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On Game Budgets

Develop quotes Rare studio head Mark Betteridge talking about his belief that game studios need to be more accurate in creating game development budgets. This is related to recent comments by former Ensemble developer Paul Bettner on why he thinks Microsoft closed their studio and follow-up comments by Ian M. Fischer, also once of Ensemble. "If we [Rare] went to Microsoft and said we’re going to build something that costs, say, ten or twenty or thirty million dollars, the issue won’t necessarily be the budget but instead the estimate and if it is accurate. As the industry is maturing, it does need to get better at that," he tells them. "A lot of the time when studios have run into problems it’s because the game budgets have been underestimated. I still think the industry takes a naive approach to estimating budgets when compared to other industries."

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8. Re: On Game Budgets Mar 23, 2010, 14:21 Domgrief
 
Creston wrote on Mar 23, 2010, 14:04:
Really? That's funny. I must have imagined all the years that we've delivered software (and various other IT projects) on time and on budget then. After all, it must be impossible if you say so.
Creston
Touché.

As a fellow employee of the software industry, I suggest that your firm is the exception, rather than the rule. Also, that the level of creative work required in a game is well beyond most other software projects, and therefore harder to estimate.

Necrophob wrote on Mar 23, 2010, 14:14:
What industry isn't 100% dependent on labor?
I am thinking of civil works projects (construction or infrastructure), where a good percentage of a $10 million project will be tied up in material (like cement or steel pipes) whose price can be negotiated prior to submitting the estimate.

While there are plenty of materials (like SDK or compiler licences) required for a software project, they are dwarfed by the labour cost.

This comment was edited on Mar 23, 2010, 14:28.
 
Previous Post Next Post Reply Quote Edit Delete Report
 
    Date Subject Author
  1. Mar 23, 13:38 Re: On Game Budgets Creston
  2. Mar 23, 13:50  Re: On Game Budgets Necrophob
  7. Mar 23, 14:21  Re: On Game Budgets Beamer
  9. Mar 23, 15:55   Re: On Game Budgets Wildone
  10. Mar 23, 16:27    Re: On Game Budgets Tumbler
  15. Mar 23, 18:24    Re: On Game Budgets Beamer
  19. Mar 23, 20:59   Re: On Game Budgets Creston
  21. Mar 23, 23:31    Re: On Game Budgets Beamer
  16. Mar 23, 19:42  Re: On Game Budgets Ray Marden
  17. Mar 23, 20:32   Re: On Game Budgets Beamer
  3. Mar 23, 13:54 Re: On Game Budgets Domgrief
  4. Mar 23, 14:04  Re: On Game Budgets Creston
>> 8. Mar 23, 14:21   Re: On Game Budgets Domgrief
  12. Mar 23, 16:44   Re: On Game Budgets Ruffiana
  18. Mar 23, 20:57    Re: On Game Budgets Creston
  6. Mar 23, 14:14  Re: On Game Budgets Necrophob
  11. Mar 23, 16:42  Re: On Game Budgets Ruffiana
  13. Mar 23, 16:54   Re: On Game Budgets Domgrief
  14. Mar 23, 17:20   Re: On Game Budgets DG
  5. Mar 23, 14:04 Re: On Game Budgets DG
  20. Mar 23, 21:42 Re: On Game Budgets Dev


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