, I don't think I'm anywhere near done on the main quest and I've got a ton of contracts and secondary missions queued up for when I get to the right level. I did stumble on a wyvern nest and took out 2 normal wyverns and a royal wyvern at about 10 levels below the recommended level, but it was extremely long-winded and tedious.

Hmm, interesting. I had read that the Witcher 3's budget vastly outstripped Mass Effect: Andromeda's and Dragon Age: Inquisition. But it's possible my information is incorrect.

Oh, and you're definitely nowhere near done on the main quest. Assuming you followed the Velen-Novigrad path, you're probably a quarter of the way through...

 

[briantw]

3 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Hmm, interesting. I had read that the Witcher 3's budget vastly outstripped Mass Effect: Andromeda's and Dragon Age: Inquisition. But it's possible my information is incorrect.

Oh, and you're definitely nowhere near done on the main quest. Assuming you followed the Velen-Novigrad path, you're probably a quarter of the way through...

Yeah, there's a whole other world map about the same size as Velen to explore, plus a smaller one as well with a handful of things to do.

[Werthead]

Considering it's the Game of the Year edition with both expansions installed, it's even more than that. Velen-Novigrad is one map, White Orchard is a smaller (but hardly small) map and the Skellige Isles are another, plus you have Toussaint from the expansion. I think with Toussaint included the map is almost twice the size of Skyrim's.

[briantw]

Just now, Werthead said:

Considering it's the Game of the Year edition with both expansions installed, it's even more than that. Velen-Novigrad is one map, White Orchard is a smaller (but hardly small) map and the Skellige Isles are another, plus you have Toussaint from the expansion. I think with Toussaint included the map is almost twice the size of Skyrim's.

I wasn't even referring to White Orchard.  I was referring to the area around the witcher castle.  The name is escaping me right now.  There's not a ton to do there outside of a couple of quests and a bunch of hidden loot, but it's still a pretty large area with at least ten hours of gameplay.

And yeah, the second expansion adds Toussaint, which was an awesome area that was visually very different from the rest of the game.

[Werthead]

45 minutes ago, briantw said:

I wasn't even referring to White Orchard.  I was referring to the area around the witcher castle.  The name is escaping me right now.  There's not a ton to do there outside of a couple of quests and a bunch of hidden loot, but it's still a pretty large area with at least ten hours of gameplay.

And yeah, the second expansion adds Toussaint, which was an awesome area that was visually very different from the rest of the game.

Kaer Morhen.

[briantw]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Kaer Morhen.

That's the one.  

As I said, not a massive map or anything, but there's probably a good ten hours of content there.

[Slurktan]

So based on what I've read on these threads over time and my love for Tie Fighter I "splurged" on Elite: Dangerous due to the steam sale.  For those Elitists out there, I'm going to guess strongly that I should get a joystick for it?

Also picked up the early access for They are Billions.  Looks like fun.

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 hours ago, Slurktan said:

So based on what I've read on these threads over time and my love for Tie Fighter I "splurged" on Elite: Dangerous due to the steam sale.  For those Elitists out there, I'm going to guess strongly that I should get a joystick for it?

Also picked up the early access for They are Billions.  Looks like fun.

I prefer a control pad, but I suck with joysticks

[Gorn]

19 hours ago, Werthead said:

Considering it's the Game of the Year edition with both expansions installed, it's even more than that. Velen-Novigrad is one map, White Orchard is a smaller (but hardly small) map and the Skellige Isles are another, plus you have Toussaint from the expansion. I think with Toussaint included the map is almost twice the size of Skyrim's.

When you reach Skellige Isles, don't try to collect the floating treasure chests. That way lies madness. There's too many of them, you will be constantly attacked by annoying flying enemies, and by that point in the game the loot they contain really isn't worth the trouble.

[Fez]

23 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Hmm, interesting. I had read that the Witcher 3's budget vastly outstripped Mass Effect: Andromeda's and Dragon Age: Inquisition. But it's possible my information is incorrect.

Oh, and you're definitely nowhere near done on the main quest. Assuming you followed the Velen-Novigrad path, you're probably a quarter of the way through...

 

The numbers I've seen floated around for Mass Effect: Andromeda are that it had a production budget of $40 million and a marketing budget of $60 million; I have not seen any firm citations for those numbers though. But considering EA's entire handling of the game, it wouldn't surprise if they did try to make the game on the cheap and it was only the cost overruns and delays that got it to more comparable AAA budgets.

[Werthead]

Quote

So based on what I've read on these threads over time and my love for Tie Fighter I "splurged" on Elite: Dangerous due to the steam sale.  For those Elitists out there, I'm going to guess strongly that I should get a joystick for it?

Yup. You can do it with a gamepad - even the game's main creator admits to using an Xbox Controller - but a proper stick and throttle is the way to go. I got a Thrustmaster T-flight Hotas X which was quite cheap (£30, IIRC) but brilliant quality. I used it to replay the X-Wing trilogy as well.

[Eggegg]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yup. You can do it with a gamepad - even the game's main creator admits to using an Xbox Controller - but a proper stick and throttle is the way to go. I got a Thrustmaster T-flight Hotas X which was quite cheap (£30, IIRC) but brilliant quality. I used it to replay the X-Wing trilogy as well.

I bought it as well, I mean it was only a fiver on steam so why not.. but I think I'm stuck with a mouse and keyboard for a long time. Is that viable?

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, Eggegg said:

I bought it as well, I mean it was only a fiver on steam so why not.. but I think I'm stuck with a mouse and keyboard for a long time. Is that viable?

It's certainly playable but I'd hesitate about doing PvP with that set-up.

[Caligula_K3]

8 hours ago, Gorn said:

When you reach Skellige Isles, don't try to collect the floating treasure chests. That way lies madness. There's too many of them, you will be constantly attacked by annoying flying enemies, and by that point in the game the loot they contain really isn't worth the trouble.

Agreed. In fact, I'd say that by the time you're out of Velen/Novigrad, you should just avoid most of the points of interests, unless they're on your way somewhere else. 

Now that the year's ending, any thoughts on what the best games of the year have been, or what the best games you've played this year are?

Most of the 2017 release games I've played have been Switch titles; on PC I tend to be a patient gamer and wait for the discounts, so I've only played Pyre (which was excellent), Mass Effect Andromeda (not as bad as people say, but not particularly good either) and Nier: Automata, which I'm playing through right now and enjoying, albeit not to the degree the internet claimed I would. My game of the year has to be Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which drew me in like no game has in many, many years. The beautiful open world, the climbing mechanic, discovering the physics and rules of the world, the shrine puzzles: I pretty much loved everything, with only some minor quibbles. It's rare to find a game that makes me feel like a kid again, but BOTW did it.

The other three Switch games I played were all excellent: Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, and Mario Kart 8. 

The highlights of other games I've played this year were Life is Strange, a wonderful Telltale style story game,and Crusader Kings 2, a complex but entertaining and hilarious medieval dynasty simulator.

[Werthead]

I think the only 2017 release I've played is Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock, which was unexpectedly excellent. Most of the year's new releases failed to grab me or I couldn't afford to get them. The only 2017 release I wished I'd gotten to was Prey, which looks outstanding.

[Werthead]

Oh nice. They've released a hefty chunk of Squadron 42 for us to look at. This is the single-player, Wing Commander/X-Wing/Freespace-aping bit of the Star Citizen project, and will give new joystick purchasers something to do.

Also, hi Near Perfect CG Redition of Ser Davos, Voiced by Actual Liam Cunningham.

Aha, I believe that with the recent budget milestones, Star Citizen/Squadron 42 is now the most expensive video game ever made in development costs, bar absolutely none.