I’m pretty confident on the estimates I gave (assuming the game is already working multi-platform, the porting target is more powerful than one of the stablished platforms, and there’s some prior knowledge of similar platforms). I’m also assuming European salaries.
I mean, a full port of games this size and complexity (minus CQA) can be outsourced for about 30k-40k€ assuming a good codebase on the lead platform (quotes are going to be dependent on initial analysis). Internal porting is cheaper if you have the institutional knowledge.
But as I said, for a DLC where you can estimate sales confidently, porting could not be profitable just on pure sales analysis. For a full, well funded, already multi-platform, using a supported third party engine indie game, porting to a main platform equivalent to what you are already running on (in terms of power, so no hard optimization issues) is a no-brainer, at least while sales remain somewhat equivalent.
I do think subscription services like Game Pass are going to change the equation (once direct sales drop significantly). I’ve argued for a while we are going towards a dynamic similar to what we are seeing with TV now (pre-funded, no-risk productions, paid for by the platforms holders). Game Pass is like that for some studios already (you just need budgets tight enough so that the deal covers 75%+ of the production budget). I just don’t think we are so far down that way that ignoring a major platform makes any economic sense based on porting costs alone.
I assume Microsoft’s Game Pass is making games for XBOX much more risky, if I had a XBOX and Game Pass there’s a good chance I would buy 0 games, why would I, there are more games in Game pass than what I can play.
Maybe some generation defining, you gotta play this to talk about it with your friends game, but otherwise, probably not.
It’s going to get there, for sure, but so far sales are somewhat holding up. About 30-50% Xbox users are Game Pass subscribers, depending on SKU, so you still have a significant target market.
Insomniac, the Sony subsidiary behind “Ratchet and Clank” and “Marvel’s Spider-Man,” plans to donate $50,000 to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), according to an internal email sent May 13 from Insomniac CEO Ted Price viewed by The Washington Post. Sony will match the donation, along with donations from individual Insomniac employees if they make them via the company’s PlayStation Cares program. In addition, Sony now plans to formulate an initiative to provide financial assistance to employees who might have to travel to different states to receive reproductive care. Insomniac will aid in formulating that policy.
Neither company plans to tweet about their donations, and Insomniac employees have been forbidden from explicitly mentioning Insomniac or Sony should they decide to retweet any announcements the WRRAP might make, according to the email.
For the time being, however, Insomniac is not allowed to make a statement about reproductive rights or its donation — nor does Price think it would be a good idea for the studio to go over Sony’s head and try.
“There would be material repercussions for us as a wholly owned subsidiary,” Price wrote in response to a question about what would happen if Insomniac tweeted about the donation. “Among other things, any progress that we might make in helping change [Sony Interactive Entertainment’s] approach would be stopped dead in its tracks. We’d also probably be severely restricted from doing important public-facing work in the future.”
This comes after Insomniac employees made repeated requests to get management to make a statement not unlike those issued by a few other large video game companies, including “Destiny 2” developer Bungie and “Psychonauts 2″ creator Double Fine. In the Q&A, Price writes that Sony shut that approach down: “Sony Interactive Entertainment will not approve ANY statements from any studio on the topic of reproductive rights. We fought hard for this and we did not win.”
Given the bizarre nature of corporation law, it may well be that a publicly traded company faces real challenges in making political statements that might impact stock prices or something.
Similarly, out of the ones that are good, how many will succeed? It’s very difficult, even for the big players, to have a AAA homerun these days. The market is so very competitive.
On the other hand, several of those are probably things like Tiny Tina, basically extended DLC. But, yeah, it’s not like Gearbox are known for having production nailed down as it is, so this does seem like overextending.
They may also be including games that are in incubation and/or pre-production. Games that might never go into full production or not for several years.
Yeah this was nice, I knew exactly nothing about Jowood despite them being big part of my childhood (Gothic and Gothic 2 were huge here) so it is cool to put a face to a name.
