Bioshock Infinite - the $200 million 6 hour literally on rails interactive movie with guns thread

[Minttunator]

I play very few AAA+++ games, but I understand mostly they do indeed last in the region of 4-8 hours. How long is Bioshock Infinite?

Being used to games in a genre where less than 40 hours is considered short - and there are loads of 100+ hour RPGs as well - it's really hard for me to understand how people are willing to shell out full AAA price for such short games, especially if there's no multiplayer. There is no way I'd pay €50 (or even, say, €40) for a 4-hour game.

...or an 8-hour one in most cases, so I'm clearly not the mainstream gaming public and my opinion isn't all that relevant. I think Felipepepe's idea could work if it's presented well, i.e. if the popamole consumers are convinced they're getting a good deal. If they don't, though, there'll be some backlash - I recall one of the recent Need for Speed games had a 3-hour single-player campaign and it got a lot of shit for it.

 

[AngryEddy]

I play very few AAA+++ games, but I understand mostly they do indeed last in the region of 4-8 hours. How long is Bioshock Infinite?

Around 5-6 hours, and that is with looking for all of the secrets.

 

[Minttunator]

Thanks, AngryEddy! Like I said, I don't see the value in that. On the other hand, I do understand why these AAA+++ games are so expensive - I've seen estimates that this shit probably cost at least $100M to make (and speculation going up to $200M, including marketing). With budgets like that, it's no wonder that people are talking about an imminent industry crash.

 

[Zeriel]

Well, when the cost of marketing is more than the cost of making the thing (which is the case for a lot of big games, it's not just this), you do have a bit of a problem.

 

[Dexter]

It's more like 12+ hours to be fair, 5-6 hours sounds like speedrun material where you skip most of the secrets and the little exploration that is still in there.

Also, I don't necessarily have anything against short games, it's more about quality than quantity. There's games I've played for like 5-10 hours (Portal, The Walking Dead, Waking Mars). There's also games that I really liked (Dark Souls for instance) that I haven't finished yet since they are so long (40 hours played and not anywhere close to the end).

I'd rather have a game that gets to the point and presents quality entertainment throughout than trying to drag it out with meaningless and ultimately boring filler gameplay, like some RPGs sometimes tended to do and which Bioshock: Infinite unfortunately also did. But if both are right, I got nothing against that.

 

[cvv]

Thanks, AngryEddy! Like I said, I don't see the value in that. On the other hand, I do understand why these AAA+++ games are so expensive - I've seen estimates that this shit probably cost at least $100M to make (and speculation going up to $200M, including marketing). With budgets like that, it's no wonder that people are talking about an imminent industry crash.

100M for the game is plausible, Skyrim cost 85M and it's comparable staff-wise and development time-wise. But 100M for marketing? That's totally ridiculous IMO. That's a marketing budget of a major Hollywood movie and that's a completely different level. Those posters and adds are everywhere, all over the world. Yes Infinite was annoying as hell, being all over your IGNs and GameSpots for months in advance, but it's not like major towns were plastered with Infinite posters and billboards or Infinite adds being aired during SuperBowl.

 

[Angthoron]

Thanks, AngryEddy! Like I said, I don't see the value in that. On the other hand, I do understand why these AAA+++ games are so expensive - I've seen estimates that this shit probably cost at least $100M to make (and speculation going up to $200M, including marketing). With budgets like that, it's no wonder that people are talking about an imminent industry crash.

100M for the game is plausible, Skyrim cost 85M and it's comparable staff-wise and development time-wise. But 100M for marketing? That's totally ridiculous IMO. That's a marketing budget of a major Hollywood movie and that's a completely different level. Those posters and adds are everywhere, all over the world. Yes Infinite was annoying as hell, being all over your IGNs and GameSpots for months in advance, but it's not like major towns were plastered with Infinite posters and billboards or Infinite adds being aired during SuperBowl.

Gamejourno frontpage splashes are actually quite expensive, I saw some pricings on those things once - billboards might actually be cheaper. Then you have press events, TV spots, movie theater spots etc, and the costs build up. 100 million with poor cost management isn't so unlikely. See, Hollywood are pro at cost-saving by this point already, gaming industry are generally the dropouts and the sharks. Now, I've not followed BSI marketing much, but I have seen it pretty much everywhere I went, so I would imagine that little by little they might've ended up with a pretty huge pile of bills. 100M? Dunno. But certainly expensive. Oh yeah, and it also depends on what is meant by "marketing needs", since building that bullshit presentation that Levine & Co showed in 2011 can also be filed under "Marketing needs" to save costs for the dev team itself.


Oh and a short google search reveals BSI having been ran as promo in Super Bowl.

 

[Tagaziel]

There they have created this lovely and vulnerable character called Elizabeth which I almost started to really care about, and then this. First I laughed, then I facepalmed, then I had to quit the game.

Elizabeth is vulnerable? It's Booker who constantly runs out of ammo, salts, health, money, and keeps getting shot up so much that Liz has to get him back on his feet and provide support. If anyone's vulnerable, it's Booker (especially when you get to the end sequence).

Seriously. Booker's a former Cavalryman and Pinkerton agent that massacred natives at Wounded Knee, including women and children. He tortured and killed striking workers and ended up fired from Pinkerton for being too extreme. Bitching about dissonance when you're playing an alcoholic with a history of brutality and violence is, well, silly.

However, I do like DeWitt's struggle to own up to his mistakes and not be a total asshole, and growing throughout the game. A shame that you sometimes don't have enough time to read his thoughts on the loading screens.

 

[Minttunator]

Gamejourno frontpage splashes are actually quite expensive, I saw some pricings on those things once - billboards might actually be cheaper. Then you have press events, TV spots, movie theater spots etc, and the costs build up. 100 million with poor cost management isn't so unlikely. See, Hollywood are pro at cost-saving by this point already, gaming industry are generally the dropouts and the sharks. Now, I've not followed BSI marketing much, but I have seen it pretty much everywhere I went, so I would imagine that little by little they might've ended up with a pretty huge pile of bills. 100M? Dunno. But certainly expensive. Oh yeah, and it also depends on what is meant by "marketing needs", since building that bullshit presentation that Levine & Co showed in 2011 can also be filed under "Marketing needs" to save costs for the dev team itself.

Well said! Yeah, I'm sure the $200M is a rather high estimate, but the main point still stands - it's unreasonably expensive to make these kinds of AAA+++ games, especially when the most expensive part is marketing, which isn't even relevant to the quality of the actual game.

 

[cvv]

Well said! Yeah, I'm sure the $200M is a rather high estimate, but the main point still stands - it's unreasonably expensive to make these kinds of AAA+++ games, especially when the most expensive part is marketing, which isn't even relevant to the quality of the actual game.

Yeah, those marketing costs would be brutally inflated even if they'd be only 50M. But overall I don't think making AAA games today is overly expensive. If a uber high budget game (let's say 150M) sells 4 million copies, it's profitable. Anything more than that is a huge success.

And look at super expensive AAA games today. They range from slightly profitable (Tomb Raider, BIS (?)) to ginourmously OMG-look-at-that-fucking-pile-of-dough successful (CoD, AC, Diablo3, Halo, EA sports etc.). Games selling around 15 million copies would be incredibly lucrative even if they cost half a billion to develop.

The real problem IMO is not the development costs but the oversaturation. This is the problem throughout the history of the industry (1977, 1983, adventures and then RTS in the ninetees, the FPS oversaturation of the oughties and now it's the suffocating mass of third-person action adventure games). Too bad there has never been oversaturation of AAA RPGs

 

[abija]

If you live in a big city and you notice ads for a video game on the street/metro w/e , that's a guaranteed shitton of money spent on advertising.

 

[Minttunator]

I see your point, Cvv. Surely it's good when the games end up selling millions, but the problem is that it's a pretty huge risk to drop so much money to develop a game when it has to sell that many millions to make a profit. The new Tomb Raider sold 3.4M in the first month - good, right? Wrong, Squeenix was hoping for 5-6 million and they're now in trouble financially.

I absolutely agree with your comment about oversaturation. It seems that genres are even being run into the ground a lot quicker than they used to be - it's even happening to what used to be rather niche stuff like MOBAs.

 

[cvv]

I see your point, Cvv. Surely it's good when the games end up selling millions, but the problem is that it's a pretty huge risk to drop so much money to develop a game when it has to sell that many millions to make a profit. The new Tomb Raider sold 3.4M in the first month - good, right? Wrong, Squeenix was hoping for 5-6 million and they're now in trouble financially.

I absolutely agree with your comment about oversaturation. It seems that genres are even being run into the ground a lot quicker than they used to be - it's even happening to what used to be rather niche stuff like MOBAs.

Oh yeah, you're right, MOBAs are the most current example.

And as for the whole Squeenix/Tomb Raider ado, I don't think Squeenix is in trouble specifically because of Tomb Raider or Hitman or Sleeping Dogs. I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider will sell 4-5 million eventually and that means it will be moderatelly profitable (retailer's cut is what, 15 bucks, so 4.5 million copies at 45 bucks is over 200M and I'd bet my butt Tomb Raider didn't cost over 150M, including marketing). I suspect Squeenix isn't in trouble because of the former Eidos brands but primarily because they can't control the budgets of their Japanese IPs like Final Fantasy. But that's just my guess, there isn't much reliable info on that.

 

[DalekFlay]

When talking about expense you have to factor in the corporate culture as well. It takes twice as many people twice as much time to make something in a corporate atmosphere, compared to garage developers. That's just how that shit works.

P.S. Saying Infinite takes 5-6 hours on first playthrough is idiotic. If you have to make shit up to attack a game like this you're not doing a very good job at being critical.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

The removal of more complexity really hurts this game. Exploration is even more streamlined than it already was in Bioshock 1, the voice records are rarer, the looting is no fun, the level design is even more restrictive....

Are you guys telling me this shit really required such an enormous budget? What the hell.

 

[DalekFlay]

The removal of more complexity really hurts this game. Exploration is even more streamlined than it already was in Bioshock 1, the voice records are rarer, the looting is no fun, the level design is even more restrictive....

Indeed. Bioshock didn't sell amazing numbers for 2013 actually, so I assume they decided they needed to make the game more linear to sell more copies? I don't know, but it's disappointing.

 

[Cyberarmy]

The removal of more complexity really hurts this game. Exploration is even more streamlined than it already was in Bioshock 1, the voice records are rarer, the looting is no fun, the level design is even more restrictive....

Are you guys telling me this shit really required such an enormous budget? What the hell.

I concur.
We need to make some gameplay choices in previous Bioshocks, especially about Plasmids, I played both games as a melee character. Harvested little ones to raise in power. There is some possiblity of replaying the game with completely different gameplay.

Bioshock Infinite? Only 2 "major" choices without even some real reward/penalty (yay, more useless gear...) got access to all Vigors anytime which are viable without upgrades, passive plasmids replaced by mostly useless gear(which is determined by luck...) weapons don't really have much upgrade choice and even with 2 carry limit, there lots of weapons lying around so you can change easliy on fly. Most of them are useless also, especailly Vox weapons.

 

[AN4RCHID]

I'd guess it took me maybe 8 hours on hard mode... It would probably be 3 - 4 hours on easy without exploring much. It's a short game, though not shorter than comparable games like Modern Warfare. Funny that people complained about Dishonored being too short when it took me around 12 hours to finish that one, while having very few scripted cinematic sequences and no filler, two endings, multiple paths through levels, and some hidden stuff. Infinite on the other hand is literally ONLY scripted sequences and filler combat, one ending, one path, barely any hidden stuff, and is still shorter.

It's been highly amusing watching Jonathan Blow troll the fuck out of Twitter over this game.

Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow5 Apr
The Internet once got mad about this Bioshock Infinite box cover: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_cover_art_for_Bioshock_Infinite.jpg … But now we see the cover is appropriate!
Miguel Correa ‏@SirMigster5 Apr
@Jonathan_Blow Oh I get it because the game is overly violent. Man you sure are clever.!

Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow21h
@simonFerrari@anuchallenger@potatojin@robmeyer7 I am bewildered by the game's 95 ranking. Critics and audiences who like this game so
Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow21h
@simonFerrari@anuchallenger@potatojin@robmeyer7 much are not the people I am making games for; but apparently that is almost everyone??
Jake ‏@brogepi19h
.@Jonathan_Blow When you say you don't make games for people who enjoy Infinite, people like me, it's exclusionary and very off-putting.

Tom Forsyth ‏@tom_forsyth

21h​

@TheJare We should be saying "holy shit a AAA game with intelligent thematic content!" It's not how well the bear dances...
Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow16h
@tom_forsyth@thejare I think your idea of "intelligent thematic content" is very different from mine..

Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow9h
Losing his daughter must be such an emotional experience, he totally forgot she existed for 95% of the game!
Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow

9h​

Such a highly avant-garde technique to help the audience feel the depth of that relationship and loss.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

5+ years development, 95% metacritic, enormous budget..... and yet I can't bring myself to finish this trite dreck. And I used to be someone who enjoyed Irrational's games. What is just wrong with this industry...

Back to playing Jedi Academy. At least that's a fucking game, not a literal rollercoaster.

Verdict:

 

[Tagaziel]

Hmm, pretentious developer of a pretentious game being a pretentious git on Twitter.

Next!

 

[AN4RCHID]

He's a pretentious dick. He's also right 99% of the time about games.

 

[Tagaziel]

He's a pretentious dick. He's also right whenever he says something about games that I personally agree with, which gives me an excuse to use him in a fallacious argument from authority.

Fixed it for you.

 

[AN4RCHID]

?? Clearly yes, I agree with him... when I agree with him. What fallacious argument do you imagine I'm trying to make? I just think it's amusing that he's shitting all over the gaming press's critical darling on twitter and causing butthurt among dipshit Bioshock: Infinite fans.

 

[Tagaziel]

I don't find it amusing, because I don't like arrogant, pretentious people who have published one indie game and act like they're the ultimate authority on game design.

(I try not to be one, but errare humanum est.)

 

[AN4RCHID]