Nintendo Development Kit - Only $2000!

[Venmoch]

PCs only really need a compiler as a "dev kit" and that's free(gcc.gnu.org)

I dunno if console dev-kits actually come with engines, probably just some example code of how to use the console's graphics API.

Console Dev kits don't tend to come with engines (At least the PS2 dev kit I'm using doesn't.)

However it does come with a large amount of pre-writted code for simple things such as getting information from the controller and graphics engine however.

 

[Cole]

Game engines? Just find the game engine of the game you are playing, find their website, and buy it. I'd imagine it can range from 100$-2000$. It all depends.
Hell, you could buy the Source engine.

Game engines can range between
Free to Over a million.
Like UE3 engine I believe that is costing a million to license...
Most engines for high end games I believe go for 250,000 - 1,000,000

 

[<RJMC>]

Game engines can range between
Free to Over a million.
Like UE3 engine I believe that is costing a million to license...
Most engines for high end games I believe go for 250,000 - 1,000,000

holy crap a million? didnt thought so much amount of money was int this industry

 

[Cole]

holy crap a million? didnt thought so much amount of money was int this industry

HL2 costed $40 Million to produce.
2 of the 5 years of HL2's production had to do with Source.
Hell isn't the games industry quite a bit bigger than the movie industry?

 

[AiM]

HL2 costed $40 Million to produce.
2 of the 5 years of HL2's production had to do with Source.
Hell isn't the games industry quite a bit bigger than the movie industry?

The games industry definately aren't as big as the movie industry, at least in terms of production cost. I mean King Kong cost what, an estimated $207 million for production cost ...

Now in terms of profit I have no idea, video game markup costs are utterly insane.

 

[StardogChampion]

I never understood why games cost so much to make other than time + wages. Licensing various engines/engine parts would be another big cost, but how $40 million in total?

 

[<RJMC>]

The games industry definately aren't as big as the movie industry, at least in terms of production cost. I mean King Kong cost what, an estimated $207 million for production cost ...

Now in terms of profit I have no idea, video game markup costs are utterly insane.

that another thing I am very curious too

how much money you can get in this industry?I hear not a lot but considering the cost maybe is more that we imaginate

 

[Cole]

Theres alot you can get in the gaming industry, or if you want we can broaden it to the whole Programming Industry and well *Points to Bill Gates*.

But when it comes to paying workers, tons of research into new tech, talking to professors & working with them.
For Example: The people at Valve didn't just "create" the facial animations. Tons of research and paying the people who specalize in facial animations costsmoney.
They had to license the Havok physics engine and then worked with Havok to massively improve it.
Theres alot of stuff that goes into the game, more than just learning how to use new technologies, but actually developing them.

 

[AiM]

that another thing I am very curious too

how much money you can get in this industry?I hear not a lot but considering the cost maybe is more that we imaginate

Well the recent trend of increasing videogame advertisements would suggest the industry is rapidly growing, hell when GTA:SA (or TH: American Wasteland) was released I saw that commercial every other commercial break.

The markup costs are utterly insane, I mean these development costs are fractions of movies yet your average game costs $50 ($60 now with "next-gen") while movie tickets costs $7.50. Combine that with the typical retarded audience that buys all your regurgitated videogames (Madden anyone?), I'd assume the major publishers / devs are swimming in cash.

Oh and you can't forget the MMO audience, let's see $50 + ~$15 dollars a month x subscribers ... these guys could wipe their ass with hundred doller bills if it remotely becomes successful. Congrats to the people at Blizzard for creating the world's largest money tree.

 

[Direwolf]

Well the recent trend of increasing videogame advertisements would suggest the industry is rapidly growing, hell when GTA:SA (or TH: American Wasteland) was released I saw that commercial every other commercial break.

The markup costs are utterly insane, I mean these development costs are fractions of movies yet your average game costs $50 ($60 now with "next-gen") while movie tickets costs $7.50. Combine that with the typical retarded audience that buys all your regurgitated videogames (Madden anyone?), I'd assume the major publishers / devs are swimming in cash.

Oh and you can't forget the MMO audience, let's see $50 + ~$15 dollars a month x subscribers ... these guys could wipe their ass with hundred doller bills if it remotely becomes successful. Congrats to the people at Blizzard for creating the world's largest money tree.

Yeah, but remember they hit you with the movie charge SEVERAL times. Not only ticket price, but also the price of a DVD and even merchendising. It's not outrageous to end up paying thirty to fourty dollars towards a movie you like.

 

[AiM]

The average brand-new DVD costs ~$20 right? Combine that with an average movie ticket, ($7.50) it's still under half the cost of a brand new 360 game.

I typically don't buy DVD's unless it's on dirt-cheap sale or I really enjoy them, which shelling $30 to own it brand new isn't that bad.

 

[Direwolf]

Yeah, but remember that movies have a much wider audience too. They can make up their cash in volume of sales when compared to games.

That and the fact that games are much, much more complicated to create, as many people pointed out. Most big games are like movies in which you not only have to create everything from scratch (similar to a Pixar film), but you have to make it real-time AND have the ability to include the player and adjust to his actions.

 

[AiM]

They do have a wider established audience, but as we all know the game industry also has a rapidly growing audience as well. Thing is, the price for games hasn't gone done, rather it's gone up despite the greatly increased volume of buyers.

Not every game has to be built from scratch, a lot of games nowadays license from others which cuts back on production time. The few games that build their own engines often use their game as a promo for the engine and don't spend enough time to make good game (exception of HL2).

Making it real-time and AI is what programmers are paid to do, similarly directors are paid to create movies. They too have to ensure the actors are reacting accordingly to the script and whatnot.

In terms of production cost, movies obliterate every videogame production cost. HL2 is one of (if not the) most expensive videogames ever made at $40 million, yet a sh*tty blockbuster flick like Doom took $60 million USD to make. Compare HL2 to the most expensive movie production of King Kong ($206 million) and you see how videogame production costs are chump change. Now just because it's a smaller audience doesn't quite justify the rising cost of $50-60 per videogame...not to mention games seem to be getting shorter and shorter nowadays. Just look at BLACK, a game that's estimated at 6 hours of gameplay but costs $50, that's just utterly ridiculous. Now for all I know it may be great 6 hours worth of fun but that's still horrendous value compared to other mediums.

Not to mention, the amount of money movies spend to promote the products also adds another element of cost. Companies can argue it takes time (even though the costs are low), fine I can take a reasonable markup cost, but that doesn't mean companies should commit highway robbery on my wallet.

 

[Direwolf]

Anyone remember the early days of the N64 era? You saw $70 games then too. It's just really a supply and demand thing, since people are willing to pay that at the moment for these games.

That said, even though they cost less to make, the people who make games don't make anything close to moviestar or director wages. Look up the numbers if you like, but most people just make a living creating games, they're not superstars. Besides the fact that it often takes longer to make a game than to make a movie, the returns you can expect to make on a game are much more modest than for a big film.

 

[OCybrManO]

They do have a wider established audience, but as we all know the game industry also has a rapidly growing audience as well. Thing is, the price for games hasn't gone done, rather it's gone up despite the greatly increased volume of buyers.

Believe it or not, back in the Atari days the big video games sold about the same number of copies as modern games like Grand Theft Auto... and were a lot cheaper to make. So, profits per game are much lower than they used to be. That being said, the poor little developers got shafted while the publishers made tons of money. For example, the programmer of Space Invaders (which pulled in over $100m for Atari) only got $11,000 for his work.

 

[Gray Fox]

It's true that movies have a bigger audience, but the part the gameing audiance is so small is because of the high cost of games. And the more the price rises the smaller the audiance, it's a viciouse cirlce.

It doesn't need to be, current consoles cost about the same as a good dvd player, so harware costs needn't be such a disadvantage. Maybe gaming would be as big as movies if it were cheaper, it's just that no one will try it. vcause if you price a game to cheap, a lot of people will think it's a B title, and this is a seriouse concern vor dev's and publishers, avrage joe really does think, wow that title csts so much it must be really badass high quality production.

Then again, it probably won't ever be as big as movies cause games require you to put much more in to them then movies, so most people probably won't have as much games as they will movies.

 

[AiM]

Halo 2 pulled in $125 million for it's first release date, compare that to Spiderman 2's opening of $40 million and it's apparent companies aren't raking in just peanuts. Granted, Spidey 2 pulled ahead overall but franchise games are pulling in ridiculous amounts of money thanks to it's ridiculous pricing.

I didn't get into video games until SNES, so I have don't really know much about Atari. Profits per game may be down but I think companies are compensating by selling more games in total.

If Sales figures points to anything, it shows a sharp increase in videogame popularity. From 1996 -> 2004, units sales have gone up by 150 million and resulting gross 7.3 billion (up from 3.7). Safe to say increased pricing isn't a deterrant for your average consumer.

I know computer programmers don't make anything close to directs (Peter Jackson pulled in a cool 20 million for King Kong) and I'm not ranting against them, it's the pricing I'm a bit peeved about.