re: The less glamorous side of video game development

True but gamers also have to look out for themselves. If you spend $60 then you don't want a piece of shite you can't sell back. Self control and patience are not an option.

I'm careful on what I'll spend $60 on. It's rare that I do. I only did it for destiny because I played the beta and I got 35 hours out of it before I got tired of it.

I already said self control went out the window a while ago

van Gogh and Mozart probably worked more than 40 hours a week to make art

just sayin'

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It would be a shite storm if they tried to make new games $70.

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It would be and will be, and it won't help that it will be for the same quality of content.

I used to put tons of hours in but that shite got me nowhere. I was stressed and tired all the time and still watching managers relatives and shite get promoted so I said frick it. Stop accepting extra responsibilities and just go in and do my thing then leave whenever I wanna go home. Since I started doing that I got promoted...its a fricking weird place to work.

It would take so much adjustment for me to survive in the typical corporate world if I had to change jobs. Working from home, occasional visit to the office, flexible hours (Sometimes I start work at 10am, stop at 3pm, start again at 9pm and finish up at midnight). The tradeoff is that I'll get put on a huge project a couple times a year that will have me doing 60 hr weeks for a couple of weeks, along with 2 or 3 all-nighters towards the end. I actually enjoy those, though. Gives me purpose and a sense of accomplishment. Doing it all the time would get old quickly though.

I would probably benefit from a structured office environment. There are some days where I just don't even get dressed until I have to go pick up the kids from day care.

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k.

Glad I could amuse you?

But to answer your question(s) about figuring out how to be more efficient (any ideas, btw?), "they" are doing just that. But that efficiency is in the form of lower pay and longer hours. Games have never been cheaper, considering you'd be paying $50+ for an NES game, if not more, 25 years ago.

At the same time, it has never cost more to develop a well thought-out original game. More employees, more time, and a larger audience to please. Technology doesn't change the efficiency of writing/story development, voice acting, and bug testing. It all takes humans. The bigger the game, the more humans it takes. The problem is the market is not willing to scale up in what we pay for games in the same way as manpower has scaled up to meet demand. So, when it comes to the blockbusters, instead of paying $100 for Skyrim and $19.99 for the newest re-skin of [sports game], we pay $60 for both the former and the latter, and get far, far more of the latter.

So yep, it's getting efficient all right, and it's probably really, really shitty to work for a game developer and try to have a family life.

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Efficiency in a positive, meaningful direction. The idea is that games don't have to cost that much. The rising budget for a game is relative to the amount we focus on event games, big games, etc. The market split itself into large companies making large, massive games and small companies making indie games. There's little room in between, and that stinks for gamers.

Inflation has SNES games at $70 I believe.

I agree. But that's the thing, it DOESN'T have to cost more. Not every game has to be a blockbuster, that's the issue. Rather than trying to just make games, everything has to be "New big thing," everything is an event. If the industry adjusted away from everything having to be the "Best game ever," and just a really fun game, then there might be a change. I mean heck, when both Titanfall and Destiny were announced they were supposed to "Change games forever," Destiny itself was supposed to be a 10 year game...hype hype hype. Of course that makes budgets bloat. But maybe you're right if we did raise the price of games it would calm the buying process of the general gamer down.

Yet the world needs more programmers in actually useful fields. I'm sure any decent programmer could find a job outside of the industry, they just don't want to.

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The bigger the game, the more humans it takes. The problem is the market is not willing to scale up in what we pay for games in the same way as manpower has scaled up to meet demand. So, when it comes to the blockbusters, instead of paying $100 for Skyrim and $19.99 for the newest re-skin of [sports game], we pay $60 for both the former and the latter, and get far, far more of the latter.

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And if gamers stopped buying the latter, there would be no latter. As long as it works, companies will do it. Especially when the latter can sell truckloads of games. Madden here, FIFA in Europe. CoD everywhere.