• DayZ creator on VR: Without subsidisation some studios can't break even, let alone make a profit
    33 replies, posted
[url]http://www.pcgamer.com/dayz-creator-on-vr-without-subsidisation-there-is-no-way-certain-studios-can-break-even-let-alone-make-a-profit[/url]
With how relatively few VR games there are around compared to normal games, even simple indie ones make lots of profit. It's a gold rush atm
I think maybe he just doesn't understand budget. With stylized assets and a few programmers you can have a UE4 Vr game relatively easily since it's already got vr built into the engine
[QUOTE=gk99;51498446]I think maybe he just doesn't understand budget. With stylized assets and a few programmers you can have a UE4 Vr game relatively easily since it's already got vr built into the engine[/QUOTE] I would argue unity is much, much easier to use but if you carefully select your game's features you can definitely develop a VR game really quickly and easily. The problem is that's lead to extreme bloat in a few genres that fit those cases and people are getting sick of those types of games
yeah I'm not really going to trust the word of a failed dev
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;51497629]The game looks very basic and easy to make even for a sole indie developer across a few months[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=gk99;51498446]With stylized assets and a few programmers you can have a UE4 Vr game relatively easily since it's already got vr built into the engine[/QUOTE] I have no love for this guy and the development process of DayZ, but I'm sorry it sounds like you're both completely talking out of your ass. Being a gamer doesn't give you any insight to the complexities and nuances of actually finishing a product and selling it, particularly with a cutting edge technology like VR. You can't just look at a game and guess "eh maybe this took one guy a couple months", and as a dev that kind of talk really sets me off. A programmer cost at minimum probably 50k a year at least in the US, often much more. A "few programmers" easily can cost over 15k a month, and that doesn't include artists, designers, business and promotion. You can be skeptical of this guy all you want, but until you ship a game or product like this you literally have no clue. A pretty engine with VR support does not magically get you a finished game, let alone handle the stuff like marketing, support, etc. Source: Professional Game Dev, we won't touch VR with a ten foot pole but that's for other reasons, it's a saturated market that everyone is trying to get into.
[QUOTE=Socram;51499314]I have no love for this guy and the development process of DayZ, but I'm sorry it sounds like you're both completely talking out of your ass. Being a gamer doesn't give you any insight to the complexities and nuances of actually finishing a product and selling it, particularly with a cutting edge technology like VR. You can't just look at a game and guess "eh maybe this took one guy a couple months", and as a dev that kind of talk really sets me off. A programmer cost at minimum probably 50k a year at least in the US, often much more. A "few programmers" easily can cost over 15k a month, and that doesn't include artists, designers, business and promotion. You can be skeptical of this guy all you want, but until you ship a game or product like this you literally have no clue. A pretty engine with VR support does not magically get you a finished game, let alone handle the stuff like marketing, support, etc. Source: Professional Game Dev, we won't touch VR with a ten foot pole but that's for other reasons, it's a saturated market that everyone is trying to get into.[/QUOTE] I think you might have taken my post the wrong way, and I'm a developer too actually (industrial robotics, but I've done a lot of game dev stuff and VR for non-gaming purposes). You're totally right to say that people here who have no business trying to estimate what it costs to run a business and push out a product, especially when do shit like assume that all you need to do to be successful is make as much money as it cost to make the game. There definitely is VR games that have taken very little time and have very few assets though, games like Climbey are basically 99% dev textures on mesh-less blocks. I wouldn't be surprised if the game has a total of less than 20 models created outside of unity. It's a fantastic game too, we've bought a couple copies at our office so we can play it on both of our systems. You're wrong to say VR is "satured" though IMO, certain genres are but people are screaming for a good VR RPG with actual content in it, it's understandable that none are really out yet with the time they take to develop but that is definitely an area of VR games that could not be considered sutured by any sense of the word, unless you're aware of how many are currently in development and their planned release dates
Okay I appreciate you clarifying, hope I wasn't too salty I just see that kind of stuff a lot and it drives me up a wall ha. Saturated in the sense that a lot of crap is coming out or coming out soon because it is "the next big thing", so it is hard to rise that stuff and stand out as an indie at least. A ton of stuff hasn't really been standardized either, like how to handle basic UI/UX for example which is an additional risk. I absolutely agree that there is plenty of room for quality VR games, but I haven't really seen a whole lot of that, I mostly just see gimmicky stuff or lazily created games. Creating a quality VR experience clearly isn't as easy as people are making it out to be, which is the root of my argument I suppose.
[QUOTE=Socram;51499564]Okay I appreciate you clarifying, hope I wasn't too salty I just see that kind of stuff a lot and it drives me up a wall ha. Saturated in the sense that a lot of crap is coming out or coming out soon because it is "the next big thing", so it is hard to rise that stuff and stand out as an indie at least. A ton of stuff hasn't really been standardized either, like how to handle basic UI/UX for example which is an additional risk. I absolutely agree that there is plenty of room for quality VR games, but I haven't really seen a whole lot of that, I mostly just see gimmicky stuff or lazily created games. Creating a quality VR experience clearly isn't as easy as people are making it out to be, which is the root of my argument I suppose.[/QUOTE] It's true that there's a lot of garbage but don't overlook simple games for sure, like I mentioned climbey is basically dev texture primitives and a floating backpack and helmet but it's some of the most fun I've had in a videogame period, including non-vr titles. It's really hard on people who don't have their VR legs but it's amazing fun no offence taken to any saltiness btw, i've seen people post shit here that is levels of ignorance on the level of vaccines causing autism by armchair engineers so i know how it is
Coming from the hack that made DayZ with Bohemia and got away with the money. DayZ mod was good, but holy shit how being with Bohemia made him think he's the best. Success got him boy.
[QUOTE=ApertureXS200;51503992]Coming from the hack that made DayZ with Bohemia and got away with the money. DayZ mod was good, but holy shit how being with Bohemia made him think he's the best. Success got him boy.[/QUOTE] He didn't go away with the money, he was contracted on DayZ to lay the foundation of the game and then leave it to Bohemia to finish, that was their plan from the very start.
[QUOTE=simkas;51504018]He didn't go away with the money, he was contracted on DayZ to lay the foundation of the game and then leave it to Bohemia to finish, that was their plan from the very start.[/QUOTE] Well well, seems like his foundation of the game were really bad. Or did he speaks about his condition at bohemia and how they limited his views for the game? [editline]9th December 2016[/editline] I don't know how this is a good example, but Playerunknow (i think he's the one who created the popular battleroyal mode from arma 3) got hired in a korean company, and his new game (battleground, a battle royal only game) look really better than DayZ standalone ever did. [editline]9th December 2016[/editline] or shall i call it, "Jogging simulator" [editline]9th December 2016[/editline] they dumpstered every single elements that made DayZ mod GOOD with DayZ standalone, and they preferred Quantity over quality. They wanted cloth and weapon when we wanted activity to do other than "SHOOT EVERYONE ON SIGHT". Where are the classic mods like epoch in this game?
[QUOTE=ApertureXS200;51504158] they dumpstered every single elements that made DayZ mod GOOD with DayZ standalone, and they preferred Quantity over quality. They wanted cloth and weapon when we wanted activity to do other than "SHOOT EVERYONE ON SIGHT". Where are the classic mods like epoch in this game?[/QUOTE] DayZ isn't done yet. you're talking like it is. the game balance is likely going to change in the beta, it's just that the programmers are very probably busy working on the engine. classic mods like Epoch aren't in the game yet because modding is just not possible yet. they've said mod support will be added around the beginning of beta development (iirc), and that would be sensible because the engine won't have any placeholder parts to be replaced by then. you probably don't want to make mods for an engine that's going to have major parts swapped soon.
[QUOTE=irohTguy-NO;51504236]DayZ isn't done yet. you're talking like it is. the game balance is likely going to change in the beta, it's just that the programmers are very probably busy working on the engine. classic mods like Epoch aren't in the game yet because modding is just not possible yet. they've said mod support will be added around the beginning of beta development (iirc), and that would be sensible because the engine won't have any placeholder parts to be replaced by then. you probably don't want to make mods for an engine that's going to have major parts swapped soon.[/QUOTE] That's my problem. This game development is so fucking slow it's killing itself. DayZ standalone got really good foundation, but they have to blow it up with a bugged as fuck game, NO FUCKING ZOMBIE when it's the POINT OF THE game, NOTHING to do excepted looting and killing. Why? Why did they had to fuck it up?
[QUOTE=ApertureXS200;51504486]That's my problem. This game development is so fucking slow it's killing itself. DayZ standalone got really good foundation, but they have to blow it up with a bugged as fuck game, NO FUCKING ZOMBIE when it's the POINT OF THE game, NOTHING to do excepted looting and killing. Why? Why did they had to fuck it up?[/QUOTE] the game's currently pretty unpolished, yes, but that's because as many bugs as possible will be fixed when current placeholder engine parts are replaced... ..have you played 0.61 yet? I and a random player stumbled across each other in Berezino and long story short we ended up with a group of about 15 zombies in just a few minutes, and that was before another player killed both of us, so we might have ended up attracting more zombies if we didn't die. that was on a full server, even, which you have to expect with experimental versions. again, you're kinda talking as if DayZ is already finished, so you can't say they've [I]'fucked it up'[/I], at the very least just yet.
[QUOTE=irohTguy-NO;51504615]the game's currently pretty unpolished, yes, but that's because as many bugs as possible will be fixed when current placeholder engine parts are replaced... ..have you played 0.61 yet? I and a random player stumbled across each other in Berezino and long story short we ended up with a group of about 15 zombies in just a few minutes, and that was before another player killed both of us, so we might have ended up attracting more zombies if we didn't die. that was on a full server, even, which you have to expect with experimental versions. again, you're kinda talking as if DayZ is already finished, so you can't say they've [I]'fucked it up'[/I], at the very least just yet.[/QUOTE] Enough of "It's an alpha!" excuse. It won't fix all the problems of the game and it won't certainly exempt it from any complains we can have. The problem is that the alpha is taking long - Very long. 3 year for an alpha, and development time 1 year before. There are many problems with the game, and the fact that they released such an alpha was a bad thing. they released it too early in my opinion and that makes me ask "Who the fuck tought that the game was ready to be shipped for alpha testing? There's nothing to do, and the zombie are bugged as hell" back during release and that makes me believe that this game is pure money-grabbing and a rip off. I believe that the game will be a much, much better game when it is "really" released in 1.0 and i keep in mind that this is an alpha, but this alpha is messy as hell and was very badly done and executed. I know that they want to make mod support - and try to reach a level of survival much more advanced than DayZ mod, and i can't wait for it! but for now, i'm angry for how they executed this game. It's disappointing. Oh, seems like you are right: I am completely out of touch with this game. 0.61 really added many things and certainly changed the game as i can see on the item list and reddit. Maybe we are closer to the beta than we think. That regive me hope atleast.
I think a bit of a problem with all of this is how enjoyable you want an alpha game to be - if a game is to be constantly enjoyable throughout its alpha development, starting at the very first basic incarnations of the game like with DayZ, it would likely make for wasteful overall development time to fix critical and [B]also non-critical[/B] issues that could be ignored when developing just for the final product and not a constantly enjoyable game. this is how it quite probably is with most bugs that [I]currently[/I] limit as much enjoyability of DayZ as possible. with DayZ, this is on top of a very complicated engine being made, so I honestly think it makes sense to have taken as long as it has, with DayZ's general programming team of about 15 (assuming the amount stated in the recent Q&A videos applies to most of DayZ's past development, so don't quote me on this). I'd assume it'd have gone considerably quicker if 'constant enjoyability' was not considered for DayZ, but that's not something I think is going to change so far into the game's development. DayZ's reputation is already under enough scrutiny. yes, this is an "It's an alpha!" excuse, but I think it's a fairly valid excuse. also, after all, I'm also not so happy with DayZ's development time. I'm really just also waiting for the finished game, and I wish everybody could have just skipped the kinda unavoidable not-so-perfect parts of the game's development.
I don't get why DayZ get's any defense for being the mess it is, for as long as it has been. I played that game before it exploded with some friends of mine. It still isn't done several years later and I'm going to have to say that's a pretty shitty thing for the fans and the devs.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51505274]I don't get why DayZ get's any defense for being the mess it is, for as long as it has been.[/QUOTE] I don't get why DayZ being a mess is the fault of one guy when it's being developed by a studio with 250+ employees.
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;51497629]Out of Ammo made his studio at least $280,000 at the minimum owners predicted on Steam Spy and after Valve's 30% cut. The game looks very basic and easy to make even for a sole indie developer across a few months - I don't see how this in any way is unprofitable and how they would of needed to spend enough resources on this to match $280,000. [editline]adsad[/editline] Although given his track record of DayZ being early access for 2 years now, I can see he can throw money at something and not get anything done.[/QUOTE] $280,000 estimate after Steam cut. Subtract 30% tax (196,000), assume one artist and one programmer (I don't know how many people they have) which means $60,000 and $40,000 if we're super conservative (106,000). Hardware, vive, and misc cost are probably around $6,000 or so. So you're probably looking at $100,000 or less real profit -- which means you only now have $100,000 for the budget on your next game unless you get a publisher.
[QUOTE=Creeper;51505739]I don't get why DayZ being a mess is the fault of one guy when it's being developed by a studio with 250+ employees.[/QUOTE] But I didn't say that, anywhere? Did I?
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51505892]But I didn't say that, anywhere? Did I?[/QUOTE] Just a response to the general sentiment of the thread.
[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;51506171]Why are you paying your artist & programmer a whole year salary for something that takes a month to make tho[/QUOTE] Picking the indie-favorite is hardly indicative of the real odds a developer has of making a profit. As you've pointed out, it's a fairly low quality game. It got popular because it was one of the first titles released for a system that was at the time low on games to play, and now Steam is swarmed in similar low-cost indie games. Making high-detail games with more content is not a cheap endeavor. You need subsidizing or a successful kickstarter. [editline]9th December 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Orkel;51497822]With how relatively few VR games there are around compared to normal games, even simple indie ones make lots of profit. It's a gold rush atm[/QUOTE] it's not hard for an indie side-project to make a "profit" when it's your weekend hobby away from a full-time job that's not the kind of game this article is about, in regard to criticisms other studios have faced for actually agreeing to take timed-exclusivity deals
[QUOTE=ApertureXS200;51504931]Enough of "It's an alpha!" excuse. It won't fix all the problems of the game and it won't certainly exempt it from any complains we can have. The problem is that the alpha is taking long - Very long. 3 year for an alpha, and development time 1 year before. There are many problems with the game, and the fact that they released such an alpha was a bad thing. they released it too early in my opinion and that makes me ask "Who the fuck tought that the game was ready to be shipped for alpha testing? There's nothing to do, and the zombie are bugged as hell" back during release and that makes me believe that this game is pure money-grabbing and a rip off. I believe that the game will be a much, much better game when it is "really" released in 1.0 and i keep in mind that this is an alpha, but this alpha is messy as hell and was very badly done and executed. I know that they want to make mod support - and try to reach a level of survival much more advanced than DayZ mod, and i can't wait for it! but for now, i'm angry for how they executed this game. It's disappointing. Oh, seems like you are right: I am completely out of touch with this game. 0.61 really added many things and certainly changed the game as i can see on the item list and reddit. Maybe we are closer to the beta than we think. That regive me hope atleast.[/QUOTE] Not gonna shit on you or anything, but the game does say, both on the store page and when you launch the game that it is heavily in alpha and lacks a lot of stuff, so you were warned, so yes, saying that it's still alpha is a very valid response. However that doesn't excuse the fact that they released it in early-access to later on just go on and redo the entire engine which delays the game development with several months. I have myself not really bothered playing the game due to all the missing content, but following their own news updates just shows the complete lack of things happening in a pace which a game like this should have, at least when it's released as an early-access title.
Profit for VR does not scale well. The consumer base is far too small. At present, it's not financially reasonable for anybody but very small indie teams to make vr games. One indie making 280k is nice but that's fucking peanuts for any reasonably good dev team. Games need to make millions and VR can't do that yet.
[QUOTE=Killeen;51506323]However that doesn't excuse the fact that they released it in early-access to later on just go on and redo the entire engine which delays the game development with several months.[/QUOTE] if Rust is anything to go by, it can be very worthwhile to cancel your game
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;51505274]I don't get why DayZ get's any defense for being the mess it is, for as long as it has been. I played that game before it exploded with some friends of mine. It still isn't done several years later and I'm going to have to say that's a pretty shitty thing for the fans and the devs.[/QUOTE] DayZ gets a bit of defense because of the promise of what the game will be. I think that promise is quite realistic, and it would be sensible to think so with what the developers have done so far in the development. personally, I've seen a lot of criticism that basically says "DayZ is bad and won't change", while DayZ will definitely change for the better in the future.
[QUOTE=Creeper;51505739]I don't get why DayZ being a mess is the fault of one guy when it's being developed by a studio with 250+ employees.[/QUOTE] With how some studios work it may or may not be either way, I don't feel like I can really trust him because that's all I know his name from. Doesn't exactly help me feel confident of his word. After all, you won't get a JJ Abrams film without JJ. You won't get a Kojima game without Kojima.
[QUOTE=irohTguy-NO;51507694]DayZ gets a bit of defense because of the promise of what the game will be. I think that promise is quite realistic, and it would be sensible to think so with what the developers have done so far in the development. personally, I've seen a lot of criticism that basically says "DayZ is bad and won't change", while DayZ will definitely change for the better in the future.[/QUOTE] No question about it that it will change for the better and become the game it was "supposed" to be. The questions is just, how long is it going to take? The game has been out there for a very long time now and we still haven't got proper functioning Zombies. Which basically is one of the core parts of the game.
[QUOTE=Killeen;51508166]No question about it that it will change for the better and become the game it was "supposed" to be. The questions is just, how long is it going to take? The game has been out there for a very long time now and we still haven't got proper functioning Zombies. Which basically is one of the core parts of the game.[/QUOTE] the new engine that's being worked on will be fully implemented in probably around 3-4 months, and at that point it would make a lot of sense for zombies to be fixed, together with most non-critical issues, like I've said. then the engine's likely just going to be polished and have smaller features added to it until 1.0 is finished, which I imagine will take 4 to 6 months...
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