At his GDC presentation this week, Brad Wardell made the case for reviving the hardcore PC market but not neglecting those gamers who still like serious strategy titles.
Best part of that article? His sales data. Yeah, it’s in the interest of the publisher to put the best spin on things, but 10 million in revenue for GalCiv 2 and 8 million in revenue for Sins of a Solar Empire is pretty amazing.
Keep it up guys.
Too bad PC gaming is dead.
Maybe other games would sell more if they weren’t crappy console ports.
The problem is that most companies just don’t care about 8-10 million dollars in revenue. They’re looking for product that will pull in 50M minimum.
Jon
“The problem is that most companies just don’t care about 8-10 million dollars in revenue. They’re looking for product that will pull in 50M minimum.”
And that’s because most game budgets are well above $8-$10 million.
Why is that, anyway? A large development team to make those fancy graphics? Marketing? Sins looked bad-ass for $1 million…what does 10x the budget get you?
There seems to be a point where more money thrown at a project brings significantly diminishing returns… what developers and publishers need to pin point is where that point is located.
Voice acting has improved a lot in the past ten years. That probably doesn’t come as cheaply as it did a decade ago either.
Anyway, Stardock’s ration of return to expense is enviable in any industry.
The more money you make and the more successful you are the stronger the temptation to top yourself and keep adding more. Well, adding more… costs more. If you’re successful enough eventually you end up in a position where you need blockbusters just to maintain the status quo.
Jon
“Why is that, anyway? A large development team to make those fancy graphics? Marketing? Sins looked bad-ass for $1 million…what does 10x the budget get you?”
A $10 million budget is 30-40 people working for 2 years. That’s on the low-end of the ability of people to match the minimum expectations gamers and reviewers expect from most common genres today. It’s 5 programmers, 10 artists, 10 designers, and misc writers, PAs, a sound guy, etc.
More money gets you more people. More development time. Maybe less crunch mode. An actual single-player campaign; maybe a dynamic one, maybe a non-linear one. Revisions to a UI, or better yet, an actual full-time UI designer. Better tutorials.
You don’t necessarily get any or all of these things with a bigger budget, but with very little budget at all, these things are the first to go because they all take time and people.
Why do you need that many people? Looking at Sins, being in outer space saves you a ton because generating background starfields and planets has almost no cost compared to generating terrain and populating it with… stuff. That’s a huge cost win.
But do we want every game to be set in space in order to save money? If you’re making a game set on terra firma, you have to concept, model, and texture every single unit, building, hedge, tree, etc. If you have humans, the costs go even higher because you have animation and such.
So let’s move ahead a couple of years. People notice that games like Sins still sell. While Sins and GalCiv are perfectly fine today, they’re competing against nothing. It made them smart development choices—and that’s been Stardock’s key, competing in areas others have abandoned—but as soon as others re-enter those spaces, everyone’s costs go up because you can’t put something out that doesn’t look as good as the competition, or doesn’t have as good a UI, or doesn’t have Feature X, Y, or Z. If you fall short, you will get roasted.
So, let’s say EA or Ubisoft makes a Sins-like game, or Relic whips out Homeworld 3. You may think Sins looks bad-ass today, but Sins 2 made with a similar budget tomorrow—and the same basic feature set—may not look so hot when compared to what more programmers, more artists, and more designers come up with.
That’s kinda the point: Stardock knows they aren’t aiming at people who put graphics first when considering paying for a game. People who like 4X games are those that tend to appreciate the drawn-out terms of such a game -specially with turn based galciv2- instead of the zerg rush aspects of RTS games.
What I think should be the concern is that while devs should try to have decent graphics in a game, gameplay and game design in these audiences matters more. It’s similar to some extent to Jeff Vogel and his Geneforge/Avernum games. He knows his audience doesnt care much for graphics in his game yet he still sells.
Similarly, companies like Stardock (and Basilisk games with Eschalon, for example) can afford to produce these niche-targeted games with no intention to have full HDR BLOOM ZOMFG HAX graphics, and still sell well enough to keep doing it.
Stardock -as has been said I think- has more cushion to afford them that since they started with and still sell (enough I suppose) applications, so they can make those games and not need huge returns. Returns that nonetheless they have gotten.
Stardock is clearly upping their focus on graphics with their latest stuff though… beware the cycle. ;)
Jon
Ditto some of the comments here, especially RE: graphics.
A lot of gamers say they hate the obsession with graphics, but let’s all agree: *attractive* graphics are a positive, no matter what the game.
The doesn’t mean you need Crysis-level eye candy in a 4X game. But it does mean you have to keep pace with the state of the art, and meld attractive graphics with the functionality required in strategy games.
That, of course, takes money.
“That’s kinda the point: Stardock knows they aren’t aiming at people who put graphics first when considering paying for a game.”
That only works when you’re working in dormant genres. As soon as someone else swoops in and spends more money and produces better visuals, you need to meet or exceed that bar because the press—and their followers—tend to be unforgiving when you come up short.
And you can always play the “what if” game. What if Sins had zoomier visuals, a better UI, and a more “normal” single-player campaign in addition to its current feature set. Would it be a better game? It would’ve addressed most of the common criticisms, that’s for sure. Would it have sold more to offset the additional costs? That’s the $1 million question.
It’s a risk, but it could theoretically lead to even bigger returns.
“It’s similar to some extent to Jeff Vogel and his Geneforge/Avernum games. He knows his audience doesnt care much for graphics in his game yet he still sells.”
I imagine his audience would like his games even more with better visuals. If he made them all text, would he be just as successful? If so, he’s already wasting money with his current visuals.
Didn’t Troy link to Vogel’s talk about that issue? He’s basically reusing his assets in every game and that saves him a lot of money (see http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/03/so-heres-how-many-games-i-sell.html ).
The point is that while Stardock wont release games with graphics as bad/’low cost’ as Vogel’s, the quality/style of their graphics is pretty good enough for its purposes – just the same as Basilisk’s Eschalon, which looks pretty sexy to be honest.
There’s nothing wrong with them putting money in doing decent graphics, but they certainly aren’t gonna pump up their graphics to AAA-titles level since I think, as I said, that the people who like the genre and are willing to pay for it, don’t mind the graphics that much and, again, the risk is probably not worth it.
I’m not sure I’d want them to even try anyways. Games the likes of the tasty dominions 3 are as huge as they are because they don’t need that much graphics (per civilization, for example), and that game gives depth unseen by today’s strategy games-standards.
There’s a certain tradeoff between the kind of graphics you can put and the functionality/gameplay stuff you can include, and getting to a level in graphics means you can’t do certain things without way too much manpower/money on them.
Same thing with Vogel I assume, although I like his games systems less.
And be careful when bringing ASCII graphics: rogue-like games are very popular enough because of their depth, independent of graphics. (The Dwarf Fortress dude receives ~2000 dollars monthly just in donations) That kind of stuff you wouldn’t be able to replicate in an actual, graphical game.
+1 any post that mentions Dominions 3 and Dwarf Fortress.