Mega Publisher: Creativity is Outsourced, Cloud Gaming is Serious, and Consoles are Contracting

Kotaku recently brought in, an “anonymous insider from a very large publisher” to answer tons of our burning industry questions – questions that publishers are usually very shifty about answering, for obvious reasons. There’s a lot of good and bad things to hear from this anonymous source, but it’s definitely worth reading if you want a revealing perspective into gaming, from a publisher’s point of view.

[alexcosborn]

Interesting stuff. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes that we don't know about.

[vortis]

Yeah this was mind-blowing stuff (not really) but wow.

The stuff about the DLC and shipping stuff overseas...

I find it funny how he mentions they spend as little as $300k on games and up to the maximum budget of an AAA title...wtf is that? The average AAA low-ends at $10 million and middles out at about $25 million. So what's the top-end?

Rockstar spent $100 million on GTA 4 but that was because of their brand new RAGE Engine and they've reused it in every other game this gen, so technically that $100 million spanned the likes of EFLC, Red Ded, Max Payne 3 and GTA 5.

The pub purposefully avoided the question. I was curious what the actual budget expansion was and why it's going up for some things when time is being spent downgrading assets instead of upgrading stuff (i.e., AC3 on the Xbox 360 and PS3)

[HammadTheBeast]

It's Kotaku. I think it's fair to say that 90% of that was BS.

[RubyToTheMax]

I don't like Call of Duty at all. It's the same game with minor improvements everytime.

[DivineAssault]

Its a must for the future.. Home consoles will be obsolete eventually.. Nx gen needs to have upgradeable hardware like PCs, & start implementing the cloud gaming services to use on tablets & other portable devices as well.. I wonder what will be shown from Sony & MS come E3..

[violents]

I think cloud gaming is where they are trying to push everything, it makes sense.

They could sell you a cheaper box to hook up to any television you want and stream your games via a service and everyone wins. Cheap buy in cost for the consumer with a large library of digital content and the company wouldnt have to spend money on physical media, distribution and the likes. Could possibly push the cost of gaming down far enough to see it at the consumer level, unless gaming companies are too greedy and just leave everything at current pricepoints to make money even more.

[konnerbllb]

We as gamers wouldn't see any of that reduction. They would use it to up their profit margins.

[DeadlyFire]

Next generation has already been shown to you. Well for Sony and Microsoft. They will be expanding their game library onto EVERY platform via Cloud tech. Possibly could open up global stores on their networks with cloud tech running the background of it all.

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all put a heavy input into having a presence on mobile technology. So even Nintendo might have an unspoken Cloud tech partner out there.

Sony has Gaikai, Microsoft has Agawi. Nintendo has ????. Each platform will offer its exclusives just like they traditionally do. What this means for the consumer though equates to this. Wanna play Halo/Gears or say Planetside 2/KILLZONE, but your on the road. Grab your new mobile friendly controller and mobile device. Game on the go with the same game logged directly into PSN/XBL as you are gaming on the road as well. Yes its possible. This has big implications for say PSVita/Nintendo 3DS if they could get it to work with them. Owning same game and playing it seemlessly on your PC, Console, Portable, and Phone as you use the cloud service.

Next generation doesn't need upgradeable hardware. Why? Because their endgame is Cloud technology to keep it rolling on. Another reason is a hardware refresh is necessary at least 1 time every decade. So we will still see traditional console launches for awhile. Even if most turn to cloud based games. Disc trays will exist along side the cloud tech. I expect 2018-2022 we will see the generation after this new one.

[insertcoin]

I can't wait until consoles contract and there's an integrated system.

[sypher]

Competition breeds better games. The less options there is the worse off we will be.

He also mentioned it in the interview of why digital gaming prices don't go down. I always laugh at people who think 'oh wow i cant wait till everything goes digital games will cost a fraction of what they do now!'

A game gets released today, you can buy it online (amazon, ebay etc), brick and mortar stores be it gamestop, best buy and even digitally via Steam.

The competition between all those outlets affects the pricing. If a game is crap (think Homefront). What is it you start to see? (always happens in physical products first).
You start seeing people trading those games in, which in turn affects the price of new. So the price goes down to adjust to its quality.

This is because all games have a set price by Publishers on release be it $60 or £39.99 here in the UK. It's only in the weeks/months after release do you start to see the true value of the game reflected in its price. Some RPG's for example can even go above its RRP that's mainly because they print so few numbers knowing its a niche game. Supply and demand at work.

Now say Activision made a digital service. And the only way to buy Call Of Duty was through this service. They are able to set the price to whatever they want and keep it there indefinitely. Because it doesn't have to compete with anyone else for the same product. We are already seeing this happen with Origin, instead of there being competition between digital platforms. Publishers have all just decided to make their own, so you have to buy that Publishers games from its platform.

And hopefully this is why the physical outlets never go away, we need that competition.

P.S. sorry for the long rant :p

[amaguli]

Remember what happened the last time people quoted Kotaku's anonymous "source" : http://kotaku.com/5927645/r...

[vortis]

So what you're saying is, we've all been trolled by Kotaku?

Oh well, it's just another day in the whimsical fairyland of Video Game Journalism, where nothing is as it should be.

[Obnoxious_Informer]

I <3 this comment, so true.

[BDSE]

Its not like publishers ever get it wrong right?

I want physical not cloud.

[jujubee88]

It's not smart to sleep on Gaikai. :)

[Kratoscar2008]

"With games, you learn that what matters is not your intent, but the perception of your audience."

This is so true (But i dont buy Cashcom on disc DLC)

[iNFAMOUZ1]

screw cloud gaming, i like retail physical copies of the "material" im owning after shelling out my blood-sweat and tears "money".

[Stoppokingme]

"Kotaku recently brought in, an “anonymous insider from a very large publisher”

My B.S detector is off the charts.

The only thing i agree on is that CoD is killing off major brands, but you don't need to be a 'anonymous insider' to figure that out.

thankfully it's only a matter of time before The CoD bubble bursts, you can only flog a dead horse so many times before it decomposes.

[pompombrum]

Creativity probably is outsourced.. these days there is more creativity going into how to charge people for DLC than there is in the actual games.

[Firebird360]

Physical or I'm done gaming, this dlc download only cloud based stuff will come back to haunt us gamers.