PhoenixDark, I was mostly referring to the fact that you lambasted me for predicting the end of the videogame industry with all my doom and gloom naysaying, when I said nothing of the sort. We are heading for a crash (one that I said will not derail the industry) and it's already occuring. The industry is adopting the Hollywood model and why not? Cinema and videogames are intertwined already.
When talking about the issue of costs (cost.ed lol), you have to be painfully naive if you think they're not huge. Why the hell would you bring PS2 costs into discussion when we are past that console generation (I would hope PS2 development would be somewhat affordable, it's only been out for five years). Is $10 million no sweat for EA? No, millions are millions no matter who you are, but EA is not going to crash and burn if NCAA MVP '08 doesn't break its projected sales. My entire commentary was about a few controlling the industry, and I think common sense would say that EA would be the equivalent of NBC Universal for the videogame industry.
The bulk of development and marketing costs are for next generation development. It is expensive. Middleware does not level off costs until about a cycle into console software. Even then, most AAA games are so expensive that it just takes one flop to really change a publisher's output forecast.
I had the pleasure of having dinner with people who have coordinated E3 in year's past, talking off-the-record about finances and well being of certain publishers. Last May, it was certain that there was a change coming.
But I don't know why I am bothering to discuss this with you, when you neglect marketing costs, seem completely ignorant of the developer/publisher relationship (I swear I've seen you use the term developer in context of a publisher) and use words like "c0sted".
$10 million games didn't kill anyone this generation Willco. It's not going to magically kill off developers this time, especially considering what we've seen so far. In terms of marketing, most publishers aren't spending huge amounts. Do you ever see a lot of videogame commercials on TV, or in non-gaming magazines? It's not as expensize as movie ads, which are everywhere in great abundance.
The industry is currently controlled by a handful of big publishers (mainly EA, Activision, and Ubisoft). Ubisoft seems to be the only one who gets what "next gen" truly means. Activision is extremely imcompatant, and they might go the way of Midway if they don't get their act together. For them, a game either looks half assed or costs millions. Spiderman 3: The Game is going to cost them $30 million to produce, according to them. That's Activision's
choice; that game could be produced for half that money if Activision was smart.
With $60 games, publishers don't seem to be worrying too much. Even games that have "bombed" by GAF standards have brought in a very large amount of revenue and profit for publishers, in part thanks to the high retail prices.
There will be no small scale crash, especially now that the PS3 and Wii are a few weeks away. Publishers will be able to tack off losses with great software sales as well as the pure profit from PS2 software sales, which will continue to rise (similar to what happened with the PS1 after the PS2 came out).
