The point I was making was a response to the budget statement. Starfield uses an engine that bethsoft first licensed expensively, modified extensively at expense and then bought the company’s assets. The game’s singular budget does not show the development cost. That was my point.
If we’re discussing game dev budgets we’re not talking from an end user perspective.
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Are you suggesting that we should raise the cost of Starfield’s development then and account for hidden engine costs?
We can do that. I don’t know what a good number would be, but let’s quadruple or quintuple it for fun. Are we sitting at the $1.5 billion dollar mark? This gives us a scenario where Starfield has now cost twice to develop than this game.
The game was still developed and released. At some point, long development times start to work against a product. This isn’t a field where consumer expectations and tastes remain constant. The longer a game takes to make, the more dated design decisions may appear. Graphics cannot remain cutting edge for the entirety of a 10 year development cycle without rework, which can be seen as wasteful rework.