News Ubisoft: Games to cost $60m soon

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/06/16/ubisoft-games-to-cost-60m-soon/1

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot has predicted that budgets for games will soon soar to a stunning $60 million USD.

 

Money well spent to be honest, there creating an experiance for $60 mil that lasts for 6 hours + in a game, when for the same money, your getting a 2 hour movie at most.

 

People still complain these days when a game gives less than 20hrs gameplay... which is crazy really considering you probably paid about £30 for it... The only way it will work when higher CGI etc is required is for shorter games which still give good value (say upto 6hrs single player plus multiplayer replay value) for the same price.

A good multiplayer online experience is key I think here to differentiate the good games that give value vs the ones that dont. Look at PC games like Battlefield 2, Supreme Commander and Left 4 Dead. Cost per hour of play must now be measured in peanuts for me since their multiplayer value is so good.

A movie at £13 say is 2hrs, so games are still good value. People's expectations are out of whack with reality.

 

Agreed, pretty much.

Comparing their budgets to film budgets?

Games tend to be longer, and while some are as atrociously written as a Van Damme film, usually last longer and have more replayability than a movie has re-watch..ability?

 

AAA-grade games? When was the last time that one of those came around?

 

Its alot of money needed for a gamble. Thats really what it is because you have no idea how well its going to sell.

 

The same is true of movies - A producer/director/whoever can't reasonably say "This is going to make X million dollars" every single time.

 

Haha +1

It's true in a way, the last game I consider to be AAA was HL2. Not only was it the best (by far) single player FPS I had ever played, it also came with CSS, which had more playability for me than most people I suspect, since I had never played CS beforehand.

So to answer your question, 5 years ago.

 

Isn't it the big shots themselves that are setting these budgets? And now they start complaining!

These assholes are managing the wonderful art of the videogame into the ground.

 

Unless it has Matthew McConaughey in it, in which case the director could pretty much polish a turd (and they usually do) and women will still flock to it. Guaranteed theatre-filler - bam!

 

Got to agree with the multiplayer aspect adding a lot of value. I can't count the number of epic, several hour long multiplayer sessions of SupCom I have had.

 

Hahahaha. I can't say I've experienced any of his films, or any woman-based crazying over him. Perhaps I ought to hang around with more females..

 

He's just making excuses for games continuing to be too expensive or maybe getting even more so with the next generation of consoles.

It doesn't make sense to me how we hear all these reports about games selling better than movies and music; a game costing less to make than a full length action-CGI movie like Transformers 2, The Matrix, whatever; a movie costs £6/$10 to go and see at the cinemas and a bit more to buy the DVD, yet games still are still priced £30/40!

 

Maybe we should start making another company named "Singkong-soft"?

 

the user base for a console game is much smaller than movies which appeal to a broader audience. IF you go see transformers 2 with a family of 4 that's ~$40 in tickets. If you buy a game for your whole family that's ~$60 per family, no one buys more than one copy. and the consoles only have several million users where as pretty much everyone can go watch a movie on several different continents.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but you would be surprised how much it costs to employee 100 people for the 1+ years it takes to make a polished game especially creating all the content that's the real time sink and it only gets bigger as graphics improve.

 

I can't believe people here are actually justifying the ridiculously small game-playing times; have you gone mad? What ever happened to great games that you could play for hours on end? When I think of all the great games I've played, they're nowhere near the tiny level given as acceptable here. I'm glad those people aren't in charge of these game companies.