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U.S. government asks Steve Ballmer to create budget-balancing game
The budget deficit had better run Erskine Bowles, co-chair of President Obama's fiscal commission, is turning to games to educate the public about the difficulty of reducing the U.S. budget deficit. Specifically, he's turning to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, USA Today reports. Bowles has reportedly been communicating with Ballmer about creating a video game that allows anyone to attempt to balance the budget. Bob Kerrey, co-chair of 1994's Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, spoke of the need to gain the public's understanding: "What you could get is support among the populace for the exceptionally unpopular things you need to do to solve this problem," adding that a budget-balancing game could "go viral ," though it would be hard to imagine anything created by Microsoft and distributed by the U.S. government as "viral." As bizarre an idea as this seems, Bowles is not the first to try it. in 1989 the National Economic Commission distributed Hard Choices on floppies for $20 a copy (which in itself might have helped). Kerrey's own 1994 commission also released a game with the thrilling title Budget Shadows. [Thanks, Gerry]
Rare boss: Devs take 'naive approach' when estimating game budgets
Speaking to Develop, Rare's Mark Betteridge has claimed that developers need to do a better job of estimating the cost for game projects. He noted that development problems often arise as the result of underestimated budgets, saying, "I still think the industry takes a naive approach to estimating budgets when compared to other industries." Betteridge advised studios not to rush into production before a game's core concepts are set in stone. "You might have artists or coders getting paid as employees with little to do because a game isn't yet in production," said Betteridge. Betteridge's comments come as part of a Develop report on the "sudden decline" in video game budgets. According to the report, the poor global financial climate has caused publishers to slash budgets of any unproven game properties. The report cites a few other reasons for declining budgets, including the longer console cycle. Betteridge also points to increasing mobile development, more prevalent middleware and a rising number of sequels -- which often reuse existing code and assets -- as reasons for declining costs. The comments also reflect Rare's changing development philosophy. The company recently announced plans to open a new studio specifically to overcome the "boom and bust cycle" of game development staffing. The developer hopes to adopt a method akin to the film industry, hiring contract staff for the duration of a project, rather than trying to maintain a large, consistent workforce.
SWTOR is EA's most expensive project yet
Surprise! Major MMOs cost batty-bonkers-cuckoo amounts of money to produce. Eurogamer reports that Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown said as much today, describing Star Wars: The Old Republic as the "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company." EA is apparently betting big on having something like Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft with The Old Republic. Brown guesstimates that WoW cost about $100 million to launch back in 2004 -- the game makes something like that now in a month. The executive explained that the average game costs about $30 million to produce, but that "any MMO costs significantly more than that." With an expected spring 2011 release, hopefully EA will start making a return at that time on its investment in a galaxy far, far away. Otherwise, the gaping maw of the Rancor would be preferable to what investors will do.
God of War 3 'right within budget' -- a $44 million budget
Anger management simulator God of War III cost $44 million to create, according to director of production development John Hight, which is "right within budget." Speaking with Giant Bomb, Hight revealed that the team of 132 staff required to finish the third installment was more than double the crew (of about 60) on hand to wrap up God of War II, with the biggest growth occurring in the graphics and art departments. Considering the ultimate Kratos adventure will likely go on to become a phenomenal sales hit, the $44 million budget isn't as ridiculous as it might seem. Consider that Gran Turismo 5's budget, at last count, had reportedly ballooned to around the $60 million mark. On the other hand, Ken Levine previously put the first BioShock's budget at about $15 million. With such variation in current-gen development costs, in the end, the price is just a number -- and in the case of God of War III, it was certainly worth the dough. %Gallery-44594% [Via Edge]
ATI Radeon HD 5450 focuses on multimedia features, neglects gaming
It's rare to see a rumor -- hell, even a roadmap -- pinpoint the timing of new releases quite so accurately, but our earlier report of ATI refreshing the middle and lower parts of its lineup turned out to be bang on. Following in the footsteps of the HD 5670, we have the Radeon HD 5450, which drags the entry price for DirectX 11 and Eyefinity multi-monitor support all the way down to $50. Course, the processing power inside isn't going to be on par with its elder siblings, but that also means the 5450 will run cool enough to be offered with half-height, passive cooling solutions as seen above. ATI's focus here is on media PCs, with a DisplayPort, um... port, alongside HDMI 1.3a, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio bitstreaming support. For the money, you really can't argue with all this extra multimedia juice, but if you must have benchmarks to sate your soul, check out the early reviews below -- they're full of bar charts and performance comparisons, don't you know.
Budget puts NASA's moon program on ice, promises to 'blaze a new trail of discovery'
It may only represent a smidgen of the multi-trillion dollar annual federal budget, but funding for NASA never fails to stir up debate, and that looks like it'll be the case more than ever with the Obama administration's just-announced 2011 budget. While NASA's budget will actually increase slightly to $19 billion, the big news is that Constellation moon program started by the Bush administration in 2006 (with the goal of returning by 2020) is being shelved amid what amounts to a fairly big change in priorities for NASA. That includes the first phase of more than $9 billion in spending on robotic exploration and heavy-lift rockets and, perhaps most notably, $6 billion in spending to promote the development of commercial rockets and spacecraft -- which NASA hopes will eventually be able to transport astronauts into orbit. Turning around a space agency isn't exactly easy though, and it'll apparently cost $3 billion over two years simply to end what's already been started on the Constellation program. Feeling a little wistful? Then head on past the break for a brief history of NASA's recent lunar ambitions.
Nintendo releases budget line in Japan based on Nintendo Channel rankings
Nintendo of Japan just launched a line of budget Wii re-releases -- something that hasn't happened out of Nintendo in a long time. The Minna no Osusume Selection (Everyone's Recommendation Selection) is a series of third-party games marked down to ¥2,800 ($30.53), and given new box art that pretty much obscures the original image, making it really difficult to tell which game it is. Since the best-selling Wii games are all still selling at full price, Nintendo determined the titles to be released in this collection in a really smart way: with user recommendations from the Nintendo Channel. Each of the games is given a "medal" rank based on the user response, with the most recommended game on the list being Chunsoft's visual novel 428. Other titles in the collection include Muramasa, Arc Rise Fantasia, We Ski & Snowboard, and One Piece and Dragon Ball Z games. See the full list of initial releases after the break.
Indie devs struggle to find the perfect iPhone price
The ease of getting your game onto the iPhone is something of a double-edged sword for indie devs. On the one hand, it's an amazing opportunity to get your pride and joy in front of millions. On the other, though, the amount of competition is pushing prices way lower than some devs are comfortable with. Or as Nathan Vella, co-founder of Toronto-based Critter Crunch/Clash of Heroes developer Capybara Games, so directly put it to Gamasutra "The push to 99 cents is the single most frustrating and terrible thing about App Store pricing." Read the full piece if you'd like a better understanding of why indies are pricing they way they do. Though we understand their frustration, we're surprised there's not more hand wringing about all those free games littering the App Store, since we know so many people who refuse to pay cash for any game on the mobile platform. Do you have any purchasing guidelines you try to stick by?
Canon debuts A3100 IS, A3000 IS, A495 and A490 low-end shooters
It might not be glamorous, but if a $110 camera is all you can afford -- or all you'd trust your kid with -- then it suddenly becomes of utmost importance. The new crop of A-series cameras fits such a bill, with the 12 megapixel, 4x zoom, optical image stabilized PowerShot A3100 IS in the "high end" at $180, followed by the 10 megapixel A3000 IS at $150; 10 megapixel, 3.3x zoom A495 at $130; and similarly specced A490 at $110. The differences between the A495 and A490 are muddled, outside of color choices and fewer scene selections. The Two A3000 cameras sports 2.7-inch screens and recharageable lithium-ion battery packs (a first for A-series cameras), with the A490 units going for 2.5-inches and trotting out the AAs. All four shooters should be out sometime in late February. %Gallery-81500%
Gran Turismo 5 cost roughly $60 million to develop
At the annual SEMA car show in Las Vegas this week, Gran Turismo 5 creative lead Kazunori Yamauchi was on-hand demoing his game for showgoers and talking to the press. Amidst a torrent of questions from Autoweek, Yamauchi roughly calculated the cost of creating Gran Turismo 5: a cool $60 million. That's what five years of development on a single game has cost Polyphony Digital thus far, an amount Yamauchi says was totally justified in order to "get it right." "We threw away the legacy code from GT4 and started from scratch ... It's been five years from [the release of] GT4, and that's the same amount of time it took to develop the first GT4." And rather than dodging the reasoning behind the lack of a solid GT5 release date anywhere outside of Japan, Yamauchi flatly offered, "That's more depending on SCEA marketing decisions." Allow us to venture a guess – first half of 2010, perhaps?%Gallery-71410%[Via VGChartz]
Initial Modern Warfare 2 budget was 'ridiculous'
During an interview with Develop, Infinity Ward's front-line man, Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling, recalled the early planning stages of Modern Warfare 2. Unsurprisingly, publisher and owner Activision was eager to pour money into the development of the COD4 sequel, following the basic business formula: more money = better product = more sales = more money. Infinity Ward followed another school of thought: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "Much like we don't let ourselves get distracted by hype, if you have excess you feel like you should use excess," Bowling said. Even though Activision "estimated out a ridiculous budget" early on, Infinity Ward "didn't let the budget affect [its] mentality." Since Infinity Ward apparently didn't take the money (or, at least, all of it), we do have a pretty good idea of what Activision spent it on: night-vision goggles for everyone!
Compaq CQ61 does 15.6-inch screen and "real" processor for $399, wonders what all that netbook fuss was about
It doesn't usually take much to identify the type of person that's suited for a netbook and the type of person that's suited for a budget laptop, but unfortunately not all of them can self select -- we're pretty sure a lot of folks who picked the former option would be pretty pleased to trade up for this here Compaq CQ61 right about now, the followup to the well-received Walmart-destroying CQ60. Compaq is becoming HP's "value" brand in the US, and we'd say the CQ61 is a pretty nice way to flex those wallet-friendly credentials for a wider audience than the Walmart set. It's built on a 2GHz AMD Sempron M100 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics, 2GB of RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium, with a WXGA 15.6-inch screen, 160GB HDD and DVD burner to boot. HP was a bit cagey on what sort of battery life to expect out of the included 6-cell (our guess is not much), and of course the laptop won't be winning any beauty pageants, but it's a pretty nice score for the truly cash-strapped student or anyone else who needs a full-fledged laptop on the cheap without all the netbook compromises. Still too rich for your blood? Compaq's CQ4010 slim desktop weighs in with relatively similar specs and a $319 pricetag. %Gallery-75374% %Gallery-75375%
Study: Pricing and social features most important factors for game success
Prepare yourselves, dear readers, to be blinded with science! Russell Beale and Matthew Bond, two industry analysts from the University of Birmingham, UK, recently conducted a study to see what factors mattered the most when determining video game review scores. What they found was that graphical fidelity and storytelling actually took a backseat to budget pricing, social networking features and family accessibility when it comes to racking up the ten-out-of-tens. The article on NewScientist which reports on the study gives us no indication as to how it was conducted -- still, it's inspired us to create a casual video game based on MySpace, which will hit retail shelves at a cool $9.99. All that left to do now is drown in sweet, published accolades.
US free-to-play MMO market oversaturated?
With new free-to-play titles, like Earth Eternal, in development while other titles are being ported over from Asia to the US at a rapid-fire rate, the question of oversaturation is being spread amongst the lips of the industry. Are we looking at a market too filled with low-budget free to play titles?The answer is yes, if you're speaking with Reality Gap's J. Mark Hood, co-founder of the company specializing in free-to-play MMOs. Thanks to a AAA game market mostly locked down by the immense budgets of Blizzard and EA, the small developers turn to the F2P market as a place to compete. However, the market is now crowded with all sorts of titles not only developed here, but also many titles ported from Asia.The Asian titles, however, don't seem to strike the same chords here as they do in Asia. Our market is more focused on gameplay, while theirs can be focused on a number of other different options."Things that are more important here are actually how the game plays, getting yourself more advancement and skill," Hood said to Gamasutra. "So, it is really different."For Hood's full comments, check out both his thoughts on free-to-play MMOs and the entire Gamasutra interview.
SCEE Platinum line expands, includes Resistance 2, Killzone 2
The European budget line of "Platinum" titles has expanded quite significantly, adding four new titles for the low price of £19.99 / €29.99. The collection now includes Metal Gear Solid 4, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, Resistance 2 and Killzone 2.We're a bit jealous of our European friends, as games rarely get the "Greatest Hits" label so soon. Killzone 2, for example, released just a little over six months ago. However, it makes sense to drop the price of these games, especially Killzone 2, so soon -- there are a lot of new PS3 owners out there, hungry to try out the system's greatest games.
38 Studios estimates it will take 50 to 100 million to finish Copernicus, Schilling looking for investors
Curt Schilling is out on the field again -- the investing field, that is. The former baseball star turned game developer is looking for more investors to back 38 Studios and their first game, the title codenamed Copernicus. The company's estimates for their game requires 50 to 100 million more in funding for the staff, all with their tentative December 2010 launch in mind.Keep in mind, of course, that 38 Studios has acquired Maryland developer Big Huge Games, the company known for Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends, and Xbox Arcade's version of Catan. That acquisition doubled the company's headcount and has possibly driven operating costs into the 15 to 20 million a year range, according to the Boston Globe.So far Schilling hasn't had any luck with potential investors. However, as he said to the Boston Globe, "I'm not going to complain about the economy. It's like pitching on a rainy day. The other guy has to pitch in it, too."[Via Cuppycake]
Going to Afrika will be affordable
Natsume is finally bringing the long-delayed Afrika to American audiences this year. The nature-themed photography game is very much a niche title, but its production values are far beyond what a typical budget game offers. Pricing is a tricky subject for the publisher to handle, as its games aren't meant really for casual gamers. "We are not so interested in the so-called 'value' titles," Yasuhiro Maekawa explained to Gamasutra. "Most of the Natsume games I'd say are about in the middle. Sort of normal retail price titles with normal graphical levels."So what will the publisher pursue for Afrika? "For a PlayStation 3 title, this will probably be $49.99. That's what we're thinking. Between $39.99 and $49.99. $59.99 is probably too much." At $50, Afrika isn't really a "budget" game, but it's still cheaper than the average new PS3 game. Is that low enough for you to consider purchasing the game? Or should it drop down to $40?
Krome CEO: Developer budgets have increased more than games market
Sure, everything's all sunshine and daffodils in the ever-expanding video game market, right? Wrong. Dead wrong, mister. While stories to that effect might seem to inspire hope in the gaming industry's seemingly impervious leaders, indie developer Krome's CEO Robert Walsh thinks the gaming press has missed out on an important fact impacting the modern development scene -- developer's budgets "have probably doubled or tripled during the console transition."To put Walsh's entire argument (which he made in an interview with Develop) into simple terms, the gaming industry is raking in a bajillion dollars annually, but the current console generation has made developing games astronomically more expensive than it has been in the past. Like, a hojillion dollars more expensive. Seeing as how a hojillion is more than a bajillion (of course), developers aren't really seeing a major financial boon from the burgeoning industry. Which really sucks for them.
Steve Jobs spending less on flying
This might be obvious to most of us, but the WSJ feels it's fit to print: while Steve Jobs' reimbursed budget for his private jet has been fairly considerable over the past year or so -- $580,000 for a six-month period a year ago and $30,000 during a quarter period, the past few reports have seen the budget much, much lower. For the first three months of this year they didn't pay him at all, and for the previous six months before that they've only reimbursed him for $4,000.What does this mean? Nothing, really -- while the WSJ points to it as evidence Jobs hasn't been traveling overseas to help bring the iPhone to China and carry out other big Apple deals, we've already known that Jobs wasn't involved much in the day-to-day business anyway; besides, it's hard to recuperate at home and fly around the world simultaneously. There are lots of other reasons for the budget to be down -- that $580,000 period would have been right around the manufacturing point of the iPhone 3G, and since most of the focus lately is on software, it's not like Jobs needs to be jetsetting off exotic plants to make sure production is on schedule.And of course gas prices are back down quite a bit, and companies are under a little more scrutiny and pressure in this economy, so teleconferencing may be just as good as a plane ticket these days. Apple is still saying Jobs is expected back in June, and though these plane figures are interesting, the fact that Apple is still confident of his return says more about the company's future.
Obama's proposed 2010 budget juices carriers for more cash
There's no easy answer to erasing a staggering trillion-plus dollar deficit in a federal budget, but you've got to start somewhere -- and Obama's looking at the nation's wireless carriers as cash cows just waiting to be milked. The President's proposed budget for 2010 calls for an increase in spectrum license user fees from $50 million to $200 million, with further increases to $550 million over the course of the next decade, all of which would be on top of the billions carriers have already shelled out in spectrum auctions. A good way to bring in some extra cash? Yeah, probably, but considering that carriers will be more than happy to pass the increases on to consumers, let's just be straight: it's a tax.[Via El Reg]
