I get that as far as pure numbers. I guess I'm asking "why?" And to some extent I see it, but some things I don't. Voice acting should be about a standard rate to some extent. If its too pricey, design around it for fuck sakes. Textures? Isn't that a major input at the start that gives you an economy of scale? I guess I don't know enough about coding and development in general to understand.
Textures, models, programming, sound effects, music, voice acting etc. are all created through sheer manpower. Need some extra textures? Gotta hire someone to do it for you. Need to animate a model? Gotta hire an animator. The cost to hire these people is going up, not down. Unless you outsource to China or whatever, which has its own set of problems.
As the scale and scope of AAA games increase, gamers are demanding more.
Look at this gen, for example. The initial games were relatively simple in design and scope.
But then we had stuff like Gears of War that massively raised the bar for graphical fidelity and made every other console game look cheap and shitty in comparison. Post Gears, every game had to look "at least" as good as Gears as not to be declared "shitty" by gamers.
Fast forward a few years, we have games coming out with a grander scale than ever before. I'm going to use Uncharted 2 as an example. I think the game itself, in terms of gameplay, is shitty. The aiming feels bad, the platforming is boring, and the story is dull. The set pieces are incredible, though. Playing the stage where you're traversing a train while it's being blown up was incredible. As was the stage where you're moving through a building as it crumbles around you. It raised the bar for set pieces for the future.
Now, these are just two of many games. Modern Warfare could be used as an example of a game elevating the quality of the console FPS, for example. Assassin's Creed could be used as an example of a game creating a massive fully realised environment unlike ever before. Etc etc.
All of these games raised the bar and every game coming after them had to work to match them which requires more money, more work hours, and more manpower.
The same thing is happening in Hollywood, too. Remember when Titanic was considered 'obscenely expensive' with a budget of $200 million? How many films with a $200+ million budget have been released since? Tons!
I just remember launching one of my former company's products and that first product with the radical new tech was a BITCH, but the next couple that were more or less minor upgrades were faster, cheaper, and easier. Games just don't seem to follow that. I worry its a lot of the shit decisions a la SWTOR. Alas, I'd be glad to hear anyone in the know to shed some general light on where these costs go. Has cycle time also gone up that fast? I wouldn't be surprised. Gotta get that down. Six Sigma'ing can be soul-less but it can help you curtail that shit.
Another big problem is that the game developers have traditionally hired more people to get a job done. This wasn't a problem in the PS2 and earlier era because they were still making a ton of money. IIRC, EA made about $2 billion profit in the PS2 era, for example. They didn't have to worry about "working smarter" - they could throw more people at a problem and it'd eventually right itself. Things changed last gen because it quickly became obvious that it wasn't possible to do that anymore. Better tools and better workflows were needed to speed up development.
Now, going into next gen, there's a huge focus on this. Unity, UE4, CryEngine, etc. are all easier to use than ever before, meaning artists and programmers can get more work done in less time. It's going to take some time before these cost reductions are felt, though, and they may be offset by the added complexity of next gen development.
I really think most gamers would /shrug if consoles died. We'd all just flip on PC's. And those Madden nuts or Black Ops drones? They'd just play fantasy football or go back to sitting in front of the tube watching Chuck Norris movies (nothing wrong with that). Those are who consoles are for really.
I kinda agree. I think, in the future, we're going to end up with two ways to play games: mobile devices and PCs.
The casuals will go to the mobile devices and they'll be happy. Note: By mobile, I don't mean gaming handhelds. They'll be gone soon.
Dedicated TV boxes like the AppleTV might be popular, too. Noted Apple fanboy MG Siegler wrote a surprisingly decent piece about the danger the AppleTV poses to gaming consoles -
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/death-by-apps/. (EDIT - This article Siegler linked to is MUCH better:
https://ilikecode.wordpress.com/2013...d-stupid-xbox/; read this instead)
As for the PC - I think it will eventually replace the role of consoles completely.
This year is going to be huge for PC hardware because, for the first time, integrated graphics won't suck. Haswell and Jaguar (I think that's the name of AMDs next gen APU platform - apologies if it's not) will be able to play games with good looking graphics at 1080p, which will be enough to satisfy most of the casual COD/FIFA/whatever fans, while the more dedicated gamers will be able to pick up a great dedicated graphics card that can do all sorts of cool shit.
I imagine this is where the Steambox comes in. Valve is going to do their utmost to make playing games through Steam as easy as it is to play games with a console.
Of course, this is all speculation. The PS4 and the Xbox whatever could end up being huge success stories and this speculation could all be pointless. Stranger things have happened. I doubt it, though. The consumer base has shifted dramatically in the last few years and I'm not sure the console market will be able to keep up with it.
