AAA Single Player Games are too expensive to make says Developer of Quantum Break

[AlTech]

Remedy Entertainment, the developed behind Quantum Break and the now infamously terrible launch of Quantum Break, has confessed that AAA Single Player Games are too expensive to make.

 

Quote

Remedy Entertainment is moving away from the traditional AAA single player experience, though they’ve vowed to retain their trademark focus on storytelling. Their next game (codenamed P7 and published by 505 Games) will have cooperative multiplayer elements to try and enhance replayability.

We’ve known as much for a while now, but Remedy Entertainment’s Head of Communications Thomas Puha revealed a bit more on this shift in an interview published today on GamesIndustry.biz. I

 

This is what the Remedy Entertainment head of communications had to say:

Quote

The reality is the traditional AAA single player experience is just really expensive to make. The expectation level from gamers is really high in terms of how long the game is, what sort of features it has, how good the production values are. All those things are very expensive to do. And if you go back 10 years, you could still say the console market is roughly the same size. In the end, the audience you’re selling to is relatively the same size but the cost of making the game is ten-fold these days. So that’s an obvious problem.

 

From a creative perspective, even when we made Alan Wake, it was like we spent all this time creating the characters, the universe, the rules and everything. It’s a place where you want the player to spend a longer period of time, and that’s hard to do in the traditional single-player space.

 

<Sarcasm>

Oh shit! Would you look at that??!! AAA games are too f*cking expensive to make! Boo hoo hoo. Oh dear, whatever will the gaming industry do now?

</Sarcasm>

 

Inb4, next financial analyst day for any AAA publisher "AAA Single Player games are too expensive to make". 

 

I think it's personally a whole load of shit and that they're just tired of not milking every last dime from players. Hoepfully the AAA gaming space crashes down soon or something cos they need a reality check.

 

Source: https://wccftech.com/remedy-aaa-single-player-expensive-make/

[Jade]

Yeah, sure. @ CD Projekt Red: Go ahead and cancel Cyberpunk 2077, since Witcher 3 didn't pay off.

 

Maybe, just maybe, if companies were to put out good, worthwhile AAA story-based games, then it'd be worth it. See: CD Projekt Red.

[AlwaysFSX]

Is this just their excuse for how badly Quantum Break turned out?

[Scionyde]

Thread Title: "AAA Single Player Games are too expensive to make"

 

Actual Quote: "The reality is the traditional AAA single player experience is just really expensive to make."

 

Those two quotes imply pretty different things, you know. I don't see anything unreasonable or untrue in what Thomas Puha is actually saying.

 

EDIT: Removed mini-argument because I over-inferred some stuff. 3 am = time to go to bed

[8uhbbhu8]

Soooooo We already knew that these games were expensive. These devs don't seem to realize that of course we are going to expect better and better as tech and player viewpoint matures. The "standard" pc game industry is very new relatively speaking compared to consoles. I would not be surprised to see in a few years that game dev costs have dropped due to the tools available getting better and better. Then costs will rise again, and rinse and repeat. It all depends on the time period you are in.

[TrigrH]

20 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Single Player Games are too expensive to make says Developer of Quantum Break

More like:

Quote

Single Player Games are too expensive to make says an idiot who thought using the Microsoft store/UWP was a good platform to sell a game on PC.

 

[ScratchCat]

Well SureAI managed to pull of a probably better game for free with Enderal using a much smaller team while only borrowing the engine and some resources from Skyrim.

 

Probably having to deal with UWP/The windows store and being forced to use DX12 , both things which the average game developer probably has little experience in, ended up driving up the cost.

[Lathlaer]

Guys why are you raging that a guy from company that hires 140 people as of 2017 is saying that making AAA is expensive? It is, for them its VERY expensive.

 

They are 3x smaller than CDPR (which is considered small in comparison to the giants), of course AAA games are going to be expensive for them.

 

Even Witcher3 cost CDPR $81mil to make which they paid from their own pockets, do you think they would be around making 2077 if that did not pan out? 

 

Reserve your sarcasm when Ubisoft/EA make those claims.

[ExplosiveSloths]

They're not expensive because of the games though, they're expensive because of poor business decisions by the company.

 

TL:DR  BS.

[suicidalfranco]

the devs behind Hitman would like to have a word with them

[FloRolf]

"oh damn, that lame ass game, that looks and plays like we developed it in only 30mins didn't pay off, the PC/game industry must be dead!" 

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Scionyde said:

Thread Title: "AAA Single Player Games are too expensive to make"

 

 

More like: Single Player Games mean less microtransactions

[WereCat]

Well, GTA V was really expensive to make but they still profited out of it so I dont know what is your problem Quantum Break suitmans... maybe just make a game that is actually good so that people buy it?

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Well, GTA V was really expensive to make but they still profited out of it

Well yes they did with GTA V Story.

 

But greed got the better of them and then they created GTAO to milk their customers dry of money cos making a profit wasn't good enough.

[asus killer]

i finished Okami HD on the PC, amazing game BTW. Granted it's not a new game, but it still a port of a very old console game. Amazed that i did not find a single bug, had a single crash, did not lost a single save,.... I miss when they did not released broken crap and still complained.

 

https://overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/quantum_break_pc_performance_review/1

https://www.pcgamesn.com/quantum-break/quantum-break-steam-performance

 

so f* you 

[asus killer]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Well yes they did with GTA V Story.

 

But greed got the better of them and then they created GTAO to milk their customers dry of money cos making a profit wasn't good enough.

in that case you only spend more money if you want to. That is greed that i don't complain. GTA V story was very good, not amazing. I liked it. The work put into it must have been brutal, could have just made a sandbox and repeat some stupid side quests over and over, climb some towers, and a shity story. 

[LAwLz]

At the end of the day, the business is in control of the cost and content of their product.

Developing a game is both easier and cheaper now than it has ever been. It's just that game development companies choose to spend more money. They hire more developers than they used to. They hire more artists. They spend more on marketing. They are the ones choosing to do all those things.

 

The original Unreal game was created by 15 people. That was it. That includes the producers, designers, programmers, sound and visual artists. They did not use any of the convienence luxuries we have today either, like pre-made game engines. They did everything themselves.

Of course a game will be more expensive if you employ ~150 people instead of 15. That is your decision though.

I'm sure they would love to argue that the increase in people result in a better game, and I am not entirely convinced. It might be better in some regards but I wouldn't be surprised if "too many cooks" often creates problems too.

 

It's like with the LinusTechTips channel.

"We have all these ads in our videos because we need money to pay our employees".

The amount of videos (and games) haven't gone up from these video creators (game developers), but they have willingly increased the cost of production.

The only ones to blame for the increased costs are themselves. They are the only ones in control of their production costs.

[leadeater]

Here's an idea, stop spending lots of developer time and money on infrastructure to support unprofitable multiplayer elements that never pay themselves back. Games cost more money to develop now because everything just has to be open world sandbox with as much multiplayer aspects as possible, the two most resource intensive and problematic to code while integrating in to the story of the game that greatly impacts the mechanics of the game limiting what you can do.

 

If games are costing too much to make limit your scope, that is 100% guaranteed to reduce cost.

[Tech_Dreamer]

1 hour ago, Scionyde said:

Thread Title: "AAA Single Player Games are too expensive to make"

 

Actual Quote: "The reality is the traditional AAA single player experience is just really expensive to make."

 

Those two quotes imply pretty different things, you know. I don't see anything unreasonable or untrue in what Thomas Puha is actually saying.

[JupiteL]

It really doesn't matter how big of a game you're making, as long as it's good, you can sell millions of copies with less than half the cost of AAA games.

 

Proof: indie games

[Master Disaster]

Let's look at some evidence shall we...

 

SP Games everyone praised in 2017

Zelda BOTW

Uncharted The Lost Legacy

Nioh

Getting Over It

Mario & Rabbids

Metroid Samus Returns

Sonic Mania

Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice

Cuphead

Wolfenstein 2

Horizon Zero Dawn

Prey

Resident Evil 7

Nier Automata

Odyssey

Assassin's Creed Origins

 

MP Games everyone praised in 2017

PUBG

Xcom 2

 

Games everyone hated in 2017

SWBF2 - Lootboxes

NBA2k18 - Lootboxes

Shadow Of War - Lootboxes

Destiny 2 - Lootboxes

Need For Speed Payback - Lootboxes

Ghost Recon Wildlands - Repetitive & Boring

For Honor - Lootboxes

Mass Effect Andromeda - Broken AF

 

So tell me again devs how single player games aren't popular and don't make money.

 

The problem AAA publishers have is unrealistic expectations, they set arbitrary performance goals, usually months before the games even launch and then class the game as a failure if it doesn't meet said goals. Making a profit isn't enough these days, games have to make enough profit to match predictions.

 

Also anybody remember EA saying the BF2 fiasco wouldn't hurt them materially? Yeah EA basically admitted that they make enough profit out of their games to cover costs without Lootboxes.

 

You'd have to be a special kind of special to believe that making online focused games is somehow cheaper than making SP games, they prefer MP games cause they can nickel & dime players easier.

 

Fuck the gaming industry.

[WereCat]

53 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Well yes they did with GTA V Story.

 

But greed got the better of them and then they created GTAO to milk their customers dry of money cos making a profit wasn't good enough.

TBH, even when I used to play GTAO I forgot that it even existed...

[Primefoxer]

42 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

At the end of the day, the business is in control of the cost and content of their product.

Developing a game is both easier and cheaper now than it has ever been. It's just that game development companies choose to spend more money. They hire more developers than they used to. They hire more artists. They spend more on marketing. They are the ones choosing to do all those things.

 

The original Unreal game was created by 15 people. That was it. That includes the producers, designers, programmers, sound and visual artists. They did not use any of the convienence luxuries we have today either, like pre-made game engines. They did everything themselves.

Of course a game will be more expensive if you employ ~150 people instead of 15. That is your decision though.

I'm sure they would love to argue that the increase in people result in a better game, and I am not entirely convinced. It might be better in some regards but I wouldn't be surprised if "too many cooks" often creates problems too.

 

It's like with the LinusTechTips channel.

"We have all these ads in our videos because we need money to pay our employees".

The amount of videos (and games) haven't gone up from these video creators (game developers), but they have willingly increased the cost of production.

The only ones to blame for the increased costs are themselves. They are the only ones in control of their production costs.

Although I like the idea of small development teams and releasing great software, it just does not work that way in the gaming industry in my experience.

 

You can have cookie-cutter games that are made within a year by a single person and sell well, but they likely use assets and software from others and the codebase may not be the prettiest. When looking at games from 10 years ago and now the main difference is in my opinion the new techniques and expectations. We did not use to have PBR and now nearly everyone expects every game to have it as it is the now the de facto standard. Increase in techniques, more complicated gameplay and higher expectations forces an increase in manpower and cost.

 

Not everyone uses existing engines and wants to pay licensing fees. In addition some are not fit for the job and you will be forced to create your own, it is not as if Unity or Unreal Engine automatically fit your requirements. These engines may be versatile but can lack in certain areas that are important for specific genre's.

 

Either have 100 people working on a game and have it released within 2 years, or have 10 and wait a lifetime just to see your game change overtime because it has aged.

 

(All depends on the game and goal though) 

 

I just think your opinion is far too one-sided, though I agree that 'business-people' force the release of a game too early just to pump out more games for the extra cash.

[WereCat]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Let's look at some evidence shall we...

 

 

Divinity Original Sin 2 as well

[DarkBlade2117]

5 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Let's look at some evidence shall we...

 

SP Games everyone praised in 2017

Zelda BOTW

Uncharted The Lost Legacy

Nioh

Getting Over It

Mario & Rabbids

Metroid Samus Returns

Sonic Mania

Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice

Cuphead

Wolfenstein 2

Horizon Zero Dawn

Prey

Resident Evil 7

Nier Automata

Odyssey

Assassin's Creed Origins

 

MP Games everyone praised in 2017

PUBG

Xcom 2

 

Games everyone hated in 2017

SWBF2 - Lootboxes

NBA2k18 - Lootboxes

Shadow Of War - Lootboxes

Destiny 2 - Lootboxes

Need For Speed Payback - Lootboxes

Ghost Recon Wildlands - Repetitive & Boring

For Honor - Lootboxes

Mass Effect Andromeda - Broken AF

 

So tell me again devs how single player games aren't popular and don't make money.

 

The problem AAA publishers have is unrealistic expectations, they set arbitrary performance goals, usually months before the games even launch and then class the game as a failure if it doesn't meet said goals. Making a profit isn't enough these days, games have to make enough profit to match predictions.

 

Also anybody remember EA saying the BF2 fiasco wouldn't hurt them materially? Yeah EA basically admitted that they make enough profit out of their games to cover costs without Lootboxes.

 

You'd have to be a special kind of special to believe that making online focused games is somehow cheaper than making SP games, they prefer MP games cause they can nickel & dime players easier.

 

Fuck the gaming industry.

You don't see many multiplayer games being praised because most good ones are already out and don't require a sequel that squeezes $60 out of you ever year. Rocket League, CSGO, OW, LoL, OW, Dota, HOTS, StarCraft, PUBG, R6S ect are MP games that will be around for years. Meanwhile during the life span of some of these youve seen 2-3 SP games from the same franchise.