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

[Master Disaster]

12 minutes ago, RagnarokDel said:

I'm playing it right now and apart from the terrible animations  (mostly seen in cutscenes) it works really well.

Seriously? The game EA totally abandoned? The game EA dropped the seasons pass and all DLC for? The game that might have been the last thing we ever see from Bioware?

 

MEA was absolutely panned for being one of the most broken game releases of all time.

[Yoinkerman]

Spend less money: problem solved

[ScratchCat]

24 minutes ago, RagnarokDel said:

That's like saying: Game development is easy when half the job is done for you.

There are prebuilt engines I.e cryengine, unity , unreal etc. 

If this large company then cannot afford to hire a couple of designers they would have never been able to create an AAA title in the first place. Sure the items and art are a substantial but the development of the two can be parallelised to an extent, as a Skyrim developer said "A lot of objects began their lives as buckets". 

[PlayStation 2]

Remedy has a point.

People will bitch about literally anything about a game.

Push the tech really far and make something that looks stunning but runs at 1280x720 at 30fps? REEEEEEEEEE

Push a really nicely done narrative but it isn't "perfect"? REEEEEEEEEE

 

Now, I'm not saying there isn't a time to complain, but for what it's worth, you can't bitch about literally everything in a game then act like the devs are at fault for responding like this. Quantum Break was very clearly built around certain hardware to the tee, and in the process of moving it to PC, it's not surprising that it's not going to be perfect outside of the way they intended you to play it.

[Derangel]

13 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Remedy has a point.

People will bitch about literally anything about a game.

Push the tech really far and make something that looks stunning but runs at 1280x720 at 30fps? REEEEEEEEEE

Push a really nicely done narrative but it isn't "perfect"? REEEEEEEEEE

 

Now, I'm not saying there isn't a time to complain, but for what it's worth, you can't bitch about literally everything in a game then act like the devs are at fault for responding like this. Quantum Break was very clearly built around certain hardware to the tee, and in the process of moving it to PC, it's not surprising that it's not going to be perfect outside of the way they intended you to play it.

It ran like ass on the hardware it was "built around" too. Beyond that, it just wasn't a very good game. They spent a shit ton of money on recognizable Hollywood actors and then did nothing with them, leaving them to languish in a rather middling story. The actual shooting mechanics were okay, nothing amazing. Nothing about the game really rose to any level beyond average.

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

Costs always go up.

No they don't. A lot of times, cost goes down. This is especially true in the technology branch.

 

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

Things get more complicated

Only if you choose to. There is nothing forcing developers to make more complicated games today than they did before.

 

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

people get paid more

Source? I mean, that might be true but if it is then I wouldn't be surprised because game developers used to be outcasts who did it from a passion, not as a 9 to 5 job.

I'm sure it is very hard to find proper statistics for this but let's just think of this logically. 20 years ago developers were pretty damn rare. If you go back 30 years then they were so rare you could basically count them on your fingers (at least when talking about game developers). How come salaries goes up if the supply of developers have increased by a ridiculous amount? Because the teams of people tasks with shitting out COD 29 has increased by an even more ridiculous amount.

At that point it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

As people are at a company longer they get paid more than when they started

So you're making the argument that there have been no new game studios, or new creators in the gaming industry in the last 20 or so years? Come on...

Your argument is true, people do tend to get higher salaries the longer they stay with a company, but that argument only applies to studios which have been around for a long time. It also doesn't explain away why studios nowadays feels the need to have teams which are 10 or 15 times larger than they used to, especially not when they end result is usually mediocre at best.

 

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

Increasing profits can also require spending more money.

Yes, and your point being? If their spending actually increased profits then they wouldn't complain about it. If they still complain then they should stop, because they have no right to do so.

"Baww we're only making 3 dollars for every dollar we spend. We want to make 3.1 dollars for every dollar spent!"

 

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

Developing new products costs lots of money. When talking about tech, producing the same technology costs less over time. Producing new technology costs more, until the process to do it and the parts needed get cheaper.

We're talking about games here, not processor manufacturing.

They are not Intel trying to break the laws of physics to get transistors down to the size of atoms.

 

3 hours ago, Derangel said:

R&D costs also go up over time as well, you spend more to develop a new product. In terms of game development, there is an exponential cost increase generation to generation. This has been true since the first game consoles.

Circular reasoning.

 

 

Look, the only things I see in your posts are a bunch of circular reasoning.

You don't need a team of 150 people to create a game. You don't need to make it complicated. You don't need to spend 40 hours modeling a single rock or whatever artists do these days. You don't need famous people making voices or appearances. All that is just fluff that is not essential for creating a good game. Not all games has to be as big and successful as COD or Battlefield either.

[jagdtigger]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

All that is just fluff that is not essential for creating a good game. Not all games has to be as big and successful as COD or Battlefield either.

To top it off you can be as successful as them without fancy graphics, Minecraft anyone?

[Bit_Guardian]

11 hours 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.

It's not just you who's unconvinced, and with good reason. There's mathematical proof in the expanded form of Amdahl's Law that bigger is only better up to a point. For Agile Software Development with the minimal ceremonies in a 9-5 5-day work week, the optimal number is around 26 (the proof for that specific number is not in here, but I'll see if I can find the article for it before I hop on my plane to the U.S. today).

 

 

[Techicolors]

37 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

I liked QB and was waiting for a sequel. At least for me, the only thing wrong with it is the short story. =/

i'd rather see another Alan Wake. or convince Rockstar to make another Max Payne 

[Misanthrope]

I don't disagree. I just think that you need to make them smarter not just better and better and better.

 

I.E. PUBG looks like well, fucking shit, at least compared to most fancy shooters. It's still far and away #1 because people want to play it, regardless of looks. If you have a good story to tell just grab a copy of whatever popular Engine that looks good and use it as if without putting extraordinary efforts into incredibly high quality assets, fancy new post-processing effects for that "Nvidia/AMD" badge of honor (hint: You're mostly their guinea pig at mostly your own expense and that of your game) and so on.

 

I know many don't see eye to eye with me on these topics but I feel that I am his target audience here being almost exclusively a single player games only guy nowadays. So think about it: If you can't look as good as Witcher 3 since it wouldn't be feasible nowadays, just look as good as Skyrim SE (Another hint: this is using 8 year old assets still) and guess what? If the gameplay and story was as good as Witcher 3 even if it looked as Dated as Skyrim does today, I'd not only buy that shit but bother most people I know to do likewise.

 

So you don't need to go down to indie levels of "Let's make another Baldur's Gate/Diablo II clone  Isometric classic game" but graphics even from 6 or 7 years ago are still acceptable if you have a decent story, good mechanics, etc.

[Clanscorpia]

7 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

People on here seem to think that video game companies would make a loss if they didn't do online bullshit.

 

The reality is that they made shit tons of money and could have started working on their next game after the amazing sales of GTA V.

 

They made loads of profit. That is not making a loss. 

Thats not their problem. If they can make way more money from doing online then thats an amazing buisness choice for them. More money is always better.

[Derangel]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

No they don't. A lot of times, cost goes down. This is especially true in the technology branch.

 

Only if you choose to. There is nothing forcing developers to make more complicated games today than they did before.

 

Source? I mean, that might be true but if it is then I wouldn't be surprised because game developers used to be outcasts who did it from a passion, not as a 9 to 5 job.

I'm sure it is very hard to find proper statistics for this but let's just think of this logically. 20 years ago developers were pretty damn rare. If you go back 30 years then they were so rare you could basically count them on your fingers (at least when talking about game developers). How come salaries goes up if the supply of developers have increased by a ridiculous amount? Because the teams of people tasks with shitting out COD 29 has increased by an even more ridiculous amount.

At that point it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

So you're making the argument that there have been no new game studios, or new creators in the gaming industry in the last 20 or so years? Come on...

Your argument is true, people do tend to get higher salaries the longer they stay with a company, but that argument only applies to studios which have been around for a long time. It also doesn't explain away why studios nowadays feels the need to have teams which are 10 or 15 times larger than they used to, especially not when they end result is usually mediocre at best.

 

Yes, and your point being? If their spending actually increased profits then they wouldn't complain about it. If they still complain then they should stop, because they have no right to do so.

"Baww we're only making 3 dollars for every dollar we spend. We want to make 3.1 dollars for every dollar spent!"

 

We're talking about games here, not processor manufacturing.

They are not Intel trying to break the laws of physics to get transistors down to the size of atoms.

 

Circular reasoning.

 

 

Look, the only things I see in your posts are a bunch of circular reasoning.

You don't need a team of 150 people to create a game. You don't need to make it complicated. You don't need to spend 40 hours modeling a single rock or whatever artists do these days. You don't need famous people making voices or appearances. All that is just fluff that is not essential for creating a good game. Not all games has to be as big and successful as COD or Battlefield either.

Depends on the business. Like I said, development costs rise every generation. Expectations go up, development kits cost more, etc.

 

Someone mentioned it in another replay but estimated cost for games is $10,000 per day per person. That changes depending on the country, of course, but its the number I've seen reported as well. The average developer pay in the US is over 80k per year (71k and 46k for Canada and Europe respectively) as of 2013. That probably hasn't changed too much in that time. Managers make over 100k and audio engineers are over 90k. http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/22/heres-how-much-money-game-developers-make

 

Because games are infinitely more complex to make these days. And, no not because "they chose to" because that is way the industry went and because it is what consumers want. Even back in the "cheaper" development days people wanted more advanced games. Do you think Doom would have had the same hype if it looked like Wolf3D? No. Doom forced people to upgrade their computers, it almost single-handedly created a market for gaming GPUs. How often do you hear people talk about those days and wishing we still had games coming out constantly that would push upgrades like we saw in those days? How often do people bitch about graphics? If you make a big game, there are certain expectations for it. Crysis sure as hell wouldn't have been hyped up to hell and back if it hadn't been marketed as the best looking game ever made, nothing else about the game actually holds up that well.

 

Actually, that's exactly what these companies think. Why do you think microtransactions and loot boxes exist? They have nothing to do with the cost of the game and everything to do with getting all the money possible.

 

And what does that have to do with what I said?

 

Reiterating a point in order to tie it back to the topic at hand is not circular reasoning.

 

A bunch? You pointed to one thing that wasn't even circular reasoning. Do try again.

No one is saying every game needs to be AAA. Big games exist for a reason, there is demand for them. The indie market also exists for smaller titles. The existence of one does not mean that the other does not need to exist. Remedy said AAA games cost a lot to make. This is true, it's simply a fact of that segment of the market. Remedy's problem is how they spent the money. Remedy could have managed their budget better and put the money into areas that would have benefited the game itself more. You're right, the big names and stuff aren't needed, I'm not even sure if they actually help game sales that much, but some game concepts do need AAA-level budgets.

[mynameisjuan]

53 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

To top it off you can be as successful as them without fancy graphics, Minecraft anyone?

This is about AAA studios though. Imagine if Blizzards next FPS has minecraft graphics? The world would lose its shit. 

 

On a side note I am all about simple graphics.

[jagdtigger]

Just now, mynameisjuan said:

This is about AAA studios though. Imagine if Blizzards next FPS has minecraft graphics? The world would lose its shit. 

 

On a side note I am all about simple graphics.

That was just an example... BTW graphics isnt everything, some old games with  minecraft level graphics are more entertaining than most of todays so called AAA games...

[Teddy07]

shitty games developer complains about the difficulty of making games. You got to be shitting me!

[Misanthrope]

14 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

Thats not their problem. If they can make way more money from doing online then thats an amazing buisness choice for them. More money is always better.

If more money was always better most companies just wouldn't exists and they'd invest on real estate or something like that instead.

The point is that just because online games can make a lot of money it doesn't means anybody can just make a multi million player online game. Only very few companies get there and most of the companies attempting to make money online don't just want to catch some of the rainfall but actually want the lightning to strike again and be the ones who make it WoW big. That's just not going to happen for 99% of online games that either need to be happy with a more measured success or get a lot better and luckier.

 

7 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

This is about AAA studios though. Imagine if Blizzards next FPS has minecraft graphics? The world would lose its shit. 

 

On a side note I am all about simple graphics.

 

Well maybe they outta at least consider it because of this:

 

[mrchow19910319]

I am okay with games that have micro transaction in it. 

As long as it does not ruin the game's balance. 

GTA V online is an example. 

You gonna let the company make their money. 

 

Also I think it is kind of expensive to make a decent AAA title. 

 

What I am not okay with is gaming companies like EA basically ruining every franchise they touch,. I know it is a business decision, but they just gotta ruin everything don't they? 

[themctipers]

13 hours 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.

im here playing it again for the 4th time

 

1 on the xbox

1 on the pc at low

one on the pc at high 1080p

one on the pc at high/very high medium/high at 4k

 

every time it's a huge difference and i still praise it for looking... good enough

 

now if only it had textures as sexy as shadow of mordor (and a like 350gb textures lmao)

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Bit_Guardian said:

It's not just you who's unconvinced, and with good reason. There's mathematical proof in the expanded form of Amdahl's Law that bigger is only better up to a point. For Agile Software Development with the minimal ceremonies in a 9-5 5-day work week, the optimal number is around 26 (the proof for that specific number is not in here, but I'll see if I can find the article for it before I hop on my plane to the U.S. today).

Thanks for the video. It seems interesting.

When I wrote that post I was actually thinking of Brooks's law which states "adding human resources to a late software project makes it later", but I couldn't remember it exactly so I just said "too many cooks".

 

33 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Depends on the business. Like I said, development costs rise every generation. Expectations go up, development kits cost more, etc.

Source on development cost rising every generation?

It most certainly hasn't on PC, and I am fairly sure all Xbox Ones can be turned into a development kit (you would need Visual Studio though, but you've always needed that).

 

34 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Someone mentioned it in another replay but estimated cost for games is $10,000 per day per person. That changes depending on the country, of course, but its the number I've seen reported as well. The average developer pay in the US is over 80k per year (71k and 46k for Canada and Europe respectively) as of 2013. That probably hasn't changed too much in that time. Managers make over 100k and audio engineers are over 90k. http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/22/heres-how-much-money-game-developers-make

Just more reasons to cut the team sizes down, instead of having hundreds of people working on a single game.

Thanks for providing me with more ammunition?

 

36 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Because games are infinitely more complex to make these days.

Because developers choose to.

 

36 minutes ago, Derangel said:

And, no not because "they chose to" because that is way the industry went and because it is what consumers want.

Yes, because they choose to. They choose to "go along with the industry standard" and they are the ones who decide to cater to what they think people want.

 

Yes the industry went that way because it is following a terrible model which just results in more and more overhead which they try to fix by adding even more overhead.

Throwing more people at a problem is usually not a good idea, but that's what a lot of companies like to do.

 

Do you really think the average consumer gives two shits how many people worked on a game? I certainly don't, as long as the game is good.

More people does not automatically make a game better, and I think it's about time you understand that. You can not throw more and more people at some projects and just think it becomes better.

I have countless examples of small(er) development teams making fantastic games which are either universally praised or very successful. Again, you do not need a massive development team, and you most certainly isn't forced to have one.

Up until very recently, only ~40 people had been working on PUBG (it's more now because of things like a separate division making the Xbone version).

 

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

How often do you hear people talk about those days and wishing we still had games coming out constantly that would push upgrades like we saw in those days?

Not often. If anything, I hear people complain that games runs like shit despite not looking all that great very often.

 

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

How often do people bitch about graphics?

Here is the thing, if the game is bad then people will bitch about graphics. If the game is good then people can accept bad graphics.

It's the same as with movies these days. If the overall movie is good then it doesn't matter that some effects might not look that good. It's when the game (or movie) is bad that people start noticing and complaining about things like bad graphics.

PUBG looks bad. It just flat out does. It looks like something that could have been made 10 years ago. But people play it anyway, and I very rarely hear "it's bad because it looks bad". People who complain have other issues. I think graphics actually comes really far down the list of priorities for most people.

 

 

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

No one is saying every game needs to be AAA. Big games exist for a reason, there is demand for them. The indie market also exists for smaller titles. The existence of one does not mean that the other does not need to exist. Remedy said AAA games cost a lot to make. This is true, it's simply a fact of that segment of the market. Remedy's problem is how they spent the money. Remedy could have managed their budget better and put the money into areas that would have benefited the game itself more. You're right, the big names and stuff aren't needed, I'm not even sure if they actually help game sales that much, but some game concepts do need AAA-level budgets.

What do you define as a AAA game? If you define it as a game with a big budget then, duhh... Of course something you have defined as "game which costs a lot to make" must cost a lot to make. You have literally defined it as such.

My entire argument is that they do not have to spend that much money if they don't want to. If your definition of AAA must include a big budget then what I am saying is "you don't have to make AAA games then. Make smaller ones". I am also saying that there is probably a lot of room for cutting down on the number of employees. Every single person you add to a team will increase your overhead.

Chris Sawyer wrote RollerCoaster Tycoon in assembly all by himself. Do you think it would have taken a longer or shorter time if he had a team of 150 people doing it? My guess is it would have taken a longer time, and been far more expensive.

[Bit_Guardian]

@LAwLz since I can't be arsed to decompose your text wall on my cell phone...

 

Brooks' Law is another good rule of thumb for project managers. Adding know-nothings (about business requirements specifically, not experts on security or an exotic one-time requirement) to a late project incurs ramp up overhead and will make a late project later unless it's big enough and early enough to have the effects offset down the line.

 

But yeah that talk is something I give to every new project manager I meet. It is a how-to on understanding why IT takes as long as it does and why management needs to get out of its own way more often than not.

[apm]

15 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

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

atleast half of these where just shit games. destiny had no content and the grind was shit. for honor was/is broken af. need for speed had 50% shit story and other 50% lootbox based progression.

[Trik'Stari]

OP said it and I'll reiterate it here.

 

"AAA games are too expensive to make" = corporate demon speak for "AAA games aren't profitable enough to satisfy our shareholders and board of directors. Thusly we will be moving to a model where we put as little effort in as possible, market the game as hard as we can towards young people who don't no better, and bilk them for as much cash as possible"

 

What else is there to say really?

 

20 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Making a profit isn't enough these days.

This seems to be a problem with most larger corporations. It's no longer about making a good product at a competitive price, it's no longer about having good customer relationships, it's no longer about being a good business.

 

It's about marketing your ass off and bilking as many people as possible while putting in as little effort to the product as possible. It's about a psychopathic, almost sociopathic level of greed that would seem to lead to the point that one day CEO's will be mugging people in the streets over pennies.

 

Of course, that last bit is meant to be hyperbole but with the extreme level companies seem to go to these days.... is it really that unrealistic?

 

I'm all for capitalism, but this is not that.

[Master Disaster]

4 hours ago, apm said:

atleast half of these where just shit games. destiny had no content and the grind was shit. for honor was/is broken af. need for speed had 50% shit story and other 50% lootbox based progression.

And that's the point I was making. Make a SP focused story driven game and chances are it will be decent and do fairly well, assuming your studio has the talent.

 

Make an MP focused game as a service with Lootboxes and MTXs and chances are it will suck and will flop.

[Master Disaster]

9 hours ago, Clanscorpia said:

Thats not their problem. If they can make way more money from doing online then thats an amazing buisness choice for them. More money is always better.

Which is fine and their choice but don't then stand there and tell us their games aren't making money when in fact they are and it's because of their poor business choices that they didn't make the profit they projected.

 

Allow me to quote Jim Sterling on this subject...

Quote

Making money isn't enough for the AAA publishers anymore, they're not happy unless they've made all of the money...

 

and even then they probably still wouldn't be happy either.

Says it better than I ever could.

[Derangel]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Source on development cost rising every generation?

It most certainly hasn't on PC, and I am fairly sure all Xbox Ones can be turned into a development kit (you would need Visual Studio though, but you've always needed that).

 

Just more reasons to cut the team sizes down, instead of having hundreds of people working on a single game.

Thanks for providing me with more ammunition?

 

Because developers choose to.

 

Yes, because they choose to. They choose to "go along with the industry standard" and they are the ones who decide to cater to what they think people want.

 

Yes the industry went that way because it is following a terrible model which just results in more and more overhead which they try to fix by adding even more overhead.

Throwing more people at a problem is usually not a good idea, but that's what a lot of companies like to do.

 

Do you really think the average consumer gives two shits how many people worked on a game? I certainly don't, as long as the game is good.

More people does not automatically make a game better, and I think it's about time you understand that. You can not throw more and more people at some projects and just think it becomes better.

I have countless examples of small(er) development teams making fantastic games which are either universally praised or very successful. Again, you do not need a massive development team, and you most certainly isn't forced to have one.

Up until very recently, only ~40 people had been working on PUBG (it's more now because of things like a separate division making the Xbone version).

 

Not often. If anything, I hear people complain that games runs like shit despite not looking all that great very often.

 

Here is the thing, if the game is bad then people will bitch about graphics. If the game is good then people can accept bad graphics.

It's the same as with movies these days. If the overall movie is good then it doesn't matter that some effects might not look that good. It's when the game (or movie) is bad that people start noticing and complaining about things like bad graphics.

PUBG looks bad. It just flat out does. It looks like something that could have been made 10 years ago. But people play it anyway, and I very rarely hear "it's bad because it looks bad". People who complain have other issues. I think graphics actually comes really far down the list of priorities for most people.

 

 

What do you define as a AAA game? If you define it as a game with a big budget then, duhh... Of course something you have defined as "game which costs a lot to make" must cost a lot to make. You have literally defined it as such.

My entire argument is that they do not have to spend that much money if they don't want to. If your definition of AAA must include a big budget then what I am saying is "you don't have to make AAA games then. Make smaller ones". I am also saying that there is probably a lot of room for cutting down on the number of employees. Every single person you add to a team will increase your overhead.

Chris Sawyer wrote RollerCoaster Tycoon in assembly all by himself. Do you think it would have taken a longer or shorter time if he had a team of 150 people doing it? My guess is it would have taken a longer time, and been far more expensive.

Going to try and compress everything to a few points to make both of our lives easier.

 

Development cost: I don't have a link handy. The changes in development cost over-time was something I read over a decade ago. Might have been a gameindustry.biz article, but hell if I can remember. I don't even remember exact numbers. So to break it down in vague terms: As game technology advances and gets more complicated it takes more time and better trained people to do anything. This means it costs more money as you need to employ more people and pay them more because they're more skilled. More skill= better pay as they can demand more. On top of that the better the graphics the more effort is needed to design things. There are some ways around thing. Tech like speedtree exists and there are vast asset libraries developers can access and share for some things, but any unique models take a lot of time. Increases in graphics fidelity also demands increases in animation quality. This is even true in the indie space. Even when smaller games a lot of times you need people that have specific skills to get specific things done. Studios big and small sometimes make use of outside contractors to handle things that they're not capable of doing in-house.

 

One article I did find about game costs is a bit old, but still proves me point. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3078404/ns/technology_and_science-games/t/top-video-games-may-soon-cost-more/ Between the PS1 and the PS2 development cost had a 5-7x increase. If that number held true it would mean the average PS3/360 game would cost $25 to $49 million. Now, I doubt that held steady. I believe around the beginning of this console generation I read that average big budget game cost was around $50-60 million, including marketing costs. Still expensive, but not the same exponential increase. I recall reading that the small titles DoubleFine did for the 360 (Costume Quest and so on) were about a million each. A lot cheaper, but also a great example of how even smaller titles can be expensive.

 

There is an argument to be made about dev team bloat, but its not always a case of "more people means more time". More people can mean less time. There is a balance. Let's say that a developer needs a section of the game done in a certain time frame. In order to get it done in that time frame it will call for x number of people in order to do it optimally. Too few people means that the people there will have to work longer hours to get it done or it means the section will miss its deadline, delaying other aspects of the project. More than x number might get the section done faster, depending on if the group can work well together and the people above x number are the right people in the right places. Putting less people on the project and extending the timeline is not always an option. Video games are a business and businesses want to make money. Delays cost money, it means you're spending more money over a longer period without getting anything in return. Any game could be made with a smaller team, but it could very easily end up costing more in the long run and taking infinitely longer to get done. If a 50 person team can finish in a few years what would a 10 person team 5-6-7 times as long then you might end up saving money by hiring the bigger team, not to mention it will allow you to start making money faster and move on to your next project. It doesn't always work out that way, some games are better done with smaller teams and massive teams serve no purpose.

 

Roller Coaster Tycoon also doesn't call for that kind of team. RCT isn't Mass Effect. Something the scope of ME really isn't as feasible with a small team. Another example would be GTAV. Something of that scope simply is never going to happen with a small team. They could "chose" to make smaller games, but they sure as hell wouldn't be pulling in several hundred million dollars per year with a smaller game, nor would it have become one of the best selling games of all time. Tomb Raider 2013 is what I'd consider the best, recent, example of what your arguing, development bloat. There is no reason that game should have cost over $100m to make. SquareEnix was stupid to put that kind of money into that game. AAA-level budget, sure, but maybe 2/3rds of what they spent.

 

There is no one-size fits all answer here. Some games are better served with those massive teams. The concepts and goals of the people involved are not compatible with small teams. The opposite is also true. Those big games also mean a bigger potential profit. Not every indie game can be Minecraft or PUBG (though PUBG might not qualify as indie depending on your personal definition of the term). Until recently, there hasn't been a lot of room in the market for mid-level games. Rising costs pushed publishers away from AA-level game development in order to focus on AAA games, where they can make more money and it wasn't until the last 4-5 years that we saw a lot of studios start to break away from the old publisher-centric mindset of the industry. Games like Hellblade are providing a great case for that level of game returning. Hellblade's 20 person team, and how quickly they turned a profit, really proves that there is room to invest in games that sit between indie and AAA budgets.