Kind of makes you wonder if we'll see a lot of 3DS games that are pretty much just DS games in terms of tech and production values, like with the Gamecube and Wii. That low development cost must be hard to let go of.
I don't know, it doesn't look like PSP development values are that much higher, and they have reasonably better assets
For starcraft2, I'd be curious to be how the two "expansions" will sell. I have a feeling that people won't be switching over unless they offer a much cheaper payment option to get the multiplayer additions and changes.
You mean like brood war for Starcraft? Or WoW's expansions?
edit: oh I see you posted the same thing on the starcraft thread. Anyway I'm positive all the SC2 expansions will be full price, and everyone will buy them. Multiplayer people especially.
alset85 on
override said: I can't wait until Toady causes pressurized water to be able to actually damage things. I want to hit goblins with a shit cannon of such pressure that the meat is ripped from their bones
If they're non-budget titles, then those numbers seem reeeeeeally low. Like the decimal point is one number too far to the left. Maybe there was a problem in translating from Moon Units to Ameribux?
You're saying that $2,880,000 on average for game development is low?
Yes. 2.8M dollars is chump change for a PS3 game. We hear Capcom and Ubi talking about dropping $20 million on individual HD games all the time like it's nothing. And Wii devs talk about spending 8 to 10 million on those games.
If they're non-budget titles, then those numbers seem reeeeeeally low. Like the decimal point is one number too far to the left. Maybe there was a problem in translating from Moon Units to Ameribux?
You're saying that $2,880,000 on average for game development is low?
Yes. 2.8M dollars is chump change for a PS3 game. We hear Capcom and Ubi talking about dropping $20 million on individual HD games all the time like it's nothing. And Wii devs talk about spending 8 to 10 million on those games.
For starcraft2, I'd be curious to be how the two "expansions" will sell. I have a feeling that people won't be switching over unless they offer a much cheaper payment option to get the multiplayer additions and changes.
You mean like brood war for Starcraft? Or WoW's expansions?
I don't know all of the details of how the expansions work, but I can see some people who really don't care to play X race telling themselves, "eh, I don't really feel like buying an entire campaign dedicated to the Zerg/Protoss," (edit) if not "WHAT I have to pay more to play the FULL GAME!?" (Whether or not SCII is a full game, I don't want to get into that argument.)
For starcraft2, I'd be curious to be how the two "expansions" will sell. I have a feeling that people won't be switching over unless they offer a much cheaper payment option to get the multiplayer additions and changes.
You mean like brood war for Starcraft? Or WoW's expansions?
I don't know all of the details of how the expansions work, but I can see some people who really don't care to play X race telling themselves, "eh, I don't really feel like buying an entire campaign dedicated to the Zerg."
Well, chances are that there will be new multiplayer units, making the expansions mandatory if you want to have a full army at your disposal.
For starcraft2, I'd be curious to be how the two "expansions" will sell. I have a feeling that people won't be switching over unless they offer a much cheaper payment option to get the multiplayer additions and changes.
You mean like brood war for Starcraft? Or WoW's expansions?
I don't know all of the details of how the expansions work, but I can see some people who really don't care to play X race telling themselves, "eh, I don't really feel like buying an entire campaign dedicated to the Zerg."
Well, chances are that there will be new multiplayer units, making the expansions mandatory if you want to have a full army at your disposal.
Yep.
And you have to remember that Blizzard is owned by Activision now, and the CEO of that company is on record for being incredibly money-grubbing and anti-games in general. He'll make sure the game is milked to the hilt.
If they're non-budget titles, then those numbers seem reeeeeeally low. Like the decimal point is one number too far to the left. Maybe there was a problem in translating from Moon Units to Ameribux?
You're saying that $2,880,000 on average for game development is low?
Yes. 2.8M dollars is chump change for a PS3 game. We hear Capcom and Ubi talking about dropping $20 million on individual HD games all the time like it's nothing. And Wii devs talk about spending 8 to 10 million on those games.
There's definitely something off with this list.
Yeah, there is no way those numbers on the website are in units of 10,000 unless Playstation games cost only $56,000 US to make in 2003. (That would be basically 1 guy making a game in a year).
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
For starcraft2, I'd be curious to be how the two "expansions" will sell. I have a feeling that people won't be switching over unless they offer a much cheaper payment option to get the multiplayer additions and changes.
You mean like brood war for Starcraft? Or WoW's expansions?
I don't know all of the details of how the expansions work, but I can see some people who really don't care to play X race telling themselves, "eh, I don't really feel like buying an entire campaign dedicated to the Zerg."
Well, chances are that there will be new multiplayer units, making the expansions mandatory if you want to have a full army at your disposal.
The problem with that is that we die-hard single player folk who actually give a shit about Jim's relationship with his mutant Zerg girlfriend and whatnot will be deprived of using the new units in the single player campaign. I wanna play with new human units!
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
I said this in the Starcraft 2 (singleplayer) thread, but I don't think Blizzard is going to require each expansion to have access to the new units they'd bring. It'd complicate the shit out of battle.net, and segmenting the playerbase that much would be so goddamn silly.
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
Edit - Also in the latest Blizzcast they mentioned that aside from new units and the campaigns, each expansion (and patches) would bring actual new features to the game. But no elaborations on what those could be.
I said this in the Starcraft 2 (singleplayer) thread, but I don't think Blizzard is going to require each expansion to have access to the new units they'd bring. It'd complicate the shit out of battle.net, and segmenting the playerbase that much would be so goddamn silly.
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
I have a very very strong reason to believe that is not the case.
Expect each expansion to function similarly to Brood War.
I said this in the Starcraft 2 (singleplayer) thread, but I don't think Blizzard is going to require each expansion to have access to the new units they'd bring. It'd complicate the shit out of battle.net, and segmenting the playerbase that much would be so goddamn silly.
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
I have a very very strong reason to believe that is not the case.
Yeah, that's never gonna happen. They know that everyone's gonna buy the expansions anyway, so there's not going to be that much segmenting, and for those silly people who choose to segment themselves by not buying the expansions, too bad.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I said this in the Starcraft 2 (singleplayer) thread, but I don't think Blizzard is going to require each expansion to have access to the new units they'd bring. It'd complicate the shit out of battle.net, and segmenting the playerbase that much would be so goddamn silly.
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
I have a very very strong reason to believe that is not the case.
Expect each expansion to function similarly to Brood War.
I don't think they can afford to do that in this modern era of online play (when I say afford, I mean the customers are the currency at risk here).
I said this in the Starcraft 2 (singleplayer) thread, but I don't think Blizzard is going to require each expansion to have access to the new units they'd bring. It'd complicate the shit out of battle.net, and segmenting the playerbase that much would be so goddamn silly.
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
I have a very very strong reason to believe that is not the case.
Yeah, that's never gonna happen. They know that everyone's gonna buy the expansions anyway, so there's not going to be that much segmenting, and for those silly people who choose to segment themselves by not buying the expansions, too bad.
I said this in the Starcraft 2 (singleplayer) thread, but I don't think Blizzard is going to require each expansion to have access to the new units they'd bring. It'd complicate the shit out of battle.net, and segmenting the playerbase that much would be so goddamn silly.
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
I have a very very strong reason to believe that is not the case.
Yeah, that's never gonna happen. They know that everyone's gonna buy the expansions anyway, so there's not going to be that much segmenting, and for those silly people who choose to segment themselves by not buying the expansions, too bad.
They want you to pay 180 dollars for this game, period.
How many people actually playing the multiplayer in Diablo 2, Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3 didn't buy the expansion? The amount of people who are segmented out of the latest version of the game will likely be significantly smaller than the amount of people who buy the expansions and play the latest version.
Also, just in case it's not clear, we seem to be in agreement here. They want you to buy all the expansions, and they'll accomplish that by having the expansions provide new units and whatnot to the game, just like their previous games have done.
Major Japanese publishers are struggling with rising costs, exchange rate challenges and a steadily-shrinking software market. Publishers Sega, Tecmo Koei and Konami are making deep cuts to their SKU counts; now, after closing its fiscal 2009 with profits down 73 percent, Capcom is looking to its core properties for a turnaround.
Capcom's home to numerous enduring hit properties like Resident Evil and Street Fighter, and the company has said it expects this year's new entries into its Marvel vs. Capcom, Lost Planet and Monster Hunter Freedom franchises to each reach 2 million units and up.
But the publisher hopes more Western production will help it annualize those key properties better, allowing for more top-property releases in a given year.
That's according to a Nikkei report translated by Andriasang, in which Capcom states its aim to increase output of major franchise titles from the current two titles per year to the arena of three to four titles per year.
When it comes to fighting franchise Street Fighter, arguably the genre's most beloved and one of gaming's most iconic brands overall, that strategy is already evident: during Comic Con last week, Capcom announced major crossover title Street Fighter X Tekken and arcade remake Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition within days of each other.
According to the report, Capcom plans to offset the cost of the large development teams required for major franchise installments by relying on outsourcing to North American studios, banking on external resources and development methodologies to speed up development times.
It estimates that titles that would have previously taken four years can be created in two to three years with this approach, which means long waits for games like Lost Planet 2 -- whose delay was cited as causing harm to the publisher's last fiscal year -- can be avoided.
Maybe Blizzard will release some crazy turn-based version of multiplayer with their next release. Something that wouldn't fly for their competitive community but that might reach a different audience.
Maybe Blizzard will release some crazy turn-based version of multiplayer with their next release. Something that wouldn't fly for their competitive community but that might reach a different audience.
Something like that would be nice to see. Almost every Starcraft II article you see has tons of people talking about how much they got their ass kicked in the beta, and how "hardcore" you have to be to squeeze enjoyment out of the multiplayer.
I might even pick up one of the expansions if it comes with a robust co-op campaign that is more than just a multiplayer match against the CPU.
Almost every Starcraft II article you see has tons of people talking about how much they got their ass kicked in the beta, and how "hardcore" you have to be to squeeze enjoyment out of the multiplayer.
.
That was a common criticism of WC3 as well, and pretty apt I think.
12 years later some features should be standard I would think. I mean, no replay? That was one of my favorite things about WC3 :-/ . Why is Blizzard going backwards all the sudden?
Derrick on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
Aside from those bizarrely low costs, PS3 development has always been more costly. Dealing with the goofy Cell processor has been a thorn in the side of developers for the entire life of the PS3.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
There are replays in StarCraft 2.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
The problem is how they had the replay function worked for them. Each time a new patch came out modifying game balance, past replays became unwatchable. Axing that function for the time being isn't a big deal. I'm sure one of the expansions will bring it in as a feature.
Blame Activision or whatever. <_<
Edit - Are there now reVerse?
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
Wait, they got rid of the replays for the retail game?
"More than likely, the successive products will add multiplayer content; we haven't decided right now what that is." That brought up the question as to how multiplayer would work if some players only buy the first game while others only buy the second or third games. [Pardo] said that they haven't made any determinations yet as to how that would work.
Splintering the multiplayer between versions sounds pretty likely.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
It seems likely because they haven't decided what to do with things yet?
There have been online patches before which allow you to play against people with expansions, but not use those features yourself. So there could be cross-compatibility, just some players have reduced options.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
There have been online patches before which allow you to play against people with expansions, but not use those features yourself. So there could be cross-compatibility, just some players have reduced options.
That's a level of imbalance that Blizzard isn't going to fuck around with, I think.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
There have been online patches before which allow you to play against people with expansions, but not use those features yourself. So there could be cross-compatibility, just some players have reduced options.
At which point you might just as well buy the expansion because non-expansion Terran doesn't stand a chance against Protoss Cyclops tech rush.
There have been online patches before which allow you to play against people with expansions, but not use those features yourself. So there could be cross-compatibility, just some players have reduced options.
Well Relic's games do that, but I can't see Blizzard do anything like that since they won't add any new races/factions in multiplayer.
alset85 on
override said: I can't wait until Toady causes pressurized water to be able to actually damage things. I want to hit goblins with a shit cannon of such pressure that the meat is ripped from their bones
They have two clear solutions to a complicated situation, either giving everyone with old versions the new content or splintering the player populations to encourage more sales.
Call me a cynic, but I bet they prefer more money over less money.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Typically, whenever someone gives a non-answer answer, such as "We're still considering all possibilities, and have made no decisions yet." it almost always really means, "We've made the decision you won't like but aren't going to tell you about because we're not stupid. Seriously, come on with that."
They have two clear solutions to a complicated situation, either giving everyone with old versions the new content or splintering the player populations to encourage more sales.
Call me a cynic, but I bet they prefer more money over less money.
The thing is, they've stated clearly in the latest Blizzcast that patches and expansions will bring new features, beyond the new units thing. So new units / abilities in the game itself doesn't have to be the expansion incentive anymore.
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I don't know, it doesn't look like PSP development values are that much higher, and they have reasonably better assets
You mean like brood war for Starcraft? Or WoW's expansions?
edit: oh I see you posted the same thing on the starcraft thread. Anyway I'm positive all the SC2 expansions will be full price, and everyone will buy them. Multiplayer people especially.
Steam ID
http://www.develop-online.net/news/33625/Study-Average-dev-cost-as-high-as-28m
Random article from a Google search says the average development cost for a multiplatform game is $18-28M.
It's a weird way of handling things.
And the whole industry was like 'omgwtf thats sooooo much money'
Now it's like.. Eh? Only 40 million? Puh-leeeease.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Well, chances are that there will be new multiplayer units, making the expansions mandatory if you want to have a full army at your disposal.
Yep.
And you have to remember that Blizzard is owned by Activision now, and the CEO of that company is on record for being incredibly money-grubbing and anti-games in general. He'll make sure the game is milked to the hilt.
The shock there was probably "What did they spend 40 million on and its going to take more than 20 million to make people buy this thing"
Yeah, there is no way those numbers on the website are in units of 10,000 unless Playstation games cost only $56,000 US to make in 2003. (That would be basically 1 guy making a game in a year).
The problem with that is that we die-hard single player folk who actually give a shit about Jim's relationship with his mutant Zerg girlfriend and whatnot will be deprived of using the new units in the single player campaign. I wanna play with new human units!
I'm expecting the new units to come patched into multiplayer, and each expansion will be pretty much a "pay for the single player experience." Again, also predicting that after owning one of the installments you can buy the other two for cheaper.
Edit - Also in the latest Blizzcast they mentioned that aside from new units and the campaigns, each expansion (and patches) would bring actual new features to the game. But no elaborations on what those could be.
I have a very very strong reason to believe that is not the case.
Expect each expansion to function similarly to Brood War.
I know the original stats said "non-budget", but there's presumably a spectrum where games are neither AAA nor budget.
Yeah, that's never gonna happen. They know that everyone's gonna buy the expansions anyway, so there's not going to be that much segmenting, and for those silly people who choose to segment themselves by not buying the expansions, too bad.
I don't think they can afford to do that in this modern era of online play (when I say afford, I mean the customers are the currency at risk here).
Diablo 2 segmented. Warcraft 3 segmented. Starcraft 2 *expansions* will segment.
They want you to pay 180 dollars for this game, period.
How many people actually playing the multiplayer in Diablo 2, Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3 didn't buy the expansion? The amount of people who are segmented out of the latest version of the game will likely be significantly smaller than the amount of people who buy the expansions and play the latest version.
Also, just in case it's not clear, we seem to be in agreement here. They want you to buy all the expansions, and they'll accomplish that by having the expansions provide new units and whatnot to the game, just like their previous games have done.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29610/Report_Capcom_To_Fight_Flagging_Sales_With_More_Franchise_Releases_Western_Outsourcing.php
Let's hope they've finally figured out how to get decent games out of their western partners.
Bionic Commando Rearmed was the final one. After that there was the console BC and Dark Void, and Capcom threw in the towel.
I might even pick up one of the expansions if it comes with a robust co-op campaign that is more than just a multiplayer match against the CPU.
That was a common criticism of WC3 as well, and pretty apt I think.
There's also this to consider:
http://www.blizzardbeta.com/259/the-problem-with-starcraft-2/
12 years later some features should be standard I would think. I mean, no replay? That was one of my favorite things about WC3 :-/ . Why is Blizzard going backwards all the sudden?
Blame Activision or whatever. <_<
Edit - Are there now reVerse?
Splintering the multiplayer between versions sounds pretty likely.
That's a level of imbalance that Blizzard isn't going to fuck around with, I think.
At which point you might just as well buy the expansion because non-expansion Terran doesn't stand a chance against Protoss Cyclops tech rush.
Well Relic's games do that, but I can't see Blizzard do anything like that since they won't add any new races/factions in multiplayer.
Steam ID
Call me a cynic, but I bet they prefer more money over less money.
Picture Me Rollin'
The thing is, they've stated clearly in the latest Blizzcast that patches and expansions will bring new features, beyond the new units thing. So new units / abilities in the game itself doesn't have to be the expansion incentive anymore.
I'm just offering up a possibility is all.