When all is said and done, it is quite possible that Rockstar will have spent roughly $105 million to develop its oft-delayed Max Payne 3. Worded differently, the game will have to sell around four million units just to make back the initial investment. I have one word to describe this: ridiculous.
This isn't exactly an unfamiliar scenario to Rockstar, though -- it mirrors the situation with Red Dead Redemption almost down to the letter. Thanks to hindsight, we now know that the RDR gamble paid off big time, but Rockstar is playing a dangerous game if it thinks it can continue to blow huge wads of cash on massive projects and expect to come out rosy every time. The first two Max Payne games sold a combined seven million copies, with the bulk of those sales allegedly being attributed to the first installment. That means the third entry has to far exceed the performance of either previous game in order to make bank.
Is this what AAA development has become? Crowding out all competition by inflating budgets, knowing that only the most affluent and / or most foolish will be able to match? Doesn't this make anyone else sick to their stomach?
Rockstar's Max Payne 3 Could Cost $105 Million to Develop, Require 4 Million Sold to Break Even [IndustryGamers]
Tony Ponce (aka megaStryke) is a culturally confused, Canadian-born Puerto Rican who grew up in Japan and South Florida ... yet can only speak English. He specializes in writing features and maintaining an immaculate goatee. Likes: Any and all things related to Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, 2D, PB&J sandwiches, applesauce, and candy corn.
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
58 comments | showing # 1 to 50
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
12:30 PM on 09.10.2011 | 
It isn't that expensive to bankroll something this huge when your profits are tenfold the expense.
I wouldn't worry about the industry growing stagnant or anything and competition being damaged, games with far smaller budgets can easily be more fun than their overblown competitors.
I'm so hype for this game. Love the crap out of the Max Payne series. Glad to see that Rockstar is going all out for this.
And if it fails it's their lost money and maybe they'll learn to stop making sequels to a game that didn't need one in the first place.
Wait, I'm a fucking idiot.
Maybe that's what would happen if they removed the 3 in Max Payne 3.
What the fuck am I on about? I need sleep.
I mean they put their name on the box and in the adverts for L.A. Noire and if they can get a faux point and click faux open world police sim to 3.5 mill they can do it for Max Payne.
Sorry.... MAX... PAAYNE!
This paragraph makes me sick to my stomach. Seriously, what is the point that you're trying to make here? Did the release of Red Dead Redemption "[crowd] out all competition," or was it just an exemplary, colossally-budgeted game that sold extremely well because a large amount of people enjoyed it. Honestly, do you think Max Payne 3's release will shut the doors of mom 'n pop videogame development studios? Should a five-star restaurant close down because the neighboring McDonald's can't compete with its quality? Really, I don't understand your sentiment at all.
Plenty of room for the AAA budgetfests AND the Limbos, guys. Just because Rockstar is making another video game equivalent of a Michael Bay movie doesn't mean Team Meat has to pack their shit and go work at Wendy's. Not sure why it's being insinuated that the two are mutually exclusive when they're clearly not.
Spending a lot of money on it won't kill off any other studios/harm the industry at all. If they make a high-quality AAA game, hooray. If not, wasted money.
Only people that might get hurt in this are Rockstar, in losing a chunk of money. Oh no capitalism.
You don't understand the sentiment, or can't understand the sentiment? The proof that this is how the industry has worked for at least as long as this generation is all around you. Do you think that the cost of development has risen so sharply the last half decade or so based entirely on inflation at large? Do you think that entire subgenres that defined gaming a decade ago went the way of the dodo because all the people who purchased those kinds of games in the past suddenly wanted to purchase big budget blockbusters exclusively?
The fact is that publishers inflated the cost of development themselves, trying to snatch up as many golden eggs for themselves as they could before they choked the goose to death. This did indeed crowd amazing kinds of games right out of the mainstream console market because publishers became dependent on the "go big or go home" development mentality, and could no longer afford to do otherwise.
It's not sentiment that can or cannot be agreed upon, it is downright fact. Anything without mainstream appeal is too risky in the modern gaming industry because of how inflated the cost of development has become.
You don't understand the sentiment, or can't understand the sentiment? The proof that this is how the industry has worked for at least as long as this generation is all around you. Do you think that the cost of development has risen so sharply the last half decade or so based entirely on inflation at large? Do you think that entire subgenres that defined gaming a decade ago went the way of the dodo because all the people who purchased those kinds of games in the past suddenly wanted to purchase big budget blockbusters exclusively?
The fact is that publishers inflated the cost of development themselves, trying to snatch up as many golden eggs for themselves as they could before they choked the goose to death. This did indeed crowd amazing kinds of games right out of the mainstream console market because publishers became dependent on the "go big or go home" development mentality, and could no longer afford to do otherwise.
It's not sentiment that can or cannot be agreed upon, it is downright fact. Anything without mainstream appeal is too risky in the modern gaming industry because of how inflated the cost of development has become.
i agree 100%
Whats wrong with them using their money? it's their problem, if they are doing that is because they are confident about their work, they think they will sell a lot, and I'm sure they will, I've never been disappointed by rockstar
RDR was a major success because it used a sorely underused section of history that's perfect for a grand adventure. Payne is just another shoot-em-up in slow-motion.
If it fails, lesson learned; but Tim's right: it won't cause anyone's budget to inflate to "match" it. There have been plenty of examples in the history of gaming that show great success with a whole lot smaller of a budget. It's a lesson Rockstar will learn this time around.
Stop it!
Sure, lets get into that list. Lets also get into the list of mid-range studios that did well in the past year and see which list is bigger. A couple of games that just came out this past Tuesday, Space Marine and Dead Island, surely fit into that category. Neither Relic nor Techland are up there with the Rockstars and Biowares of the world but both games have met with critical success and I have little doubt financial success will follow. The numbers aren't out yet but I'm willing to bet they both turn a profit, don't you think?
Both these games went head to head with Resistance 3 on launch day, which is a major AAA Sony exclusive. Then you have Dark Souls which launches on the same day as Rage. One mid-range title that gamers are very excited about, and one ultra-massive AAA title from one of the biggest developers in video game history. How much you wanna bet Dark Souls sells just fine?
Your straw man argument about developers closing isn't going to convince anyone. Dev studios have been closing for one reason or another as long as the industry has existed, far longer than games with the budget of a summer blockbuster have existed. Pointing out recent examples of a decades-old fact of life and expected it to prove some recent trend is just silly. The fact is, there's more than enough room for the Biowares, Techlands, and thatgamecompanys, and everything in between.
i can understand 100mln$ development budget for GTA4 since it was massive sandbox game with increadibly high production values, but Max Payne? 100+mln$ for linear third person shooter?
how come nintendo can make amazing games that can take sometimes 5+ years to make, with hours of unused material(like Super Mario Galaxy when throwaway levels made entirely new game) or scrap the game completely several times during development proces. and still those games cost so little - Super Mario Galaxy supposedly had to sell a little over 250k to break even.
Cherry picking a couple of examples doesn't do any good, especially the Red Faction one. Red Faction was a victim of the "me too, go big/go home" mentality, not the opposite. The game didn't have mainstream appeal the way THQ wanted, and the first one didn't sell to their expectations. In light of this, they caved to the popular publishing mentality of our time, and poured cash into taking what was a creative game, and making it into something they hoped would capture the mainstream. It failed miserably.
Do you think THQ would have gone back to the RF:G formula that sold better than RF:A with a third modern RF game? Of course not, the first one was too niche and the second failed in the market, possibly because it abandoned the "niche" market that bought the first one, and tried its hand on making it big in the mainstream. Why would they consider ~1.5 million games sold to be a failure in the first place? Because it wasn't enough to sustain the series the way it was. Why was that? Because the cost of development was too high.
You say it won't cause anyone to match budgets if Max Payne is a success, but you're missing the greater point. Max Payne is already matching the industry standard for the kind of game they want it to be: a blockbuster. The "match" you say wont happen because it is already happening, and has been happening for a long time, R* is just following suit.
NO REWARD
Of course, like the movie industry, it won't always pay off. But the temptation of selling big will be enough to ensure someone is always willing to give it another go.
"Max Payne is already matching the industry standard for the kind of game they want it to be: a blockbuster."
Well there's the problem, don't you think? If you work backwards like this, it seems likely to me that starting with your desired sales figures and extrapolating back from that is probably going to yield poor results.
That having been said, I see nothing wrong with deciding you want to make the video game equivalent of a Michael Bay movie and spending the necessary resources to make that happen. As I pointed out and as the video game market has proven over the last few years, there is a place for those games among (not instead of) the mid-range titles and the indie titles. You have some gamers that ONLY play those massive AAA releases, and that sucks. I feel sorry for those people, but thankfully there are plenty enough of those of us that just like games and don't get hung up on price tags to sustain the rest of the market as well.
I'm not disagreeing with your point that starting with the end result and extrapolating backwards is silly (though I think your attempt to dictate to Rockstar what their motivations were is a uncalled for), I just disagree that it's the end of the world as we know it. I feel fine.
It's sad for the middle games, but it was hopeless. And Rockstar is known making these kind of giant deals, and they always succeed(with the giant deals). if they're doing this i want a 100 million dollar Manhunt game
The difference, and it is an economically huge difference, is that the gaming market is far more consolidated than movies. If you want to make a Bay film that is all show and no go, then you can. For every movie like that, there are probably 10-20 films that don't go for that same thing. Because the market is so diverse, and is kept diverse by the studios themselves to a degree, the success of a huge blockbuster isn't going to reverberate too far too quickly. Movie studios know that attempting to sacrifice other markets for the currently popular one is a good way to paint yourself into a corner, and leave you insolvent. Diversity in a diverse market even though one segment is larger than the others is smart business; a safety net.
Gaming is far more consolidated than that. What is popular in gaming is what gaming itself has become, and I could write a 30 page thesis on why that is. In any case, game publishers have gone the other way, and have put all their eggs into a single basket. They poured money into a single segment until that segment became the only one that was consistently viable. Consistent being the word of the day here. This "AAA" mentality choked anything not considered "contemporary" (in the words of a large developer) to death. Of course there will be examples of success in the more niche markets, but consistence is of massive importance, and the games on the shelves prove quite easily which market segment has been the most consistent.
This is not to say the blame is with publishers alone. The closed minded meathead bubblegum gamers they have been targeting are as much a part of the problem. As long as gamers allow the consistent success of AAA style games at the price, and to the detriment of anything that doesn't conform to that mentality, then the one-upsmanship will continue. Again, specific examples aside, consistency is the driving factor.
But when most of what is promoted and created is AAA style games, you can't expect much. There are successful publishers who don't use the AAA style, but they are far smaller in number and size than the ones who do. They run on different business models than the big boys, which allows them to stay profitable with less volume. The big ones though? They run on the AAA mentality. If they opened up their business models to allow for more diversity, they would likely collapse. There is no reverse gear, no shrinking, and absolutely no sustaining. You either accelerate and grow infinitely, or you die.
And why? Because they drove their own costs up high trying to compete with each other in what is a very creatively small space, and created a market that is driven by what that money buys. They became dependent on that kind of business, and the market did too. Making a single game that conforms to this ideal (R* has always made wildly expensive games, long before there was a problem, and anyone who tried to compete in their space with less money did not match their success), is not a huge deal, it is more about what it represents.
It is not a cause, it's an effect. It isn't a radical shift, its part of the aftermath of that shift. Publishers and developers alike have spoken out against the AAA mentality because it is inflexible, and raises the bar for consistent success for everyone because of what it does to the market at large. Again, gamers who refuse to buy anything but CoD are as much a part of that problem, but they're doing what the industry tells them to do.
Are you seriously that naive? It has been this way for a long, LONG time. 5-10 years easily. Hell maybe longer, I'm being conservative though.
This might just be me being ignorant, but this number just doesn't seem likely. GTA and Red Dead were giant, giant games, and no doubt MP3 will impress the shit out of me when I buy it next March (hopefully), but I don't see it being such a large game. R* will pull the same marketing they did for RDR I'm sure, with interviews, guide videos, maybe even some kind of TV show like RDR had.
And frankly, they'll probably sell quite a lot, which is good.
I just don't see $105m being a realistic figure though.
There's so many counterexamples to your argument though. I mean, I do get where you're coming from and you may be right to a point in that a certain style tends to dominate the top of the sales charts but that doesn't mean there's no room for something else to make a respectable buck.
I'm not sure how many examples you'd like me to make to illustrate my point but how about Heavy Rain for starters. Say what you like about it but it WAS different (perhaps too different depending on who you ask0 and it DID sell well. The budget, according to a quick and dirty Google search, was 15 million - downright modest by AAA standards. It sold a million copies.
Then you have Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One coming up. I don't know what the budget is on a game like that but I think it's a safe bet that it's no $100M. It's certainly different (if perhaps borrowing a bit from New Super Mario Bros. Wii) and I'm personally beside myself with excitement for it.
Now I could sit here all day long listing similar examples but I think you get my point. There certainly IS an oversatuation of the Michael Bay-flavored shooter in the gaming market, but I think to suggest that they're choking out interesting and innovative games is hyperbole. Those games are still out there, and they're selling. The gaming industry is not without its problems but dammit, I'll argue all day long that there's never been a better time in history to be a gamer. I fucking LOVE my hobby.
Its just the way the business is and it kind of sucks in the way that that, this is the real reason why are we being limited in what we play these days. Companies are being priced out of the game market and there is just too much risk. It does suck.
I don't think it is hyperbole at all, it has already happened. It isn't a bold prediction, it is an observation. Like I said, you can cherry pick examples out of the bunch, but the kind of variety we saw in gaming up until this generation exponentially exceeds what we have seen since. On all fronts. In all genres. I could sit here and list off how many amazing games have failed because of their lack of mainstream appeal alone (Shadow of the Damned, and Child of Eden most recently). I promise you that list would be longer than yours many times over. And this isn't even taking into account the fact that those kinds of games aren't hardly being made as much as they were.
The market is more proof than anyone could ask for. If it were possible to make money on non-mainstream driven games consistently, there would be as much of those games as there was last generation. If it were possible, as it used to be before games became so expensive to make, then it would be happening. A few games here doesn't a point make when the market speaks for itself more loudly than either of us.
It is not that there won't be, or isn't room for creative games, or that people wont buy them. The people who spent x amount of years supporting the industry back when there wasn't this extreme push towards mainstream appeal still buy games, we haven't gone anywhere. The point is those people, in the same numbers that worked right up until this generation, can no longer sustain those games. The sales numbers that would have made you a success on the PS2 would leave you jobless on the PS3.
The gaming boom of this gen came on the backs of the mainstream. People who always bought games didn't suddenly spend twice as much in the span of a year, the market opened up to people who didn't care much about gaming outside of Madden and Grand Theft Auto.
The proof is in the pudding. Go to a Gamestop and look at the PS2 wall, then look at the PS3 wall. There is a reason why gaming revenue spiked when they gave up on 75% of what the PS2 wall had, and there is a reason why development costs rose at the exact same time as revenue did.
There is a reason why Activision can say that creativity is too risky because developing games is expensive, then spend 1/5th of their entire yearly advertising expenditures on a single game. A game they pay $40-50mil to make, and $100mil to advertise. There is a reason why they would close a good studio that failed at leat partly because they had far too little advertising, but stick 5 different studios on CoD.