Epic expects next-gen dev costs to double

GIB:Games for the next-generation consoles and PCs will come with suitably next-generation price tags. In a keynote address at the Montreal International Game Summit today, attended by GamesIndustry International, Epic Games chief technology officer Tim Sweeney said he expects Epic to be able to build next-gen titles for “only about double the cost” of games from the start of the current generation.

[Neonridr]

Let's see how eager developers are to want to work on the 720 or PS4 knowing that they may have to spend twice as much on costs.

[LOGICWINS]

Correct. Devs are in no rush. The COD franchise has proven that theres a stark majority of PS3/360 gamers that don't give a hoot about massive power increases. COD games have been running on the same engine since COD4 in 2007 and they still sell like McDonalds hotcakes.

[Npugz7]

Haha I'm eating them right now!

[LX-General-Kaos]

If dev costs double, prepare to see many studios go under in the coming years. Only the most popular will Survive. Good luck and good fight to all.

The industry will be put in a position where it will be increasingly difficult to take risc, and innovate games. It seems that only shooters, and sports will be safe from dark times. New IPs will be looked at as taking a massive leap of faith. I hope for the sake of the industry that prices remain similar to develop.

For some we might even see the price of retail games climb upward. Which could potentially prove to be devastating for developers, and the consumer. It has already been proven that people love to brag about tech in the console world, but are hard pressed to pay for it when available. Advanced tech comes at an advanced price.

Rated E For Everyone

[Anon1974]

Bang on. As costs go up, expect to see devs take fewer and fewer chances.

[zebramocha]

That's bs,cost is based of what a developer wants and what the engine can accomplish.

[LOGICWINS]

@kaos and darkride666- Spot on. I'm reverting back to portable gaming for the formidable future in 2-3 years. Dev costs are lower for portable games, so they're likely to take more chances to innovate.

[ShaunCameron]

@ darkride66

Developers will take chances. It's just that they'll most likely be restricted to established IP's. You know, teach an old dog new tricks?

[papashango]

They'd give up on consoles at least. There's plenty of money to be made on steam. I hope this happens

[LX-General-Kaos]

papashango

I have a gaming PC that I rarely use. I think its about time to give it another spin.

[fermcr]

Developers are already starting to make bullsh*t excuses to increase game prices.
If games next gen increase in price (probably be 100€), then I'm finished with consoles.

[turgore]

They don't have to. PC gaming looks incredible today and it doesn't cost more to produce a PC game than a console game.
Like it doesn't cost extra to use high res textures and run the game at 60fps.

[Eldyraen]

Yeah, I know they don't make but a fraction of their revenue from PC but somehow PC games are "usually" cheaper to buy and look better on top of it. Granted most PC games aren't on new generation engines either but the same sort of logic should apply.

[vortis]

@Eldyraen

Spot on.

But even if they're not on "new generation" engines, I'm looking at stuff like StarForge and DayZ and Mak and those games look better than most stuff on consoles and have innovative features and best of all, THEY'RE CHEAP!

If AAA devs want to throw double the money down the drain and raise prices and make everything extremely expensive, fine, do that...I'll just stick with REAL gaming on a PC where the games are fun, cheap, the multiplayer is free and mods allow for infinite replayability.

[DragonPrince]

Hope this isn't their way of saying more DLC, shorter campaign s etc...

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

lots of f2p console games mark my words..

[NYC_Gamer]

The much smaller studios might need to make use of digital only releases next gen

[iamnsuperman]

Well that would mean almost no new big ips and two big sides to gaming. The smaller download side and the big AAA games (this isn't a bad thing)

[tehpees3]

In that case developers that ignore Wii U can enjoy bankruptcy. Anyone being realistic knows this will have a terrible impact on consumers.

As I have said all along. A stop gap generation is what is best.

It benefits manufacturers for maximum profits.
It benefits consumers for prices of consoles, games and DLC.
It benefits developers who want to earn back money they lost due to the new engines they built several years ago.

Forget power. I don't want companies sinking just because a minority of customers want massive power increases.

[Nutsack]

Yup, they can port the current gen library to the WiiU for little monies. More old games like Batman and Mass Effect for WiiU, add some little tablet controller gameplay and easy money for the dev!

Not something a gamer would prefer...

[LX-General-Kaos]

You are taking the convo to a dark place. New gaming experiences can and will be made for the Nintendo Wii U entertainment system. Just as any other console release, you see ports because this is the launch window. There are already many unique titles announced, and have been shown to the public. That is your problem if you choose to ignore them in favor of negativity. Have a good day.

Rated E For Everyone

[WildStyles]

Something tells me a whole bunch of "please bring games to the WiiU" posts are about to flood in.

[Ben_Grimm]

Expect to see many of the same proven IP's used over and over again. Developers will definitely not take big chances on new IP's next gen.

I suggest maybe making a smaller new IP with some fundemental designs and put it out digitally. See how well it does then, if the title is succesful then put more money into for a full budget retail game.

just a thought

[vortis]

Right on...like Minecraft, lol, which cost peanuts to make and has a higher profit margin to operation cost ratio than every single game released this gen save for the recent Call of Duty games.

[Chucky2003]

something tells me that games will be more expensive

[Godmars290]

Goodbye next gen then...

The industry literally really doesn't understand that its pricing itself out of its own market does it?

[Yodagamer]

I guess it's good to see digital gaming rising this gen then, it might be the only way to find anything original/new next gen.

[BitbyDeath]

Epic better start making a new engine then cause their new one is nowhere near something that should cost double.

[vortis]

They just finished the Unreal Engine 4...wtf are they talking about engine costs? They already finished the UE4 and profits from Gears of War 3 was enough to pay for it. Heck, nothing is even running on UE4 or utilize its full feature set, same thing with CryEngine 3 and Luminous Engine...why would devs have to spend money on new engines when current gen consoles can't even use the engines that are already available on the market?

Sometimes I think devs like spreading bad thoughts just for the s**ts and giggles.

[NovusTerminus]

Instead of making these games look better and pushing graphics and power so much, the companies really need to shift focus on making games easier to... Make...

Animation, skinning, coding, and tweaking needs to be more fine turned and easier to get into, and master. That would make the games cost allot less, cause then if you can cut time frame down on making games, you are no longer paying 100 people for two years before ever seeing a profit from the game you are making.

Expect to see allot more cut and paste games if this is true.

[vortis]

Actually, middleware tools are already cheap and widely available.

Mixamo makes it so devs can purchase animations and rigging via microtransactions.

ZBrush makes it easy enough for anyone to craft and design HD models and props.

Bryce makes it convenient to procedurally generate environments on the fly.

Texturing is just a Photoshop brush away.

And IPI Soft makes it where you can perform detailed motion-capturing without a studio, using only two Kinect or PS EyeToys for full 3D mo-cap.

Xaitment also enables devs to design modular AI path routines and complex behavior systems for only a few hundred bucks.

The middleware tools have been available for a while and are extremely cheap. You could design a full fledged game with all the tools above for under $2,000. That's petty change for a pub and the tools are easily scalable for next-gen games. I don't know why devs insist on spreading misinformation about the costs of game design, though (regarding the tools and engine capabilities, anyway).

[BranWheatKillah]

There are no reasons for the costs to increase unless the programming languages have a dramatic change. More power in a machine does not mean increasing costs.

The only true cost to developing for a new console is the ability to create more than you could in the past.

[Neonridr]

yes but with larger game worlds and more advanced physics and AI comes more complex programming, more environment mapping, more modeling, lighting, etc, etc.

[Chrono]

They will spend more time doing the small details which will increase the development costs.

[Npugz7]

Several developers already said next gen will be cheaper because of the technology and tools they will have to create games will be much easier. So I wouldn't exactly base your opinion on this article.

[GameLord08]

They mean the current technology and tools at our dispense, hence why we need to avoid another extensive upgrade in consoles.

[vlonjati77]

I'll just say-As long as money is in your pocket you're the king you are the most powerful.The moment you give that money away dont cry about it.There is difference between spending the money and wasting it.pick and choose.personally I wouldnt buy games more than $60.I can afford it even 100.but i wont.The sheeep will always be sheep.

[KMCROC]

Be it now or say 3 years from now, thier would still be a cost or increase in delvelopment . they all will face like it or not.

[starchild]

I think costs will rise, but not as much as this comment from Epic implies. Better graphics and more interactive environments will require more work, but A LOT of that workload will be lessened by newer technologies and techniques.

Things aren't so bad. No reason for all the doom and gloom.

[josephayal]

This is Great, the more expensive the better

[Chrono]

I think they will sell the games for $70 or more.

[J86blum]

If this is true, I hope price for games don't go up in price but fear for not making their money maybe they won't DLC rape us. Leading to them including more in/on the game.

[ginsunuva]

Microtransactions here we come

[SITH]

Game prices ill go up and yes micro transactions. Better get darn near free games if they use heavy micro transactions. Works wonders for PC MMO games.

[Spenok]

My main question here, is when they first announced Unreal Engine 4. Didn't they say it would dramatically reduce development time AND cost? With how easy it will make developing games, you will be able to cut out certain people while making the game and so on. This just doesn't add up. It make's sense and all. But why would they say both reduced cost of development, AND increased. SMH.

[Hicken]

Seems to me they're just making excuses ahead of time for why they will be charging consumers more next gen.

I mean, for all the complaints of high development costs(notice it seems to only be from the big third party names), most of them are MUCH bigger than they were at the start of the gen, to say nothing of last gen.

They keep offering less and less content while charging more for it. Do they really expect people to believe this?

[Flatbattery]

Absolute horse sh*t, seems to me Epic games are laying the foundations for inflated pricing and claiming extra costs. I expect this from an energy company, not a software company. Unlike an energy company, it's much easier to do without software.

[Vip3r]

This kind of a good thing. UE3 is now synonymous with cheap bargin bin FPS games. Maybe then devs will make an effort in producing a game that won't be £9.99 the month after release.