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If this game had ten times the budget...

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
It blows my mind when I consider that most of the big AAA releases these days have around or over ten times the budget have. You can take that as a slight but I think it's actually a pretty big testament to what Cryptic is capable of.

I recall reading various estimates that placed STO's development budget at $13 million, with maybe $20 million spent by launch, including marketing.

Almost every AAA title these days seems to break $100 million and the franchise titles like TOR and DCUO are pushing $150-200 million.

I really think, when you stop to reflect, that Cryptic can do more per dollar and per hour than anyone else.

What do you think this game would be like, though, if they'd actually had ten times the budget and twice the development time? I seriously think you'd have just about the best MMO imaginable. I'm not sure if it could have been profitable, honestly, looking at what happened with a game like APB. But I really would like to see what a heavily capitalized Cryptic product would look like.
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    ... it would be as good as WoW.

    lol

    All joking aside, I love STO. It still needs a lot of improvement and I think the skill system needs a complete overhaul but its a good game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    While Cryptic has done some pretty awesome things despite- or perhaps in spite of - the low budget, there's one problem.

    The low budget shows.

    It's like taking a top of the line Bugatti sports car... and comparing it to Cryptic's home built kit car. Sure, you can have a lot of fun in either of them... but the difference permeates everything. How would they do the a bigger team and a comparable budget?

    Outstanding.

    Now, I'm going to go back to watching Top Gear.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    phlyto wrote: »
    While Cryptic has done some pretty awesome things despite- or perhaps in spite of - the low budget, there's one problem.

    The low budget shows.

    It's like taking a top of the line Bugatti sports car... and comparing it to Cryptic's home built kit car. Sure, you can have a lot of fun in either of them... but the difference permeates everything. How would they do the a bigger team and a comparable budget?

    Outstanding.

    Now, I'm going to go back to watching Top Gear.

    Till the "JJ Trek Movie of 2009" Star Trek has/was pretty much been the under funded B**trd child of Paramount and now CBS.

    Oh sure They let the budget soar a bit for TMP (1979), but ever since then it's been... Oooo Let's see how much we can milk this puppy for... Oh, and BTW, you can only have $20 bucks.

    Why should we expect anything else from this endeavour...?

    Because now...WE can put our money where our hearts have been for the last 44 years...

    Here's my $20 bucks... ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    DaveyNY wrote: »
    Oh sure They let the budget soar a bit for TMP (1979), but ever since then it's been... Oooo Let's see how much we can milk this puppy for... Oh, and BTW, you can only have $20 bucks
    This explains why they copied FX shots in Generations from the film prior.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    What we need is an insane billionaire in the community!

    I could imagine, while it still wouldn't be what everyone wanted (something no amount of money could do), it'd be doing what it's doing now a whole lot better.

    though i must admit, sometimes a lack of budget can work for you. as mentioned cryptic seems to know how to stretch every dollar out. it's like movies, nowadays everything is 'and we did that with a hundred million dollars worth of cg' there's no fun stories to tell like there was years ago, no stories of lying to cops to get a scene done or such that makes audio commentaries of movies from the 80's an absolute blast to listen to. the adversity of lack of money brings about their ingenuity.

    so who knows, maybe they'd just be pulling a blizzard with all that money and just hoarding it instead of putting it to much needed use. and maybe we'd end up with a game that was worse, gah i'm too pessimistic!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    I don't know if it would have been better they could have wasted millions and years on something that the subscribers would have ended up hating.

    The low budget and short time may have really forced them to think about what they wanted to offer. I mean we got two different types of game play and good graphics.

    I don't think throwing larger sums of money and more time development is a guarantee of success anymore. Investors could have forced them to push the game in the wrong direction.

    The small budget and short development may have been it's biggest weakness but could really help in the long run. Because STO didn't rack up massive debt.

    I do think they did a lot with what they had.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    A larger budget makes any game better. Cryptic did this on a shoestring and it shows. That doesn't mean it's a horrible game, but it can't compare with AAA titles that have budgets 10x its size.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    If the Budget would be larger we would have a decent Klingon faction and not the place holder which is now there, until the players create the desperate needed content, so the Devs can entirely switch over to Fedside stuff :(
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    It blows my mind when I consider that most of the big AAA releases these days have around or over ten times the budget have. You can take that as a slight but I think it's actually a pretty big testament to what Cryptic is capable of.

    I recall reading various estimates that placed STO's development budget at $13 million, with maybe $20 million spent by launch, including marketing.

    Almost every AAA title these days seems to break $100 million and the franchise titles like TOR and DCUO are pushing $150-200 million.

    I really think, when you stop to reflect, that Cryptic can do more per dollar and per hour than anyone else.

    What do you think this game would be like, though, if they'd actually had ten times the budget and twice the development time? I seriously think you'd have just about the best MMO imaginable. I'm not sure if it could have been profitable, honestly, looking at what happened with a game like APB. But I really would like to see what a heavily capitalized Cryptic product would look like.

    I'll be honest, given the content that's been revealed with TOR, Cryptic has done very well budget-wise with STO. Some of TOR's budget is obviously into lots of artists and all the Voice Acting talent, which takes a good portion of the voice actors from LA, Texas, NY, Canada, and outside the US.

    If Cryptic had a larger budget with STO, I'm sure they would hire a ton of programmers and artists and flesh out areas we desperately need in fleshing out cannon worlds we could explore than just have 1 zone per planet (with the excpetion of Qo'nos's 2 zones).

    Dare I dream of fully fleshed out ships that are architectually accurate, like if you're on a Defiant, it's small and cramped, or large and luxurious with a Galaxy.


    So many possibilities with money.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    it s obvious, we got what they wanted to invest in...an average game... sure some people love it and found it excellent...they are just a minority though. very few games got great success with little money invested...they were/are usually very original and/or ground breaker.

    Now if you look at their priorities for the next seasons...it s not about playable content( roughly some a new weekly serie every 2 month and adding and making fed missions available for Klingon) In fact they seem to focus on improving/modifying existing game mechanics since the ones they came up with during the game development turned out to be...weak

    why do you think ground combat and end game for example are..."not really interesting"...cause they did not have enough time to think through them or test them properly...i can t recall the exact wording but they basically admitted they did the best they could in the time allowed...no surprise at the end...

    The time they did not have to develop the game properly prior launch is spent now... this time subsidized by us.

    one thing really made me laugh...it was when Mr Emmert expressed its surprised reading STO rating at launch... Really mate... you did not know your game was bellow average, repetitive and buggy... you can t get a good meal if you rush the cook and cut corners...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    Considering this game went from nothing to launch in under 1 & 1/2 years, they did very well in my book.

    All we can hope for is that Atari stop using STO as a cash cow.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    MGDawson wrote: »
    Considering this game went from nothing to launch in under 1 & 1/2 years, they did very well in my book.

    All we can hope for is that Atari stop using STO as a cash cow.

    and the problem with that is that they've now spent the last 12 months getting the game "where we want", mission replay, accolades, revamping MA, sector space yada yada yada.

    so where the Romulans should have been in game a year after launch we've had to wait for cryptic to totally rework the game.

    as for the game being a cash cow, it was always going to be, simply by the fact its called "star trek".
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