Development Cost for Gears of War 2 Revealed

Tim Sweeney revealed the budget and manpower it took to develop Gears of War 2 for the Xbox 360.

[TrevorPhillips]

that's not bad imagine how much gears of war 3 will cost to make.

[SpaceSquirrel]

Probably not that much if it is for the 360 again and they use the same engine.

[Chris399]

That's not too bad at all. Interesting number as the stigma attached with HD gaming is that it has crazy development costs and can bankrupt studios.

Glad to see that there are some examples that HD development isn't the financial risk it once was. I honestly think that the studios that went under - the "Lair" division of Factor Five, the Pure developer GRIN, etc. - did so because they made crappy, unprofitable games.

A couple of weeks prior, I had a rather extensive argument with some Nintendo fanatics on N4G regarding this issue. They remained bullish about the fact that ALL HD games bankrupted studios and were financially risky compared to software made on the Wii. I cited numerous examples, and even stated that the proliferant use of the Unreal Engine had it's benefits including - as we can see here - lower development costs.

But some people just never learn. Good to see this information brought to the table. I'm not saying that suddenly every HD game can be made at bargain-basement prices, but it's nice to see that some AAA stuff can be created within a reasonable budget.

[Sarcasm]

Dang only $12 mil? Doesn't look like a $12mil game, more like $20mil.

I have to give credit where it's due.

[Sarcasm]

@Chris399

Game budget is an interesting thing.

If a game is under-budgeted, it can be at risk of being craptastic.

However

Even if a game has a $50million+ budget, doesn't always mean it's going to be good either.

I think it boils down to the creativity and diligence of the developer's director and producer. They are the ones who need to keep everything and make sure the overall product comes together.

That's why guys like Kojima and Yamauchi are highly respected.

[commodore64]

$12 million
15 programmers
12 artists

That's the ease of developing on 360.

Anyone care to take a stab at how much the same game would have cost on ps3?

[rockleex]

On your first few HD console games, especially if you build your own engine from the ground up.

Once you got your engine laid out for your first game, you'll only be spending money to create new content for the sequels and to upgrade the engine a little bit.

If your engine is versatile, you could even use it for all your different IPs. No need to waste a ton of money just to make new or different kind of games.

By the way, development costs on PS3 "seems" to be higher than other platforms because most PS3 exclusive developers build their own engines from the ground up. Why? Because they want to take advantage of the PS3's unique architecture to the best of their abilities.

While many of the games on 360 use middleware engines such as Unreal.

[gaffyh]

If you think about this carefully, you'll understand why the development cost was so low. The engine was already developed, the character models were already made, the textures were already made.

This is why everyone complained that Gears 2 was more like Gears 1.5, because it didn't represent a huge leap in quality. And that was a correct conclusion obviously, because Gears 1 was by far the better game.

[Ratchet_Co]

The article made no mention of PS3 development costs, so grow up please.

Anyway I think it's interesting to see how Gears of War 2 only took $12 million. There must have been a huge amount of profit because it's such a high profile game.

[Martini]

There is an error in this article, according to the PDF files there was 15 programmers and 45 artists. involved. http://graphics.cs.williams...

Also interesting page from the article:

Lessons learned:Today’s hardware is too hard!

If it costs X (time, money, pain) to develop an efficient single-threaded algorithm, then…

Multithreaded version costs 2X

PlayStation 3 Cell version costs 5X

Current “GPGPU” version is costs: 10Xor more

Over 2Xis uneconomical for most software companies!

This is an argument against:

Hardware that requires difficult programming techniques

Non-unified memory architectures

Limited “GPGPU” programming models

[Fiyah3k]

12 mill to make, at least 200 mill off profit but still no dedicated servers....fvcks going on. The campaigns are grade A in both but the online aspect is mostly utilized by consumers so quit raping & cater, Epic!!!

[randomwiz]

yea... its not much cause they used the same engine... imagine how much gears 1 was.

[thewhoopimen]

hahah only you would think like that. 8 bit thinking. how about reuse of practically every graphical asset from the first game, sound, animation,engine, with very few "real" improvements like lighting.

To me the $12 mill budget represents why not too many people in the biz believe this was a "HUGE" graphical upgrade that Epic kept selling to gamers. Cuz it wasn't.

[HammockGames]

With any game, the cost depends on how the developers approach it. And this article really doesn't speak to the state of PS3 dev costs.

With Gears, the engine has been developed for some time and tweaked, which obviously saves money front. Other devs that employ the Unreal engine (and know how to use it) can also save on costs.

At launch, the PS3 didn't really have any middleware engine made for sharing. But this has been changing, and studios that have become adept at PS3 programming have been sharing their tech (e.g. Insomniac) to help others become more proficient.

Other devs, like Capcom, have simply refined their engine to make it a better fit for the PS3 (e.g. Lost Planet 2).

With these types of changes, PS3 costs should be more manageable as well and only continue to improve with time.

[masterg]

So they just needed a $3 profit per game to make $3 million. Damn!

[Anon1974]

Every post has to be an anti-Sony slight in some way. Please. Gamers are trying to have a discussion here.

Developers have already weighed in on this. Cost to develop on the 360 and PS3 are very similar, and both costs are tremendous when compared to developing on the Wii, but games on the Wii are a risky business due to buying habits of Wii owners.

Gears 2 was an excellent game and a great followup to an excellent game and personally I can't wait for Gears 3. Don't cheapen the developers accomplishment by making this another ridiculous, console wars thread.

[GameGambits]

This is exactly what I've been saying since Gears 2 got announced back last year. I knew the game was going to make insane amounts of dollars and yet being the lazy developer or greedy or whatever that EPIC is they won't give us dedicated servers.

Either Cliffy B is super ignorant or super lazy or both, because he flat out said in an interview that their Host peer to peer was going to be amazing and there was NO point in dedicated servers.

People 50 bucks a year for Xbox Live and they expect us to play this broken online mess when I can play Resistance 2 or Killzone 2 for FREE with NO lag.

I sold my copy of Gears 2 1 month after having it, but I had played Gears1 for about 7 months straight NON STOP day in and day out. I didn't suck at Gears 2 either for the month I played. I managed to get to the top 500 in 3 different game types, but when everytime I played it I was screaming at the TV or into my headset the words, "Bull sh*t," due to the inane amounts of ridiculous crap that happens in Gears 2 I just had to let it go.

With all the patches and problems Gears 2 had about 80% of it all could have been fixed with dedicated servers. This is greed and/or stupidity at its finest.

[HammockGames]

I thought Gears 1 and 2 were great games, too, and I still pop them in my 360 on a regular basis. I really don't give much thought as to their budget or profits. But...

...with all this money EPIC has been raking in (and lets not forget the DLC portion that's made them tons more), for the life of me I can't get over the lack of dedicated servers. The lag can drain all the fun out of online matches.

I love Xbox live, except for this. The PSN gets railed for not being up to par with Xbox Live, but I would contend the lack of dedicated servers can be a huge strike against Live - especially with a game like this. I don't get any lag at all playing Resistance 1 or 2, Killzone, and the list goes on. So why the hell can't they fix this for Gears?!

That's the one change I want to see made for Gears 3. Whether EPIC or Microsoft takes the initiative, I don't really care. Just fix it!!!

[Pika-pie]

I wonder how much Nintendo has made off Wii Play

[da720izcumin]

they've already said gears 1 cost them 10 million to make.
don't forget that they developed the engine themselves, so it would be just another internal project, that happened to have sold over 6+ million.

[kickaski]

it's interesting how almost none of you were reading videogame news two-and-a-half years ago
http://www.gamespot.com/xbo...

[menoyou]

of course it costed so little, its a rehash. they even reused some of the levels. didnt upgrade anything at all.

[commodore64]

Wow. How sad.

Nowhere in my post did i mention ANYTHING AT ALL negative about the ps3!
I merely asked other users to take a stab at the ps3 cost.

True gamers might have noticed that the unreal engine is also available for the PS3, thus making it a very fair question.

I think it just goes to show that any comment that is remotely ambiguous or may be misconstrued to be anti-ps3 is immediately damage controlled by the hardcore Sony fanbase!

There seems to be a lot of ps3-protection going on amongst all these 'gamers'...

[HammockGames]

"$12 million
15 programmers
12 artists

That's the ease of developing on 360.

Anyone care to take a stab at how much the same game would have cost on ps3?"

***************************** ********************

So let me get this straight. You open up the door for a discussion of PS3 development costs with what could be construed as a thinly veiled anti-PS3 sentiment (while boasting about the 360). Then you get irked when people actually speak to point(s) that you yourself brought up? I would suggest you stop posting potentially provocative and/or ambiguous comments if you don't like the responses you may receive. Drop the "higher than thou" attitude.

It would look to many as if you were playing the "PS3 costs way more to develop for" card, even though we all know that's really not the case. Read the last 2 lines of your comment and ask yourself how most would interpret that (objectively).

But don't attack everyone else because you posted essentially an open ended invitation to discuss costs/development in general. Pretty much all the comments subsequent to yours mentioned valid points (which you still haven't addressed).

And yes, the Unreal engine is employed on the PS3 and quite effectively so when in the right hands. So it's likely that costs for sequels on that engine should be relatively cheaper as well (e.g. if Unreal Tournament 4 were to come out).

Dollar figure-wise, I'm not sure how much Epic invested in UT3 on the PS3. You?

[kaveti6616]

Wow. WTF. They made back their cash so quickly. Gears 2 sold 5 million copies worldwide. So lets say an even 45 bucks per unit (because the price has dropped to 35) and that adds up to 225 million dollars. The profits for that game are unbelievable. If they increase the budget for Gears of War 3 I think the game will truly be EPIC.

[randomwiz]

Its funny, developers don't really get the full $60 per game

interesting article here:
http://www.oxmonline.com/ar...

basically, it says retailers make 20% of what that game costs ~ $12
$10~$12 royalties

developer makes ~$34 on a new $60 game

[chaosatom]

So around 100 million, but that's still a lot of dough.

[II Necroplasm II]

That is why the Unreal Engine is used so much. Most power for less money.

[PS3is4D]

I'm pretty impressed. When I completed Gears of War 2, I thought it had a $25 million dollar budget. I can only imagine what Gears of War 3 would look like if Epic had the same $40 million dollar budget that Guerilla Games had for Killzone 2.

[Disccordia]

Don't forget though.. if you add the money it's taken Epic to develop the Unreal Engine over the course of 15 years or so, it's not going to look so favourably against that $40m budget that KZ2 had.

[DARK WITNESS]

@ Luna Valhalla

ya but remember they licence the engine to other devs. infact its prob the most used engine this gen so they have prob made back their development costs from the licences alone.

then there is all the profit from gears one that may have offset the development costs as well.

[rockleex]

Having to use that money to build the engine from the ground up for Killzone 2.

Unreal Engine 3's budget is not a part of the Gears of War 2 budget.

[LazyDevs]

15 years.....haha that is so funny. How do you figure it took 15 years? Unreal engine 2 was created in 2001 then Unreal engine 3 came out when? And how do you get 15 years from that? You do know that Epic has made PC games from the original Unreal engine in 1998. Plus GG spent over 50 mill for the Killzone 2 game, thats funny we could get 4 Gears of War games for the price of Killzone 2. And people wonder why people are jumping ship and making PS3 exclusives multiplatform.

[mastiffchild]

I'd be more interested in seeing what the cost of the first gears game was where they had to create the characters, textures etc as there wasn't a big leap forwards with Gears2 and they reused a lot of the stif from the first game-not that there's anything wrong in that and both games were very enjoyable. Also they really raced through dev with number two which helped keep costs down AND was the reason they prolly didn't push the series more way from the first game too.

GG and KZ2 iosn't a fair comparison either considering the R&D they did while having to make a complete engine(while Epic had UE3 already going)for eberything so maybe comparing costs for KZ3 and Gears1 would be fairer, or U2 and Gears1, no? I say this as I heard the cost of Motorstorm2 was lower than the first game out at launch for PS3--I think costs are now going to level off for a while as we've now got enginges for every machine up and running and unless the engines are redone costs should remain fairly static or go down as people learn to code more efficiently for the current gen consoles.

[randomwiz]

like others have said, a majority of Killzone 2's development cost was the engine.

Gears of War 2 is about 250,000 lines of C++ code
Unreal Engine is about 2,000,000 lines of C++ code

You can imagine how much time and effort it costs to make an engine

[raztad]

@Lazy

You are honoring your nickname, arent you? You easily could avoid embarrass yourself with that comment READING rockleex's post just BEFORE yours.

@everybody

Gears2 is Gears 1.2 with semi-broken online and Horde mode.

If you look at the staff is mostly artists (45). That makes sense, new maps, some new textures textures and new story. Quick cashin. Amazingly good for Epic. Its a shame for gamers though.

Example of how a next iteration should be UC1 ---> UC2. I can pay full price for that. I dont want rehashes with little to none improvements.

[Troll-Killer]

....and they made their $$ back in just a few hours. :D

[caRnAGEconcept]

Now I am not stating this with any amount of certainty whatsoever.. But my guess would be that Gears' (suprisingly) low budget cost was a result of the developing company not having to pay royalties or a licensing fee (which is expensive.. very) for a proprietary game engine, because epic themselves have been making the unreal engine for he better party of ten years now..

As a result of this.. I would imagine it's cheaper to produce by at least SOMEthing. Not to mention; I would stake my middle testicle on the fact that nobody is better at "cheap, in house, cost-effective optimization" of the Unreal 3 engine beyond the talent and knowledge of epic themselves..

Again, I do not know this for certain.. but it makes sense.

[Chris399]

The actual price is sealed, via contractual obligations, and they probably charge more towards major players - EA, Sega, etc..

So it's expensive, but it's not crazy expensive when you're looking at developing an HD game. That said, Epic would save a bit on development time, as I'm certain they are the most familiar with their own technology.

[mastiffchild]

Surely the bigger players you list would actually pay less for the use of middleware as they'll be the ones using it most and in most transactions you do best buying in any kind of bulk(i.e the number of times/the number of something you buy at once the unit price gets cheaper, no?)and surely EA, for example, could do a four game or whatever deal for the middleware.

IDK but it struck me as odd you'd think the big guys would pay more when in other fields it's never the case. Obviously if you know something I don't then fair play.

[Chris399]

Yes, the major players likely pay less for the license, as they're using it in bulk.

[Blow Out Your Brains]

Gears of War is a stellar game and I thought it would have cost at least double that. Epic makes a nice profit for sure and they should.

[-MD-]

It was a great game.

[Veneno]

is because it was just a re-hash of the first game. Just like bioshock 2 will be.

[Crazyglues]

"is because it was just a re-hash of the first game. Just like bioshock 2 will be." -Veneno

Yes I agree (most part 2's are, it's rare that a game is re-done from the ground up for part 2) and even more of a reason for these game companies to go hard on their first game, because if you do the math.

5 million sold on part 2 that's like 300 million grossed for a game that cost 12 million to make.. I didn't even add download content either.

[ambientFLIER]

Developers get only a fraction of the $59.99 that you pay. But still, even 25% of it is ton of money...

[Gitaroo]

I read at beyond 3d, they don't take the cost of making UE3 into account for Gears 1 and said it cost 10 millions to amke because they own the engine. Which isn't a fair comparison to others title.

[caRnAGEconcept]

I mean.. isn't that what I literally JUST said? I mean.. I don't knnow; I'm not a doctor or anything. No big deal, just internal chuckle worthy.

[iagainsti120]

so figure out how much the engine license is and at that to the tag and there you go

[wxer]

lol
no wonder it had crapy last gen 5 on 5 online
and glitchy as hell game play

it was cheap

lol

[-MD-]

The only problem I've ever experienced on GoW2 is matchmaking I've never seen these 'glitches' and 'lag' Sony fans insist happens on a constant basis.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

I never played Gears or Gears 2 online but they both outsold MGS4, Killzone 2, LPB and Resistance combined.

[talltony]

Oh so its obviously better than all those games you mentioned cause sales tell you how good a game is, right wii sports?. Dnt kid yourself the first gears was better than gears 2. I couldnt take the glitches and the host bullsh*t anymore! If I could describe Gears in 1 word it would be "Inconsistent"!

[terrandragon]

Uncharted 2 has 5 v 5, and it is definitely NOT last-gen.

[EasilyTheBest]

"no wonder it had crapy last gen 5 on 5 online
and glitchy as hell game play"

What bit had glitchy as hell gameplay?
Oh yes your a child fanboy, you havent even played it...

It wasnt a million miles away from killzone 2, what would it look like with 40 million spent on it I wonder..

[Total_Retard]

the same, becouse gears maxed out the shtbox,

mabey they could fix the online.. make it less shtty

[Arnon]

Maybe you could fix your grammar and make more sense.

Oh wait, you cant, you're a Total Retard.

[MrJack]

Most of KZ2's budget was spent building the engine from the ground up. Even with $100 million Epic couldnt squeeze much more out of the UE engine

[topgeareasy]

as they just copied tech from the first ones

[wxer]

i got an xbox
and i do have this game

im conceded via ethernet

a have a 100mg DSL

and it is laggy and glitchy

and ofcorse its so cheap

everything was there already
they just copied and pasted killswitch code
and changed the graphics

[TheMART]

Nasim, don't lie, you don't have a 360.

Ah wait you say you got a XBOX. Thats the old XBOX. Did your mum and dad spend that extra on you after the PS3 you're still paying off making shoarma every day in Syria?

[Gaurav42]

12 million$, for a supposedly AAA game, GTA 4 cost 100 million, and estimates pitch Killzone 2 at around 60- 70 million, but then again, GTA 4 had alot of licensed music, and KZ2 made its engine from scratch.

The UE3 was already made by epic, and they could use models textures etc from gears one, so that reduced costs.

[Double Toasted]

Pfftt...that game is well beyond AAA and already in the history books of gaming...

[kaveti6616]

AAA actually does refer to the budget. Despite the fact that Gears of War 2 received critical acclaim, it is not a AAA title in the financial sense. The term AAA has been hijacked to mean high quality.

[Persistantthug]

I'm sorry,

I can't buy that.

[kaveti6616]

Yes, Persistantthug. They are AAA.

Too Human had, from what I've read, a very large budget, somewhere in the ballpark of 90 million dollars.

Haze may have had a big budget, too, but I wouldn't know.

Think of AAA titles like big-budget films. They don't have to be good. Spider-Man 3 had a very large budget but was not well-received.
No Country for Old Men had a much smaller budget but was critically acclaimed. The term AAA will still refer to the budget size, at least for people who don't care to make any more bastardizations to terminology.

[gameman]

well so much for a last gen game and the problem is there is no upgrade in the graphics also it sales only cause the bots worship it like a god to them XD and we still hear them gears this , halo that

[TheMART]

Damn only 12 million invested and then selling 5 to 6 mln. copies. If I'm remembering it right, first Gears costed 10 mln. to make and also sold over 6 mln. copies.

Compare that to 60 mln. invested and only sold 1.5 to 2 mln. copies (KZ2).

So the things said at launch, the PS3 is 5 x as expensive to make a blockbuster game for, still fits EXACTLY. 5 x 12 mln. = 60 mln., Gears of War 2 and KZ2 released witin a few months. Gears 2 got rated 9.3 out of 10, KZ2 got rated 9.1 out of 10 (Metacritic).

[Double Toasted]

Gears game has grossed MS and Epic $300 million...thats per game, thats a total of $600 million. KZ2 has made like...$60 million...thats funny. KZ2 will never reach that level of grandeur...never.

[Mo0eY]

"Damn only 12 million invested"

No wonder the game had/still has so many giltches, and the netcode was sh-t.

[Fiyah3k]

All this deniro but still without any dedicated servers at all & with a skilled game like gearz 1 online it's necessary that every hit counts.

[talltony]

if the reviewers knew the lag and glitches in gears 2 would stay there as long as they did then you know that the game would be rated much lower. They gave gears 2 the bennefit of the doubt. Anyways I would take killzone 2 any day of the freakin week over gears 2. any day! Gears 2 is actually worse than Gears 1.

[Captain Tuttle]

The important question is how much Gears 1 cost to make. Basically Gears 2 is just a polished up Gears 1.

Edit: And does anyone else find Examiner stories annoying? They just find a forum post (from GAF usually) and just type up a quick and dirty description.

[likedamaster]

It's apparent Gears 1 cost a lot more especially building this game along with the Unreal Engine 3 itself at the same time. Took a lot more time and therefore more $$ but Gears 1 also sold 1 million more than Gears 2, currently.

[thehitman]

They make their own engine which they been tuning it for years so they know what they doing and sequels never cost that much anyway since they have a lot of code already and designs so less work. Nice to see they making money.

[Troll_Police]

Only $12? That's why the online sucked.

[Double Toasted]

than KZ2. Hmmmm....

[tripewire]

You wish

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Did he seriously just say that?

Seriously?

I don't know a single person that could honestly say Gears 2's online is even close to Killzone 2's.

[Troll_Police]

Killzone 2 is lag free online with my built in wireless connection while Gears 2 online is laggy and glitchy as hell with my Xbox wired connection. Fact.

[StanLee]

1. Killzone 2 does have lag online.
2. While I would admit the online modes are better than Gears of War 2, in my opinion, no one plays the game online. You have to set your search to Worldwide to find a decent game.

[likedamaster]

Yet there's 3X more people playing Gears 2 than Killzone 2.

[raztad]

Bigger userbase? not many games to choose from perhaps?

Quantity =/= Quality

[kaveti6616]

EPIC can fix the online right this minute if they run the game off of dedicated servers. God knows they have the money to do it. But at this point maybe they realize that even if they fix the online, very few people would return to it.

[Double Toasted]

is available NOW for Gold members on the 360...

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

This has no effect on me, but bubbles for the heads up to everyone.

Thanks.

[likedamaster]

Uh... played it, beat it, played co-op and beat it again... and again, and again. Went back to Shadow Complex and will be playing till Batman arrives. Section 8 demo is also out. ;) <-- It's actually pretty good. A little change of pace from the Halo's, Gear's, and COD's. You can super run, super jump, and super shoot... it's pretty cool.

[Mo0eY]

Costs do not include the thousands of Xbox 360s that RRoD in development.

[Mo0eY]

And notice the bots actually come out of their cave when it comes to Gears. They are nowhere in sight when the PS3 slim dominates the front page.

[NeptuneOO7]

What are you talking about ? The site is flooded with idiots like you always trying to downplay the 360.

GTFO !

[Fiyah3k]

I luv apple bottoms!

[sugard0]

Could they not pass on some of the savings to the consumer by either lowering the price at release or making some of the DLC free.

[_MidNight_]

12 Million is very good for a game like Gears. Just imagine how many Gears type games MS could have had if they didn't spend that $50 Million on GTA IV

[Double Toasted]

hurt...

[tripewire]

It shows

Seeing as im a GAMER, not an INVESTOR, Im quite happy to have my kajillion dollar volumetric smoke and wicked lighting effects over 2d flame sprites and painted-on luminosity.

It's like bragging that your Corolla cost less to make than someone elses Ferrari. Good for you.....

[Father Murder X]

When I saw the title for the article I knew that the Sony boys would be in here talking about Gears 1.5 and the commercial flop that is Killzone 2.

Fact: Gears had a way cheaper budget than KZ2 apparently people liked it more because it sold more. I would figure that Gears maybe the better game. Killzone 1 and 2 are not popular titles outside of the hardcore Sony boys. Gears is mainstream. This isn't my opinion it is fact!!!!!

So I guess that sales don't matter. Tell that to all the developers who have been laid off. Tell their families that sales don't matter. Maybe on christmas he could tell his children "we are broke and homeless but at least I made a great looking poor selling game for the Ps3 that the fanboys liked"!!!

[Double Toasted]

hehe...

[tripewire]

Ahhh, so the reason people keep buying 360s is the charity of giving people at the repair stations jobs?

Your mentality is similar to someone walking out of Lord Of The Rings (example) saying "The Budget was obviously too big. The special effects were awesome, and it was really well produced, but if 10 million people dont see it today it sucks"

F***ing amatuers.

[rhood022]

1. It was one of you that brought up KZ 2 in the first place.

2. Selling more =/= a "better game."

Going by that logic, Wii Sports is the best game ever.

[snp]

on second thoughts. meh.

[CrashFallen]

just because a game sells more does not mean it is a better game... hell i can say for a gr8 example like Madden 2k5 is so ahead of its time that it is a better game then any of the Madden games that continually come out each year and yet look at the sells... 2 million in 2 days so it really says something about how people dont know any better... and why is people comparing Gears 2 with Killzone 2 their 2 totally different games and Killzone 2 sold 2 million+, does that make it a failure or even a commercial flop in your eyes? NO. point blank..

nuff said.

[PStu'rd]

GeoW2 - 2 years in development, 12million in costs, 6 million sold, AAA game

Mediocrezone 2- 4 years in development, 60million in costs, 1 million sold, AAA quality lens flare effect, gameplay/controls broken

Probably only GT5 can create an even greater embarrassment for this gens sega lolol

[talltony]

your a idiot. U dnt own a ps3 or have you ever seen killzone 2. Killzone 2 controls are perfect now. They fixed them with high precision mode. Killzone 2 is not for noobs like you. So you can stick to ur laggy 5 on 5 bullsh*t! So whenever you die you can yell, "host advantage!"

[da720izcumin]

that was funny...

[Henry Cain]

Not bad but they should have spent more time and money, because the game had a lot of glitches that needed to be fix.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Yeah...

...looks like someone was feelin' the heat from MS.

What's this, children?

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[DelbertGrady]

Some devs aren't as lazy as others. I'm in particula thinking about the team who got 5 years + $60 million and couldn't even get the controls right. Embarrassing.

[PStu'rd]

Well in polyphony's defense, they are japanese and to be fair almost all japanese devs excluding capcom this gen are massive turds (See SCEJ - a collection of turds)

Comparing GG to EPIC is also unfair. EPIC went into this gen with a reputation of delivering the best shooters on the market while the good folks at GG had come from a not so successful gen of delivering one of the biggest FPS failures of all times + Sony stuck them with the writer whos only previous work includes cut-out curse lines from Die Hard 3.........not to mention ps3 is uncodable trash

Cant really call them lazy although polyphony hasnt made any real gameplay progressions since GT3 so lazy may indeed be the right word. But hey, what do they care? GT5p was utter garbage yet ps3tards still bought it. As long as it sells they may as well go into hibernation

[DelbertGrady]

Not Polyphony, I meant Gorilla Games.

Polyphony have had what, 6 years, and the racing still looks as static and robotic as it did in the PS1 days. New graphics, last gen gameplay. Compare it gameplaywise to games like Forza and NFS Shift who portray the power of the cars in a really immersive way. Roaring engines and in-car cams that shake when you go fast etc. They convey the sense of speed in a much more realistic way than GT. In comparison GT feels like driving a hovercraft. But what am I talking about here, folks? Gameplay?! Like anyone plays games these days? It's all about the graphics cause we want to hang our games on the wall, not play them...

[Fatmanp]

12 million and they still couldnt make a it good online.

[bigjclassic]

But you have to remeber the own the Epic engine, so costs would be dramatically reduced. Plus counting the sales for Gears 1. If they had to liscene the midleware it would have cost more.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

KZ2's budget included the engine, people!!!

Even if it hadn't, it looks miles better than any other console game out right now. Why complain about the budget?

I'm thrilled that Epic has gotten so good at making these things, but you're all taking this too far.

It only cost that much because the character models, environments, and audio tools were there from the first game. It's like making a Half-life 2 mod. They pulled it off beautifully, but it's basically a mod.

Just to be clear, Gears 2 had one of the best campaigns I've ever played. Also...the multi-player sucked. Lols.

[kaz-hirai]

$12 million to complete

Yet it was still one of the glitchest games this gen ;-D

Dont worry cliffyB maybe you could steal the formula of an old game like Super Metroid

Oh WAIT ! ;-D!!!!

[Mr Face Creamer]

How old are you?

Your one pathetic droid lol, do you really have to makeup a 100 accounts with the names of Japanese Sony turds on them just to post on N4G?

[kewlkat007]

and they wanna raise video game prices...

[tomdrum6]

what does 12 artists include?

[likedamaster]

There were 45 artists. http://graphics.cs.williams... <-- scroll down to page 10.

[BlackPrince 42]

Most of the assets for GeOW 2 came from the first game. Textures, lighting systems, character models, netcode (though that's even worse), all carried over from the first game.

The actual cost of the game would really include all this other stuff. Not that it still isn't a massive success though.

[Digital Commando]

But since they already had the engine working well they ready just had to design.

[Saaking]

The reason for Killzone 2's high budget was that they had to build the engine completely from scratch and Sony wanted it to be a demonstration of what the PS3 could really do. Gears and Gears 2 both used the UE3 which is already developed so that minimized costs greatly. It's pretty simple to understand. Had Gears 2 used a new engine it would have been a lot more expensive.

[DelbertGrady]

So. The difference was that Epic made a game that people wanted to play on an engine that devs wanted to use, while GG wasted money on a tech demo with lousy controls that ended up in the bargain bin a week after it's release?

Unreal Engine 4 will surely be a beast considering all the money Epic have made from it's games and licensing it's engine.

[devilhunterx]

For few dollars more they could have fixed the online lag. Oh well. You dont get what you paid for :)

[Pootangpie]

but now I relize your mentally challenged and incapable of thinking but don't worry I'll educate you and see if you tiny minds can handle this info Gears of war 2 cost less because it used an Updated and modified UE3 ENGINE! of course it doesn't need a big budget DUH!! but despite not haveing as big of a budget during development it still murder KZ2 in terms of sales it's also a much better game as well I hope I didn't strain your brains with that much info here have a cookie :)

[Troll_Police]

So that mean that Wii Sports is better than Gears 2 and Killzone 2. It sold better so it has to be better. Interesting. Spin move time.

[crillyconlig]

seems youve never played killzone2 then

[skagrerrrr]

Laggy & no dedicated servers, Cliffy B must have pocketed all the monies for the servers

[itchy18]

development cost over 50mil to 70mil, well you guys are all wrong. the development of killzone 2 only cost around 20mil. this is my source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[ico92]

thats not alot when compared to killzone 2's 30 million budget mgs4 and too humans 70million budget and shenmue,gta4's 100 million budget

[ico92]

http://blog.knowyourmoney.c... this has the list of the most expensive games of all time killzone 2 has a budget of 40million

[CrashFallen]

ya... thats how much it took to use the full power of the 360.... hmmm even then for 60% of the power of the PS3 it took 50 million... hmmm... keep trying... I heard Splinter Cell Conviction is suppose to pump out the full power of the 360 with no in game loading screens... will see how much that'll cost u guys once the article comes out.

[PS360PCROCKS]

Well Gears 1 probably cost far more. A lot of the work had already been done with character design and so on...so 12 million sounds pretty good. Uncharted 2 was probably the same thing, all the preliminary work was done on Uncharted 1 so a lot of it was optimization of game and the engine and building new levels.

[keysy420]

the first one was better it looked like a 12 million dollar game instead of a 20 million

[Honolulu]

Very efficient studio. :)
However, the construction of the Unreal engine took a lot more manpower to complete, they got a rather big freeride since the framework and engine was already built specifically and customized for Gears 2 after they finished the first one.

[Kaze_No_Kidoban]

thats impressive but not as much as the 1 million gears of war 1 budge

[darkequitus]

while certain individuals make negative remarks on Gears success and go off collect their monthly $2 allowance from their parents, Epics Games employees count their money on the way to the bank and buy themselves a new Lamborghini on the way home. LOL

[hates video games]

But there wasn't many differences between Gears 1 and 2.

[Grandreaper9999]

I think a fair comparison would be Gears 2 comparing to a recent Valve game that utilized Source. Kind of the same situations for both developers I would assume. They both can use their own proprietary engines and whip up good games fairly quickly.

I fail to see why KZ2 is being included in comparisons. Totally different situations for the two Studios. I'm fairly certain Sony and Microsoft also covered some of their costs since they were their prized titles or this year/last.

I really want to see a new game using the Killzone 2's engine. They poured a lot of money into that thing..

[theroadtoruin]

thats sad so much work and money went into gay game