Astor Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 I remember them mentioning micro-transactions a while ago, but that doesn't rule out subscription fees. Star Trek Online uses micro-transactions to buy extra gear and unlock special features, but that's on top of the subscription fee - and I can't see EA or LA getting rid of subscription fees. My bet is that it will stick with subscription fees for a year or more, and then eventually go free-to-play like LOTRO and many other MMOs have recently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decalibron Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 yea, im one of those lower budget guys, so a microtransaction or something would be great, so i only have to pay for what i want extra, not a base cost every month. and what's the latest guesstimate on the release date? i've heard from late 2011 to before fiscal 2012 begins, to February. it's quite confusing. I suppose if that's what happens i may pay for a couple months, and then wait until it turns to free-to-play if i like it. from what i've seen it looks pretty interesting, tho, so i suppose we'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajikMyst Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 Rumors pin the budget for Star Wars: The Old Republic anywhere between $100 million and $300 million. I think the CEO has rocks in his head if he really pins the budget for this game that high.. The Budget for Episode 3 was only $113 million.. Now you can't tell me this game costs more than making one of the most special effect rich movies of our time.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_III:_Revenge_of_the_Sith Either that article is simple wrong.. Or Mr. CEO doesn't know what he is talking about.. I could be wrong about all this.. But man!! I just don't see how.. Although, it is said that WOW makes a $100 million a month.. So.. Who knows.. Maybe they should just make the game into a movie and just bank on the $800 million or so that it would make.. I don't know.. Can't find anything to shed some light on this.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamqd Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 I wouldn't be so sure Majik, remember, special effects take a few guys in an office somewhere and a Mac. Episode 3 is a couple of hours long, in the Old Republic there are 200+ hours story driven gameplay per class, thats a lot of voice acting, animation, cutscenes, world building item creation dialog writing etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthJacen Posted September 11, 2011 Share Posted September 11, 2011 They should go Free to play, even Pirates of the Burning Sea is doing that, and that game still maintains it's paid look to it. More people would buy this game knowing it won't drain their monthly income. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajikMyst Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 I wouldn't be so sure Majik, remember, special effects take a few guys in an office somewhere and a Mac. Episode 3 is a couple of hours long, in the Old Republic there are 200+ hours story driven gameplay per class, thats a lot of voice acting, animation, cutscenes, world building item creation dialog writing etc... You need to watch 'A minute in Star Wars' or whatever it was called.. It is on the bonus disc to Episode 3.. It takes thousands of people to make a single shot in a film.. Not all are special effects people.. And there are more to special effects that just a few guys and a Mac.. Yoda was completely digital.. Not a muppet.. Every try to get a digital character to act?? It isn't that easy.. Recording voice overs is easy and simple and doesn't take that long.. Care to guess how many voice overs were in Episode 3?? Yoda for one?? One of many.. Many of the stuff they reuse.. Like any other MMO.. Animations?? Do once, do them a million times.. Voice overs I am guessing are also reused to some extent.. Who knows.. Cut scenes are easy to make.. There is your few guys over a pizza and a mac making a cut scene.. World building is also easy.. Ever do any level editing for any other games?? Once you have the base code and the editor.. Making maps is childs play.. Add the textures, the doodads, and other decorations.. Lay down the NPC's and assign them.. Pretty much done.. Just polish work.. Even shadows is somthing that the game builds during compiling of the game.. UT2K4 did that when you compiled maps for the game.. Don't get me wrong.. SWTOR is a pretty big project.. The story and being totally voiced being the big parts.. But the game itself, from what I have seen in videos is a dressed up version of WOW.. I am sure they didn't get a voice actor to for every single character that speaks a word to a player.. So I am sure many are reused.. They probably recorded all the lines from the various people inside of a month, with a call back for any changes.. To my knowlege there are no big name people doing the voice acting.. I hear that Felicia Day did some voice acting.. How much was she paid?? How much were any of them paid?? Item creaton is easy.. Once you setup the paramiters.. The game can generate items for each and every class automatically.. Diablo II did it 10 years ago.. They only items that weren't generated were uniques.. I may be wrong in that the cost to make this game is some outragious number?? I would be curious as to why?? Making a movie to me seems much harder and much more expensive.. But that is just how I see it.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 *sigh* I think the last post and what it quoted gave me cancer... Making movies and video games are both pretty difficult and require a lot of people working together. Both movies and video games use tricks to cut corners... In the case of TOR's voice acting, every single character is voiced, there won't be any text conversations. If you walk up to a character who has a side quest or whatever, that character has a voice. Add to that the fact that each player character needs to have alternate voices for male and females, then on top of that you need to record multiple variations of certain instances... and then on top of that you need to also go through all of the different choices the player makes and have a voice response for that. And then on top of that you need to direct the voice actor to do multiple takes, getting then to say things over and over in different variations and then editing stuff together, possibly even from different takes... it's not as simple as you'd think. As for the voice actors. I'll put it simply, there are a lot of very big names that were cast for TOR, we're talking people who have done many video games, anime and other forms of animation. There are over a hundred of these voice actors and most of them are pretty big names to me. They didn't just grab the janitor and office clerk and decided to put them in a recording booth. In terms of comparing TOR to other games, it's pretty damn huge compared to other games just for voice acting alone. There has never been another project that has been so ambitious simply because no one has tried to do it. Just remember it's not just the story that's being voice, the ENTIRE GAME is voiced. If tl;dr... then read this bit... both MajikMyst and adamqd... if you think that it just takes a few guys and a mac to do any of this stuff then you're both dreaming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamqd Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 *sigh* I think the last post and what it quoted gave me cancer... You opinion is valid Lynk and you are right my comment was over simplified I meant that Majik underestimated the vastness of an MMO, but Cancer? grow up mate, when you have a few family members suffer for years then die like mine it slaps your ignorant head back into reality regarding throw away comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mav Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 ITT: Lynk hasn't seen what my '96 iMac can do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astor Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 Cut out the Cancer chat, please. It adds nothing and is only going to cause trouble. To my knowlege there are no big name people doing the voice acting.. I hear that Felicia Day did some voice acting.. How much was she paid?? How much were any of them paid?? So first there's no big names involved, and then suddenly there are big names? And looking at the cast list, there's a LOT of big names. Dee Bradley Baker (all the Clones in TCW, Klaus from American Dad!), Steve Blum (too many games to mention), Tom Kane (video game voice of Yoda), Jennifer Hale... and Anthony Daniels himself. And I can't imagine any of them working for meagre amounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueJedi86 Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 A point to be made in this topic is that Bigpoint is the makers of a free to play MMO. Of COURSE they're trying to badmouth an upcoming big-name subscription-based MMO. They're just worried about competition. Their words are no more relevant than id saying Valve's Team Fortress 2 will never be profitable, or something like that. But it looks like this topic has moved well past that, so I'll have to catch up on the most recent posts and add a relevant reply accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueJedi86 Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 Big names on the game? David "Solid Snake" Hayter as the male JK, Kari Wahlgren(who has done tons of anime, including Haruko on FLCL) is most likely the female JK, Grey Delisle(who has been in tons of cartoons and SW games) as the Female BH, Lacey Chabert(not a big name now, but she was in the 90s on Party of Five and as Meg's first VA on Family Guy) as Mako, and I'm sure the list goes on and on. Those are just names either confirmed(Hayter and Chabert) or pretty obvious from videos(in the case of Kari and Grey's roles). Plus Oteg is voiced by Jim Cummings, who has been a legend in cartoon voice acting for 20+ years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 ITT: Lynk hasn't seen what my '96 iMac can do XD actually dude created an entire 25 minute short anime movie with a Power Mac G4 a decade or so ago... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_of_a_Distant_Star It's still no Episode 3... but like TOR, it is ambitious, one man and a Mac... a huge cast of voice actors and a game that's fully voiced of this scale, we need people to push these limits *in Optimus Prime voice* no matter the cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajikMyst Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 I don't know.. I guess my standards of a big name are different.. Anthony Daniels is one.. But so far that is all that has been listed.. Frank Oz would be a big name.. Harrison Ford would be a big name.. Come on guys.. Big names!! Felicia Day, although hot is not a big name.. All the rest of the people mentioned.. Are not big names.. At least in my book.. Chris Hayden would be a big name.. Mel Gibson would be a big name.. I doubt anyone of them are going to command any large fee.. Anthony Daniels I would expect to be paid the most.. Other than that, everyone else are pretty much just nobody anyone has ever heard of.. Nobody cares who did the voice for family guy.. Nobody cares about who did the voice for some anime cartoon.. Those aren't big name, well known people.. Lady Gaga would be big name.. Don't get me wrong.. I am glad those people did their work, but they simply don't command the salaries of a truly big name person.. What if Liam Neesom did the voice for the Jedi?? That is a big name.. I don't underestimate how to make an MMO.. I have been involved in making a number of them.. And if you simply watched some of the videos available on this very site.. You would see it isn't all that hard.. Sure.. The voice acting and everything is the largest single most expensive portion of the game.. Enough to eclipse the entire budget of Star Wars Episode 3 the movie?? I doubt it.. Just saying.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueJedi86 Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 Big names depends on your circle. In cartoons and anime, the names I listed are big. Steve Blum is practically a voice acting god. Kari Wahlgren and Grey Delisle too, having been in more shows than you've heard of. Plus David Hayter also wrote the first 2 X-Men movies(the good ones), so he's a big name in screenwriting too. Tom Kane is a new legend too, with his becoming the new go-to guy for every movie trailer under the sun, plus his being the official voice double for C-3PO and Yoda when Anthony Daniels(most of the time) and Frank Oz(always) aren't around. Never heard of Chris Hayden. Just because they're not big in your major Hollywood circles doesn't mean they're not big in other circles that are in the same geeky solar system as SW movies. I doubt TOR eclipses RotS' budget. TOR's budget is estimated 100 million, and I imagine the prequels had budgets of at least 200 million apiece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 @ MajikMyst: There's no reason to cast Anthony Daniels since all he ever does is the voice for C-3P0, that's his thing and that's why we love him for it... as for the big name live-action actors you mentioned such as Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson... they're not voice actors, they're live-action actors... which means you'd be paying a tonne of money for their names and that's it. They aren't talented with voice acting like Steve Blum and Kari (I love Kari) Wahlgren are. People do care about voice actors because a lot of people follow cartoons and anime and video games and recognise when their favourite voice actors are in those things. Just because you personally don't doesn't automatically cancel out their worth and talent as voice actors. If they did get Hollywood actors to do the voices I would have scoffed at this entire project and said it was a waste of money and that they were mismanaging funds. Nope, the voice acting definitely didn't cost that much, but that's the beauty of it, they knew the right people so they could get MAXIMUM talent without busting their budget for it getting waste-of-time names like... Mel Gibson. Just because a voice actor doesn't get paid as much doesn't mean they have no talent. These are extremely talented people doing what they love to do. As for the making of the game... No, it wouldn't be as easy as just making a few animation cycles, plonking down a few area maps and NPCs to randomly populate them. You'd have to take in a number of factors into account while making it including trying to predict what the player is going to do, if the area you've created is balanced enough, is it too difficult, too easy... does the area make sense, if I put this here, does it actually look like a proper landscape or does it look like I've just piled a bunch of random rocks here? Sure, big companies have ways of automating the process by creating engines to do most of the work, but with this game, like any game, particularly an RPG, there are a hell of a lot of things to be considered and trying to balance all of those things is pretty difficult. Of course, if it was as easy as you like to suggest, I'd be making my own indie-RPGs right now instead of typing these posts lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajikMyst Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 Ok fine.. Mike Meyers.. Is that better?? He did Shrek.. Mel Gibson has also done some voice acting.. But seriously.. A number of big name actors worked on the Shrek movies.. Cast overview, first billed only: Mike Myers ... Shrek (voice) Eddie Murphy ... Donkey (voice) Cameron Diaz ... Princess Fiona (voice) John Lithgow ... Lord Farquaad (voice) Shrek cost $60 million to make.. Even with those big names doing the voices.. So seriously.. I question how much this game costs to make.. I feel I have ample reason to.. If you don't that is fine.. But nit picking to prove your point doesn't prove anything.. Mel Gibson isn't a voice actor.. Seriously?? Come on now.. You also don't have to lecture me on how games are made or how MMO's are made.. As I said, I have been a part of making a lot of them.. If you want to think it is this grand complicated process that costs $100 million dollars.. Then go ahead.. While I am not saying that all of it is simple.. It isn't that hard either.. Most of the textures being used are being reused from Kotor and Kotor2.. Much of the code being used is from those games.. The engine being used is simply an upgrade.. Heck some of the animations being used came from those games.. Even the light side dark side mechanic came from KOTOR and isn't new.. Much of this game was written when they made Kotor.. There is a video of them making Corscant, if you watch it, it is mostly cut and paste or copy and paste.. Seriously watch it.. Sure.. Making the quests work and the stories will take some effort.. As will the scripting and the voice acting to match events.. But not $100+ million worth.. Again not even when they aren't using big name actors for characters.. Look at Shrek, Totally digital and still came in at $60 million to make.. Christ!! I am entitled to my opinions.. You don't have to like them or agree with them.. Never heard of Chris Hayden. My bad.. Hayden Christensen I always get his name confused.. I was close.. Sorta.. Played Anakin Slywalker in Ep2 and Ep 3.. Natalie Portman would be a big name too.. Her name is correct.. You right about the circles thing.. But to me a big name actor is someone that everyone for the most part has heard of.. Eddie Murphy.. Anyone that is at least in their 20's or 30's has at least heard of him.. The last time I watched anything Anime was Speed Racer in the 70's.. In a time where anime wasn't really all that popular.. You can go through pretty much all of the Disney Pixar movies and see a list of Who's who in Hollywood doing voice acting.. Paul Newman did a voice in the movie Cars.. Pretty much everyone has done a voice or two.. Tony Shalhoub?? Know who he is?? Remember the TV show called Monk?? Well he also did a voice in Cars.. The Budget for Cars by the way was $120 million.. But if you look at the voice cast, a lot of big names.. Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Tony Shalhoub, Michael Keaton, and many others.. Again an all digital movie.. Of course, if it was as easy as you like to suggest, I'd be making my own indie-RPGs right now instead of typing these posts lol. I never suggested it was easy.. I said it wasn't $100+ million dollars hard.. There is a difference.. I also said that it isn't as hard as some of you think.. But then again you can think what you want.. Merged Triple Posts... please use the 'edit' button in future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 @ MajikMyst: What games have you made? You've gone on about this for a few posts now, either source your credentials and proof or you're just some guy who's talking big... which is a very common thing on the net so don't expect people to just believe you when you say things like that. Also, how do you know for sure that textures are being reused and that chunks are being taken from previous games? You have claims but no proof of this, show us definitive proof and we'll believe you. As for how much the game costs, I assume that some of the money spent was wasted redoing parts of the game. From what I've noticed this game has had its visual redone at least three times now and from interviews with folks from BioWare, parts of the game have been retooled and some things have been completely redone. On the point of voice acting... so it's a case of status rather than talent? Mel Gibson has a very distinct and powerful voice, he's a damn good actor (even if he has lost his mind the last few years), but Mel Gibson can only do his Mel Gibson voice... on the other hand, Steve Blum has a way of not sounding like Steve Blum, he's even done the voices of small children in one or two anime... so that makes him a very versatile voice actor who can play the Bounty Hunter but then also provide voices for other more background and throw away characters. But all in all, I do think that whatever the cost of this game is, it is ridiculous, yes... though as I said before, I'm sure they wasted a lot of money to begin with when they started the project and then realised they needed to redo a lot of what they had done... that is unless you think they should run their employees to the ground with overtime and not pay them like Rockstar did with Team Bondi and then leave them for dead once the project is done. It's been quite a few years in development and there are a lot of people working on the game... they also need to set up an infrastructure for the game when it is released and people start playing it too which means more people will need to be hired to maintain the game. Money, money, money... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 Putting this in a new post just for emphasis http://www.digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-games-budgets-ever/ There are a lot of extremely expensive games being made nowadays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajikMyst Posted September 13, 2011 Share Posted September 13, 2011 Wow.. Can I needlessly edit your posts too!! I am entitled to my opinions.. Sorry.. But your are going to have to deal with it.. I have more than made it clear as to why I feel the way I do.. We are going to have to just agree to disagree.. Please do not edit my posts again.. Thanks!! My posts were to different people.. You will have to learn to deal with that too.. Everyone I respond to gets their own post.. I am not going to mash them all together because of some unwritten and BS rule that you made up.. Putting this in a new post just for emphasis http://www.digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-games-budgets-ever/ There are a lot of extremely expensive games being made nowadays. You need to learn to read what people say in their posts.. My big issue has always been that I find it hard to believe that the cost to make a video game has eclipsed that of the cost to make a blockbuster movie like Star Wars Ep. 3.. That doesn't mean it didn't happen and on more than one occasion I have said I could be all wrong about this.. And I could be.. I have also stressed that is my opinion.. No need for you to even argue and make an arse out of yourself.. Again, I could be wrong.. And if you want to think I am.. I don't care.. I am not the one pulling lame rules out of my arse just to piss people off.. Yes.. I read the rules.. There is no rules about making multiple posts to different people.. According to the rules, I could write 12 posts to 12 different people all in a row.. It also doesn'tgive you the right to arbitrarely edit people's post.. While I will leave your edit there as I think it makes a fool out of you.. Seriously you want me to edit my post anytime someone else responds? Why don't you do that?? Why is it wrong to write three posts to three different people?? Are you OCD or something?? You don't like seeing more than one post in a row?? Do we all just need to wait until someone has posted so we can reply again?? Give me a break!! Making different posts for each person makes it easier for the person I responded to find my reply to their post.. If it is all mashed together as a single post.. It looks as if I am replying to a single person and just quoting multiple parts of what they said.. Which, thanks to you, is how my post looks.. Again.. Please do not mess with my posts.. Unless I actually break a rule, you shouldn't be messing with my posts at all!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hallucination Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 MajikMist, just a heads up double/triple/polyposting has been considered poor form for longer than I remember, and moderators correcting it has common practice for just as long. I even seem to remember it being in the rules a long time ago (and even now it could be arguable be considered a violation of the bumping rule). This is in place to avoid thread clutter. Also, your 3 posts look better as one. Regarding your points about video games being cheap to make and Bioware reusing code, animations, textures, and the like from KOTOR is blatantly wrong. Bioware licensed a new engine from a middleware company (don't even think that that makes it cheap, B2B products tend to have low sales volumes and thus are very expensive. Here is a link to an interview with the engine's creators, where they state that the cheapest you can get a license is in the "low 6 figures". That's what it costs to use in something like one country, and since TOR is going to be sold internationally it'll be much higher), which did save them time on the tool development, but it means that all their old code is non-compatible. Plus they had to redo large portions of the engine anyway. As well, their models are completely different, and since animations tend to be built into the models and textures made to work with specific models, those have all been thrown out the window. When you factor in the artistic style change and the fact KOTOR is a very old game now, they probably wouldn't even use those assets even if they could. By the way, most people recommend not picking fights with the moderators, it makes life easier for you. In fact, I'd say picking fights with anyone is bad practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mav Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 @MajikMyst First of all, you quoted Lynk and proceeded to piss and moan about him editing your post, well.... "Last edited by Astor; Yesterday at 10:50 PM. Reason: merged triple post" yeeaaahhh... Also, while maybe not explicitly a rule double/triple/quadruple/etc. posting has always been frowned upon, it's like masturbating on an airplane. I can't be arsed to read through an entire thread of nonsensical bickering, by both sides, but from what I've gathered this entire debate seems to stem from the disbelief that the development of The Old Republic could have actually costed this estimated $100-$300 million USD. However, from what I understand after reading the original post, that $100-$300 million estimate is for the game's entire budget not just its development costs. So that will include things like marketing, an example of which are those fancy-pants CG E3 trailers we've been seeing every year, which are far from cheap. Just to give a bit of perspective to the development cost vs. a game's budget, Modern Warfare 2 has an estimated development cost of $40-$50 million but it had a budget of around $200 million. Granted we're talking about Call of Duty which demands a high marketing budget, but it is also an annual release (with bi-annual developer cycles) while on the other hand TOR has been in development for quite a bit longer. TOR was officially announced in Fall 08, but no doubt it was in development for quite a while prior to that. So regardless of personal opinions on whether or not the development alone for TOR could have cost upwards of $100 million, the budget with marketing included I think easily eclipses that mark. Personally though I don't have a hard time believing the development costs for TOR alone could eclipse $100 million, but it's not like I've ever managed a game's development budget, so I wouldn't honestly know. But for argument's sake let's do some simple math... Average United States employee works 2000 hours a year - 2000 We'll play it stupid safe and say on average they make $10 an hour - 2000 x 10 = 20000 That's $20,000 a year for each employee (Game Industry mag has estimated that the average game developer makes closer to $73,000 just fyi) We'll play it safe again and say BioWare Austin has 100 employees - $20,000 x 100 = $2,000,000 per year 2008 - 2011 = 4 years, we'll say they developed for 1 year prior to announcing so 5 years of 2 mil equals, $10 million for employee wages alone... at an extremely safe estimate. Don't question my math, I'm Asian, I own 3 abacuses that the government knows about. So at basically a slavery level of employment estimate we're looking at $10 million spent alone, 10% of that fabled $100 million. (if I were to make an actual estimate though I would guess during its entire development cycle the team alone has earned over $50 million in wages). That doesn't count the cost of these horrific unknown voice actors. Doesn't count the bills they have to pay to keep their crap computers that reuse assets running, doesn't even count the cost of electricity in general. Nor does it include the cost of running and maintaining the beta servers that they refuse to let me participate in. TL;DR version, **** adds up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 @ MajikMyst: Actually, since GTA4 there have been several occasions where video games have gone beyond the 100million mark. But the point of that link was to point out that video game budgets are escalating to new heights every year. Also, stop whining. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, and so is everyone else, hence why people such as myself can post opposing thoughts to your own. That... and I never once touched any of your posts ever. Deal with it. EDIT: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajikMyst Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 That... and I never once touched any of your posts ever I am sorry for wrongfully accusing you of editng my post.. In either case, my posts were not against the rules and should not have been edited.. So it will be noted.. No other forum has had issues with multiple posts to different people.. Multiple posts to the same person yes.. But not different people.. I don't wish to get into another arguement about this.. But this is not a common and well known rule by any stretch of the imagination.. Still it isn't listed in your posting rules and therefore does not exist.. Despite what some others say.. I have been posting in forums since forums first started.. Back when AOL was the ISP of choice.. Well.. At least it was to some.. This has never come up before now.. Again I am sorry for wrongfully accusing you.. My bad.. As for the rest?? I have been a beta tester for about 15 years.. Worked on the first versions of Direct X for Microsoft for Win95.. Worked hand in hand with countless gaming manufactures in testing their games for compatibility for Direct X.. Worked with hardware manurfactures when it came to writing drivers for Direct X.. I am now retired, but still enjoy gaming and beta testing.. I beta tested Cataclysm for WOW and now currently SWTOR for BW and EA and Lucas Arts.. As well as many other MMO's both past and present.. But making games is pretty much the same no matter what they are.. The mechanics are different of course, but world creation is almost the same.. Due to NDA's I really can't go into any more details.. Except to say what has already been released.. I am surprised at the stated cost for GTA.. But if that is how much they cost now.. Wow.. I still think the CEO has rocks in his head.. But that is me.. Again, I am entitled to my opinons.. As for the rest of you.. You are also entitled to your own opinions and your own math.. Again.. We all are entitled to our own opinions.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 Yup, but the facts are that games really are getting more expensive and there's no denying that trend. I do think it absurd how much money some of these companies spend to make some of these games but the bigger the risk, the larger the reward... games like GTA and Modern Warfare are 100million+ games but they rake in the cash to make up for the cost. Same goes for TOR, it's a high risk venture but enough people who have invested in its development, as inefficient as it may be, believe that the returns are going to be a lot more than what was put in. On a more sobering note, Nintendo is one of the few developers who is actually capable of making a game for very cheap and then in the long run getting an extremely high return from their efforts... and there are many other companies like that, however BioWare, EA and LucasArts are not part of that thrifty developer circle at this stage... the truth is, there is a division happening with video games at the moment. You either make them for dirt cheap or you spend a HUUUUUGE mining dump truck full of cash worth of money on them... but these kinds of things are just trends and the video game industry is still very young. We can't really say that these trends will continue, they'll probably change as the industry evolves further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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