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Why do some companies cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a popular video game?
A few weeks ago, the New York Times blamed it the never-ending quest to deliver more photo-realistic graphics– and suggested that the industry was beginning to see diminishing returns, leading to layoffs and studio closings.
However, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier defends this analysis “a little off the mark”. He doesn’t deny that budgets have skyrocketed ($20 million for Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2 in 2009, $220 million for Last of Us Part II in 2020) or that schedules play a role. but he said it really was. bigger teams are needed for longer – thanks to improved graphics, yes, but also increased coverage of games.
What’s more, he writes, “everyone” who has spent at least a few years in the industry has “his or her own horror story” about management decisions like “a feature that got cut because the CEO didn’t like a teenager” or teams of hundreds of employees. people “flick around in pre-production trying to figure out what a game’s ‘core’ will actually look like.”
So if game companies are really worried about ballooning budgets, Schreier says, they should focus their “introspection” on the mismanagement that can waste everyone’s work and time.
