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GameLook Report / A few days ago, Sony’s “mistakes” leaked some confidential financial data, which greatly changed the views of many people in the industry on 3A games. For manufacturers who want to try 3A game production, this news is simply “dissuading”, which shatters many people’s 3A dreams.
In the court battle between Microsoft and the FTC, a confidential document submitted by Sony was incorrectly coded. The industry’s interpretation shows that the development of Sony’s first-party game “Horizon: Desperate West” took more than 5 years, and the number of people involved in the development peaked at 300 people, with a total development cost of 212 million U.S. dollars; another masterpiece “The Last of Us 2” took 6 years and 10 months to develop, with a peak of 200 people participating in the development, and a total development cost of 220 million U.S. dollars.
Previously, when most people mentioned 3A games, their eyes were bright, because this word represented the 3D graphics technology and game design level at the top of the pyramid in the industry, and it was also the winner of industry awards, collecting countless praises. For example, “The Last of Us 2” developed by Naughty Dog became the biggest winner of the 2020 TGA Awards, winning Game of the Year, Best Narrative Game, Barrier-free Innovative Game, Best Game Director, Best Action/Adventure, Best Seven awards including best performance and best sound effects.
However, why is it that few people can bear the risk of a “golden” 3A game?
Let’s still take “The Last of Us 2” as an example. This sequel took nearly 7 years to invest 200 people. Not to mention, the development cost alone is 220 million US dollars. According to the ratio of R&D costs and marketing costs in the industry, the total cost of this project The investment may be close to 300 million U.S. dollars, plus the 30% commission of the platform, “The Last of Us 2” actually needs to sell 7 million sets (total turnover of more than 400 million U.S. dollars) to pay back.
Of course, as Sony’s first-party game, “The Last of Us 2” can avoid the commission of the PS platform.
According to the official data released by Naughty Dog at the beginning of this year, the total sales volume of “The Last of Us” series has exceeded 37 million sets, and the sales volume of “The Last of Us 2” in June last year has exceeded 10 million sets. According to the price of 60 US dollars, Excluding the platform share, the profit of this 3A masterpiece may be less than 200 million U.S. dollars. Taking into account the cost of publicity and distribution, the ROI return rate of the actual game is less than 1 times.
For many game teams, $220 million in R&D investment is actually an astronomical figure. But for Sony, which is rich and powerful, this result is obviously not on the same level as the “Last Survivor” generation works. If you take into account the interest rate hikes in the United States in recent years and the cost of capital use, the interest expenditure on funds in the past seven years is just It can soar to nearly 40%. Such a revenue performance is obviously very unattractive to ordinary game companies.
In contrast, CDPR’s “Cyberpunk 2077”, which is also a 3A masterpiece, has a total expenditure of more than 1.2 billion Polish zlotys (equivalent to RMB 2.1 billion, half of which is direct research and development costs, which is about 200 million US dollars). The research and development cost of 3″ is also close to 100 million US dollars.
The former chief creative officer of EA said that the development cost of “Battlefield 4” was “100 million to tens of millions of dollars”, and the head of Eidos Montreal studio said that the development cost of “Tomb Raider: Shadow” was between 75 million and 100 million dollars. between.
In addition, Mihayou CEO Cai Haoyu once said that the initial research and development cost of “Yuan Shen” exceeded 100 million US dollars, and the subsequent annual operating costs may be at the level of 200 million US dollars.
Just imagine, if “The Last of Us 2” is not a first-party game, at least 30% of the revenue must be handed over to the platform as a commission. It can pay back, while third-party developers need to sell 10 million units to break even. So, how many other manufacturers can bear such a high risk?
Andrew Maximov, the founder of Promethean AI and former Naughty Dog technical artist, said during this year’s GDC sharing period that compared with the PS1 era, the workload of making a game is at least 20 times that of the time, but considering the price of the game, the development However, the time and resources invested by developers cannot correspond to a 20-fold increase, which is why 3A games have not innovated for many years.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I don’t dare. The development cost of a game is hundreds of millions of dollars. No one dares to take such a big risk, because once it fails, it means that everyone will lose their jobs and even bear huge debts.”
According to the data he summarized, from PS1 to PS5, the R&D cost of a console game has reached about 5 times of the initial one, but the game price has not changed much. This is why he believes that the game industry urgently needs AI technology upgrades. . Maximov mentioned in his speech, “AI is a great capability multiplier. With the greater the capability, the greater the responsibility of the individual in the future. It is getting more and more difficult to ignore it. We should focus on creativity, direction, and how to ask questions correctly, and then hand it over to AI to implement.”
Of course, this is why the AIGC concept is favored by game developers, investors and more industries. Simply put, AI can greatly speed up repetitive tasks, save a lot of human resources, and allow developers to focus on creativity and gameplay design.
According to the CEO of Unity, the two AI products it launched and tested not long ago are expected to increase R&D efficiency by 10%. With the continuous advancement of AIGC technology, more and more vertical AI tools or models will appear, such as Roleverse and Hidden Door previously reported by gamelook, and MoonlanderAI, which can generate 3D games in one sentence, will reduce the cost of game development. significantly reduce.
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