Pete Hines from Bethesda was asked about the status of Project Zwei's development, in response he tweeted the following:
"Going very well. Everyone here who has seen it and played it is very excited about what Shinji and Tango are up to."
Video games -- particularly AAA video games -- have become too expensive to make. The intel from every fly on the wall in every investor's room is there is an increasing level of caution about spending hundreds of millions just to release a single video game. And you can't blame them. Many AAA game budgets mean that you can print hundreds of millions in revenue, and not even turn a profit. If you are an investor, quite frankly, there are many easier ways to make a buck. AAA games have always been expensive to make though, but when did we go from expensive, to too expensive? A decade ago, AAA games were still expensive to make, but fears of "sustainability" didn't keep every CEO up at night. Consumer expectations and demands no doubt play a role in this, but more and more games are also revealing obvious signs of resource mismanagement, evident by development teams and budgets spiraling out of control with sometimes nothing substantial to show for it.
It’s a question that I’ve pondered myself too. How are these developers spending this much money? Also, like the article stated, I cannot tell where it’s even going. Perfect example was used with Starfield and Spiderman 2.
They claim they have to increase prices due to development costs exploding. Okay? Well, I’m finding myself spending less and less money on games than before due to the quality actually going down. With a few recent exceptions games are getting worse.
I thought these newer consoles and game engines are easier-therefore-cheaper to make games than previous ones. What has happened? Was it over hiring after the pandemic, like other tech companies?
Costs quite a bit to maintain a team of 700+ employees. Which is what it takes to create something with state of the art fidelity and scope. Just imagine how many 3D artists you'd need to create the plethora of 3D objects in a AAA game. There's so much stuff and each asset takes time and effort.
That's atleast one of the things that didn't get easier. Also coding all the systems and creating all the character models with animations and everything. Animations alone is a huge thing because games are expected to be so detailed.
Back in the day a God of War type game was a 12 hour adventure with small levels, now it has to be this 40+ hours of stuff. Obviously it didn't have to be this way of AAA publishers hadn't convinced themselves that it's an arms race. Games probably didn't need to be this bloated and they probably didn't need to be cutting edge in fidelity.
I believe that it is due to this unsustainable rise in production costs that more and more companies are looking to AI tools to help ‘lower’ costs.
David Pierce, better known as Chesko in the Skyrim modding community, is now a Senior Designer at Bethesda Game Studios currently working on the upcoming TES 6.
Pete Hines is retiring from Bethesda Softworks after 24 years.
Im glad he leaving. Bethesda has been terrible under his leadership. Redfall, Starfield, Fallout76 and the list goes on an on. His leadership style is outdated. Hopefully, MS bring someone in that knows what they are doing.
I will give you Fallout 76, but Redfall and Starfield's blame needs to fall somewhat on the terrible Xbox publishing team. With all their resources and supposed smarts...they fungled it.
@Mika He’s the communications guy - you can’t blame him for the quality of the product.
Maybe they can go to their earlier purchases for replacements . Like Rare devs , Gear devs or 343, one of the very few studios they built up and man they are great.
That could work ...if MS knew what they were doing themselves ...
But let's be real. Xbox was in charge of redfall and Starfield. They just don't know what a good game looks like.
I interviewed at Bethesda once, and while there were some very smart mid level team members, the upper ranks (EP/VP/Studio Head) were a total boys' club. The Madmen series ego in that lunch was stiffling.
I interviewed at Bethesda once, and while there were some very smart mid level team members, the upper ranks (EP/VP/Studio Head) were a total boys' club. The Madmen series ego in that lunch was stifling.
Pete Hines was against locking out the majority of their console playerbase (ps gamers). Probably disgusted at the hypocrisy of white knight Phil assuring PS gamers that they can still play COD. Acquisition goes through, Hines goes out.
Goodbye Pete.
i wonder if he was asked to leave.
im pretty sure not everyone was on board with the acquisition.
Pretty much everyone outside of Todd has made snide comments against the acquisition but money talks
awesomeness!
I hope this game is a return of golden days for Survival horror for next gen.
finally some news about it iam so exciting and i miss old days feeling with resident evil . i hop this game destroy and suprise all crapcom fools staff . canot wait
Very excited for this.
Horror needs to make a comeback!
I've gone through an entire gen with a complete drought of the genre and it's killing me.