Firehose Games Helping Laid Off BioShock Devs

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While we'll probably never know the real reason Irrational Games was closed, it is nice to see other developers stepping up and offering support to the folks that lost their jobs.

Most of the developers laid off are probably wondering “What am I going to do next?”, and some are considering going indie and releasing their own games. Meanwhile we’re in the process of setting up an indie game seed fund designed to support Boston area indie teams, though we’re not quite ready to start taking on applications for that yet as we’re still getting our ducks in a row.
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I'm still praying that this is the beginning of the end for AAA development.

I know it's a delusion, but a boy can dream.
 
mjz_5 said:
whats wrong with AAA titles
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Because the development budget is spent almost entirely on marketing while they re-skin the previous game in the series. It's more important to spend money to make your game "the thing to have" than it is to make a decent game, because some times great games don't sell well. Sequels always sell, even when they're terrible.

That's how Britney Spears sells 110 million albums and how Call of Duty continues to get re-released.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Because the development budget is spent almost entirely on marketing while they re-skin the previous game in the series. It's more important to spend money to make your game "the thing to have" than it is to make a decent game, because some times great games don't sell well. Sequels always sell, even when they're terrible.

That's how Britney Spears sells 110 million albums and how Call of Duty continues to get re-released.
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This. Or if it's not re-skinned, it's just mediocre crap thrown together in 12 weeks while they spend the next 1-2 years marketing and pretending they are making a quality game, release day and it's just same basic mechanics.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Because the development budget is spent almost entirely on marketing while they re-skin the previous game in the series. It's more important to spend money to make your game "the thing to have" than it is to make a decent game, because some times great games don't sell well. Sequels always sell, even when they're terrible.
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Bioshock Infinite supposedly spent $100 million on development and a $100 million on marketing.

It only sold 4 million copies, not enough to justify a $200 million dollar budget.
 
BladeVenom said:
Bioshock Infinite supposedly spent $100 million on development and a $100 million on marketing.

It only sold 4 million copies, not enough to justify a $200 million dollar budget.
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levine has said those numbers are not accurate ya know...
 
what i want to know.. how does a game cost 100 million to make..

lets say you pay programmers 100k a year. thats 1000 employees for a year..
 
mjz_5 said:
what i want to know.. how does a game cost 100 million to make..

lets say you pay programmers 100k a year. thats 1000 employees for a year..
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The Job Creators™ have to take their cut.

Twisted Kidney said:
I'm still praying that this is the beginning of the end for AAA development.

I know it's a delusion, but a boy can dream.
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mjz_5 said:
whats wrong with AAA titles?
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It's art. Throwing money at it doesn't necessarily make it better. I'm sure EA spent a lot of money on Simcity and they still managed to run it into the ground.

It's not so much 'AAA titles' that are the problem, they're a symptom of the problems with business model that creates them. Back in the 90's there were a lot of small developers who really put their heart and soul into their games. Publishing physical media costs money, and unfortunately many very good developers just didn't make it because they couldn't make enough money off of their niche audiences. What ended up happening was over time developers were eaten and consolidated by big publishers like EA. Those publishers are able to stay alive and profitable by milking their valuable IP, but they don't innovate the way the small studios did. You end up with a lot of sequels (often 'dumbed down' for broader appeal) and 'casual' games.

Fortunately, digital distribution seems to have brought costs down to the point that we're seeing lots of smaller developers pop up again. There are a lot of crappy low-budget indie games, but you also get gems like Minecraft, Mount and Blade, and Kerbal Space Program.
 
Glad they are helping them out. Sucks when people lose jobs like this.


When do they get to meet Spadowski? Hope they're thirsty!


 
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