Is the state of gaming really as bad as people claim?

[stray]

I was just reading that TW3 was made with $81 million.

Not so bad for a game of that scale. I hope they dump their profits back into the company... they're about the only hope for bigger RPGs anymore.

 

[Anthony Davis]

GTA5 was about 250 million to make - and they've made multiple BILLIONS.

They've released the game three times and made billions each time it was released.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Haraldur

If they game cost 4.5 million to make, and you sold it for 29.99 on Steam... which might be high... let's just say 19.99.

Steam always takes 30%... always.
GoG takes almost as much, but I don't remember the exact number.

To break even, you would need to sell ~300k units.


So yeah, hard to do.


To answer your other question about the difficulties of 3D rendering - the list is long. I also skipped over things like.... PHYSICS! Those systems are also expensive.

With 3D rendering you need:

skilled 3D modelers
skilled animation riggers
skilled animators
skilled tech artists
3D level and environment artists
The development time for 3D assets, in addition to being more complicated, also takes more time.

You will also need people to write shaders and various lighting systems, or else those fancy 3D characters will look like flat garbage.
On the programming side, you need 3D engine guys. The more you can afford, the better.
Camera programmers, insert witty Obsidian Joke here.
Gameplayer programmers who are now making 3D gameplay systems versus 2D gameplay systems. For example, creating a system that allows a character to shoot an arrow in 2D is far easier than shooting one in 3D.

Your pathing and LOS systems are also more complicated in 3D than they would be in 2D.

These are broad strokes of course - and I'm sure I've missed plenty - and it can be much, much worse.


Open a game like GTA5, Skyrim, or something like that and just compare the development positions with Fallout. Don't bother with the marketing and production positions, don't even bother with design - just look at the artists and programmers.

3D is multiple magnitudes harder to do than 2D.



Though with Unity and Unreal, it's never been easier to do with a smaller team!

 

[Archibald]

So next obvious question is... do we need 3D in our games? For example many strategy games made a jump to 3D, yet its hard to notice anything beneficial that 3D does for that genre. Is 3D just to attract casual people?

 

[stray]

So next obvious question is... do we need 3D in our games? For example many strategy games made a jump to 3D, yet its hard to notice anything beneficial that 3D does for that genre. Is 3D just to attract casual people?

I enjoyed strat games more in the past, but that was mostly because they were turn based. You could still do it in 3D, and I'd still like it... but few make games like this.

 

[Archibald]

You could, but if 3D is one of the main reasons of increasing costs... Would you prefer simpler game with 3D graphics or deeper game with 2D graphics?

 

[stray]

You could, but if 3D is one of the main reasons of increasing costs... Would you prefer simpler game with 3D graphics or deeper game with 2D graphics?

The latter, of course.

However, I do think 3D brings something new when it comes to surveying a battle in turn based RPGs.

 

[laclongquan]

Didnt the Japanese has many 3D primitive games in the old days?

 

[Azrael the cat]

You could, but if 3D is one of the main reasons of increasing costs... Would you prefer simpler game with 3D graphics or deeper game with 2D graphics?

Trouble is, you also need to factor in that there are types of depth that are only available (without sinking mammoth development hours into it) in 3D. E.g. destructible environments, Z-axis line-of-sight (or any broad incorporation of the z-axis into the base gameplay without doing a lot of work to fake it, little of which is transferrable outside that particular bit), superior cover systems, etc.

But...does your game use these features? If not, then you're not really getting any of the benefits of 3D, other than perhaps the easier re-use of assets and not having to have folk that can produce the truly stunning IE background artwork.

Really, I don't think it's a case of '3D = expensive, pretty and less depth' - it should be case by case, with a hard examination of whether you want mechanics for which 3D would benefit, and whether your artists can produce the kind of beautiful 2D digital paintings that allow good 2D to shine.

 

[CryptRat]

One sure thing is that now that I can play Heroine's quest for free or Paper Sorcerer/Dead man's switch for 2 bucks, I definitely don't regret the time when I had to beg my parents to put 50 bucks for Eye of the beholder or Legend Of Fearghail.
About intrinsic quality of the games, well, it probably depends on the genre, regarding point&click it's rather poor (Daedalic and nothing else?), regarding plateformers it's good, 2014 was great for RPGs but after such a wasteland it's early to affirm it's something else than a coincidence.

 

[zeitgeist]

To break even, you would need to sell ~300k units.

Surely you mean zero units, since the entire budget was already provided for free via Kickstarter.

 

[Naveen]

Thief has been mentioned a few times, so I'll post this I just discovered.




Also, bear conversation.

"You don't know what you missed. They just don't make bears like they used to."

 

[Haraldur]

Anthony Davis

Thanks for that. Would you, then, agree that 2D vector graphics would be significantly easier* while preserving some advantages, like arbitrary screen resolution and aspect ratio?

*Difficulties compared to 2D raster graphics (I think): somewhat more complex programming (and dependencies, if using OpenGL or OpenVG), art creation slower (requiring more precision and work for each node/vertex, though still faster than 3D) and lack of familiarity(?).

 

[stray]

Didnt the Japanese has many 3D primitive games in the old days?

Not sure what you mean by old days.. Unless you consider the mid/late 90s. Finaly Fantasy and Nintendo stuff were 3d then.

 

[Archibald]

Trouble is, you also need to factor in that there are types of depth that are only available (without sinking mammoth development hours into it) in 3D. E.g. destructible environments, Z-axis line-of-sight (or any broad incorporation of the z-axis into the base gameplay without doing a lot of work to fake it, little of which is transferrable outside that particular bit), superior cover systems, etc.

But...does your game use these features? If not, then you're not really getting any of the benefits of 3D, other than perhaps the easier re-use of assets and not having to have folk that can produce the truly stunning IE background artwork.

Really, I don't think it's a case of '3D = expensive, pretty and less depth' - it should be case by case, with a hard examination of whether you want mechanics for which 3D would benefit, and whether your artists can produce the kind of beautiful 2D digital paintings that allow good 2D to shine.

I was specifically talking about strategy games. From memory I don't really remember strategy games doing anything worthwhile with stuff you mentioned.

 

[Obviousplant]

Didnt the Japanese has many 3D primitive games in the old days?

Which time period are you reffering to? The first early 80s polygon arcade games I know of were made by Atari and other Western developers. There were some early 3D games on Japanese computers (Geograph seal and mech simulators on Sharp X68000), but I have seen more rudimentary late 80s&very early 90s 3D games on Atari St and Amiga.

 

[Rossy]

I was specifically talking about strategy games. From memory I don't really remember strategy games doing anything worthwhile with stuff you mentioned.

Silent Storm had pretty good destructible Environments. I don't know if that tactical game is strategic enough to count for you, but it really benefited from the 3D engine in that respect.

 

[zlocish]

So next obvious question is... do we need 3D in our games? For example many strategy games made a jump to 3D, yet its hard to notice anything beneficial that 3D does for that genre. Is 3D just to attract casual people?

The best example would be Europa Universalis series. For EU3 they created a new 3D engine called Clausewitz. The 3D in this game looked so ugly that many players abandoned the series completely. In EU 4, graphics are still 3D but now they are really pretty. But it looks like there was no point. Game has static camera, zooms are basically useless. They are just speding money on useless stuff. They are also not attracting any casuals because EU games were never dedicated to them, and never will be.

 

[Lady_Error]

I agree with many of the other posters - between 1995 and 2005 we had a golden age

I think the Golden Age started earlier than 1995 - probably around 1990.

 

[likaq]

Golden age started in 1997, ended in 2001.

 

[:Flash:]

Golden age started in 1997, ended in 2001.

I guess you started gaming in 1997 and never bothered to check earlier games? When I started in 1996, the golden age was already half over.

 

[likaq]

I guess you started gaming in 1997 and never bothered to check earlier games? When I started in 1996, the golden age was already half over.

I started gaming in 1997, yes.
My first crpg was fallout 1.
And i bothered to check earlier games ( mostly crpg like ultima 7, wizardry 6-7,pool of radiance) . I find them extremely ugly, primitive and with extremely shitty ui.

 

[Lady_Error]

I find them extremely ugly, primitive and with extremely shitty ui.

Yeah, right. Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore - ugly? Wizardry 7 and Realms of Arkania 2 - primitive? As to the quality of the UI - there is not much difference between any of those games and Fallout 1.

 

[likaq]

Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore - ugly?

Yes, very.

Wizardry 7 and Realms of Arkania 2 - primitive?

Realms of Arkania 2 less so, wiz7 is a trash mob kiling simulator, you have to be combatfag to not find this shit primitive.

UI - there is not much difference between any of those games and Fallout 1

Yeah, right. Ui in realms of arkania 2 is not worse than ui in fallout. Oh wait.

 

[JarlFrank]

Wow, you really think glorious 2D 256 color graphics are ugly? Wow.