Posted August 30, 2024
I had a topic like this before, about having more games with a AA budget but I will add movies here because this overbudgeting is a concern for both.
The $200 million loss or more I am speaking of is Concord and supposedly now consoles must have their prices raised in Japan to make up the difference. At least when Wii Music failed, Miyamoto acknowledged it and took the financial hit not the other employees and CERTAINLY not the price of the console.
Before anyone wants to argue politics with Concord I am going to checkmate this and just say Resident Evil 6. It was bad and just NOT a Resident Evil game by any stretch and from what I heard nearly bankrupted the company. Sony had to bankroll SF5 and that was one of the things that definitely helped get them back on their feet.
So I repeat, stop overbudgeting and letting this bloat get out of hand. For example, let us look at Disney before Bob Iger went on a high budget lark with all the MCU films. It was a LOT easier to make the money BACK because you had realistic budgets. They also understood the logic of having an Arthouse film wing because when those films hit, big or moderately, they really helped put the studios in the black because of how reasonable the budgets were.
Now I think with games I admit there are arguably more pressures to keep up with the Jones' but let us look at Ookami. That game was created with that art style BECAUSE of the PS2's limitations and ended up becoming a big hit. Conversely instead of getting trapped in the spec. AAA arms race, having to enable RT and every other bell and whistle which makes things rapidly unaffordable why not take the Ookami treatment and experiment with different gameplay mechanics and even different visual perspectives?
I know of at least 1 VTuber now talking about the wow factor wearing off on him more and more pointing out most of the major leaps forward in 3D are largely behind us and I think he has a point. I believe it was Linus who made this point.
It is worth giving a shot I think to do a lower budget, more stylized and creative game and at least if it sells well but not insanely you are still well in the black.
The $200 million loss or more I am speaking of is Concord and supposedly now consoles must have their prices raised in Japan to make up the difference. At least when Wii Music failed, Miyamoto acknowledged it and took the financial hit not the other employees and CERTAINLY not the price of the console.
Before anyone wants to argue politics with Concord I am going to checkmate this and just say Resident Evil 6. It was bad and just NOT a Resident Evil game by any stretch and from what I heard nearly bankrupted the company. Sony had to bankroll SF5 and that was one of the things that definitely helped get them back on their feet.
So I repeat, stop overbudgeting and letting this bloat get out of hand. For example, let us look at Disney before Bob Iger went on a high budget lark with all the MCU films. It was a LOT easier to make the money BACK because you had realistic budgets. They also understood the logic of having an Arthouse film wing because when those films hit, big or moderately, they really helped put the studios in the black because of how reasonable the budgets were.
Now I think with games I admit there are arguably more pressures to keep up with the Jones' but let us look at Ookami. That game was created with that art style BECAUSE of the PS2's limitations and ended up becoming a big hit. Conversely instead of getting trapped in the spec. AAA arms race, having to enable RT and every other bell and whistle which makes things rapidly unaffordable why not take the Ookami treatment and experiment with different gameplay mechanics and even different visual perspectives?
I know of at least 1 VTuber now talking about the wow factor wearing off on him more and more pointing out most of the major leaps forward in 3D are largely behind us and I think he has a point. I believe it was Linus who made this point.
It is worth giving a shot I think to do a lower budget, more stylized and creative game and at least if it sells well but not insanely you are still well in the black.