Price

[simcopops 37]

I am an avid simcity fan and after the disgrace which was simcity 2013 I was genuinely curious as to how much it would cost to make a simcity game similar to 2013 but what we actually want.

Secondly, would it not be possible for this community to come together and make a game of the same quality minus the tiny maps, limited transport wtc etc

[AshTym 31]

Seriously? Seriously? Games such as SimCity take a considerable length of time to create, a vast workforce with a wealth of many different game-related talents, and usually hundreds of millions of dollars.

[simcopops 37]

Hundreds of millions of dollars? I seriously doubt it costs that much!

[Shiphted 4]

Well do the math. say you have 100 developers, each makes well over 100k a year no problem, Thats 10 Million, Then add in advertising, other people that are involved. 

 

Creating a game to the scale of simcity but in workable condition obviously cost more than EA has or we would of gotten what you speak of. 

 

If your curious on what a "community" or "sole developer" can make go check out indie games. Most are made by garage programmers or the like. Its not terribly hard to create a game but as far as the scale of sim city yea thats a bit out of the question, unless you have some inheritance your not telling us about.

[simcopops 37]

Well then that's that! I never would of guessed it cost so much. Althought I must say some things developed for sc4 on here are awesome and could those same people not come together and make something amazing?

[Shiphted 4]

Creating a mod is nothing compared to create a whole mainframe for those mods to run.

[endorken 13]

Obviously, the “community” is not going to come together and make a AAA title.

 

That said, let’s not get hysterical about hundreds of millions of dollars. Your average AAA title probably costs $30-40 mil to develop and market (and that’s being generous). Of course, there's little transparency in the industry, so we don't know as much as we probably should, but ME3 was reported to cost, what -- $40mil? It's a pretty rare case for non-MMO development costs to hit the $100 mil mark (GTAIV, HALO4, a few other landmark titles). Not to mention there isn’t really even a case to be made that mo money always gets you mo money or even mo quality. The original GoW cost $10mil and we know how well that franchise is doing. Meanwhile, APB wasted $100 mil on I don’t know what.  I don’t even want to talk about 38 Studios and what they did with their millions.

[Shiphted 4]

Well of course each game will cost differently and it can vary GREATLY. But make no mistake its not minimum wage.

[endorken 13]

Well of course each game will cost differently and it can vary GREATLY. But make no mistake its not minimum wage.

 

 

That was sort of my point, no? Costs vary greatly, developers need to get paid, but the average is much, much lower than was suggested earlier in the thread. Not to mention that the average that’s talked about in the gaming press is usually the average for multi-platform titles.

 

My point really is this – let’s not encourage the industry in its absurd Hollywood-wannabe strategy by buying into the idea that in order to keep making good games they need to continue increasing budgets and team sizes to a point where anything that sells under 1 mil units (at $69/copy to boot) is considered a failure, which is pretty close to where we’re at right now. Go big or go bust should not be the only way of doing business and making money.