Author Topic: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain  (Read 9170 times)

tushantin

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #15 on: March 02, 2012, 07:31:48 am »
i'll riverdance all the way to Ireland and back.
Don't leave home without me!

Lennis

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #16 on: March 03, 2012, 12:33:23 am »
I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed at this news.  My heart almost stopped when I saw the headline.  Would they really name a sequel Chrono Bind?

One thing I do know: putting the name "Chrono" on something that is not Chrono Trigger related was a bad PR move.  I'm sure they didn't consider the hopes of CT fans when they made this decision, but it's still a bit embarrassing to have a blog point out that this is not the long-awaited Chrono 3.  Someone in the Square/Enix office needs a thorough chewing-out for letting this happen.

idioticidioms

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #17 on: March 04, 2012, 07:57:49 pm »
man, you all are like a bunch of impatient kids, lol. Do you really think they went through all the trouble of making a DS version of CT that adds a whole bunch of new cutscenes if they weren't planning on making a new Chrono game?

Honestly, what I think is going on is that they are adding a new card game into the mix called Chrono Break to really gauge peoples reactions and get them excited and amped up. That way, when they finally do put out a new Chrono game; everyone goes and buys it when it's fresh and costs a lot.

Imagine; a new chrono game out on a new system that surpasses the xbox 360 and the PS3 and a bunch of new and old fans excited as hell to see another addition to the series. They would make bank; and ever since final fantasy 7, Square has been all about the money.

They'll probably wait for the next wave of gaming consoles to make remakes of the psx final fantasy games as well; since there is a good amount of clamor for remakes of 7, 8, and 9.

They would literally have enough titles with just those four to make over a trillion dollars in sales the first year, across the world.

Lennis

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #18 on: March 04, 2012, 08:56:57 pm »
They'll probably wait for the next wave of gaming consoles to make remakes of the psx final fantasy games as well; since there is a good amount of clamor for remakes of 7, 8, and 9.

They would literally have enough titles with just those four to make over a trillion dollars in sales the first year, across the world.

Are you forgetting that we live in a reality in which Final Fantasy 14 exists?

All kidding aside, we have to acknowledge that most of the men who developed the earlier Final Fantasy's have left the company.  It will be hard to replicate the old magic - and buzz - without them.   We'll be lucky to see a remake of VII.  Eight and Nine?  Not going to happen.

HeadlessFritz

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #19 on: March 08, 2012, 11:35:38 pm »
 :picardno

FFXIII...  Someone needs to suffer.

DarthMagus

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #20 on: March 12, 2012, 02:51:14 am »
Man, this makes me cry. When I saw the post on the front page I was so excited! I can still cling to hope.

Also, hi guys! It's been a very long time since I've been around. I feel this is a travesty.

X4220

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #21 on: March 12, 2012, 10:54:40 am »
man, you all are like a bunch of impatient kids, lol. Do you really think they went through all the trouble of making a DS version of CT that adds a whole bunch of new cutscenes if they weren't planning on making a new Chrono game?

Honestly, what I think is going on is that they are adding a new card game into the mix called Chrono Break to really gauge peoples reactions and get them excited and amped up. That way, when they finally do put out a new Chrono game; everyone goes and buys it when it's fresh and costs a lot.

Imagine; a new chrono game out on a new system that surpasses the xbox 360 and the PS3 and a bunch of new and old fans excited as hell to see another addition to the series. They would make bank; and ever since final fantasy 7, Square has been all about the money.

They'll probably wait for the next wave of gaming consoles to make remakes of the psx final fantasy games as well; since there is a good amount of clamor for remakes of 7, 8, and 9.

They would literally have enough titles with just those four to make over a trillion dollars in sales the first year, across the world.
First, please bear with my English...
I'm not sure is this sarcasm post.If is not, I must disagree with you.
We, Chrono fans have all reasons to be impatient, pissed, enraged, and overall fueled with every negative emotion towards Shit-Enix.
When I browse trash they published/developed/funded in last ten years I literally curse SE.I cannot believe that mediocre franchise Star Ocean got chance on PS2, and then on HD consoles, not to mention even worse games SE greenlight while keeping Chrono IP deeply buried.
I never owned portable console (my monthly paycheck is 300 euros) but I doubt that they put any real effort/money/time in CT DS.For SE that was just quick and easy money.
And why would they wait for PS4/X720/Wii U for new Chrono title?Smaller userbase?Even more expensive development?In few years Chrono will not mean almost anything to CoD/Ass Creed/soulless WRPGs gaming generation...
Plus new Chrono game is almost impossible without certain persons, and they aren't getting any younger.Chrono title without Kato and Mitsuda!!??No fucking way!!
If SE don't announce enxanced version of CC (with Magus, less caracters) for 3DS/Vita in next 2-3 years, then IMHO, all hope is lost...

idioticidioms

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #22 on: August 26, 2012, 03:50:48 pm »
man, you all are like a bunch of impatient kids, lol. Do you really think they went through all the trouble of making a DS version of CT that adds a whole bunch of new cutscenes if they weren't planning on making a new Chrono game?

Honestly, what I think is going on is that they are adding a new card game into the mix called Chrono Break to really gauge peoples reactions and get them excited and amped up. That way, when they finally do put out a new Chrono game; everyone goes and buys it when it's fresh and costs a lot.

Imagine; a new chrono game out on a new system that surpasses the xbox 360 and the PS3 and a bunch of new and old fans excited as hell to see another addition to the series. They would make bank; and ever since final fantasy 7, Square has been all about the money.

They'll probably wait for the next wave of gaming consoles to make remakes of the psx final fantasy games as well; since there is a good amount of clamor for remakes of 7, 8, and 9.

They would literally have enough titles with just those four to make over a trillion dollars in sales the first year, across the world.
First, please bear with my English...
I'm not sure is this sarcasm post.If is not, I must disagree with you.
We, Chrono fans have all reasons to be impatient, pissed, enraged, and overall fueled with every negative emotion towards Shit-Enix.
When I browse trash they published/developed/funded in last ten years I literally curse SE.I cannot believe that mediocre franchise Star Ocean got chance on PS2, and then on HD consoles, not to mention even worse games SE greenlight while keeping Chrono IP deeply buried.
I never owned portable console (my monthly paycheck is 300 euros) but I doubt that they put any real effort/money/time in CT DS.For SE that was just quick and easy money.
And why would they wait for PS4/X720/Wii U for new Chrono title?Smaller userbase?Even more expensive development?In few years Chrono will not mean almost anything to CoD/Ass Creed/soulless WRPGs gaming generation...
Plus new Chrono game is almost impossible without certain persons, and they aren't getting any younger.Chrono title without Kato and Mitsuda!!??No fucking way!!
If SE don't announce enxanced version of CC (with Magus, less caracters) for 3DS/Vita in next 2-3 years, then IMHO, all hope is lost...

Sorry if this is a dead-thread, now.

No, you really don't have the right. It's not your creation and it's not your place to judge what they do with their creation. Yeah, it's a shitty situation that they love money more than their fan-base; but that's just the way of the world at the moment.

Excuse me; mediocre? Star Ocean is a far superior RPG compared to the Final Fantasy series. The amount of time and effort and care that went into each game; the pure attention to detail for the sake of the fans. Star Ocean is an overly-under-appreciated series that should have been released in America back in the days of SNES. It would have blown FFVI out of the water; definitely would have blown Secret of Mana out of the water and SoM was a pretty beloved game.

Dude, you think small. Do you really think that after the graphics and vast superiority of the PS3 and XBOX 360 systems that people AREN'T going to be willing to go down and shell out 400-600 dollars for the next systems to grace the floor? In a few years time, Chrono and Final Fantasy will still be pertinent; there will still be people who want it. Think more of Diablo III and the 12-14 years it took them to make that sequel. Do you see how many people were still interested and bought it purely for the sake of their nostalgia?

Man, again; you think small. You don't think they already have the story and everything mapped out and ready? They've probably had it sitting on their shelves for years, waiting for an opportune moment to put it out. You won't see a version of CC for the 3DS. 3DS is vastly losing popularity and would be a horrible system to remake it on. Especially since they could do more with it by putting it on the PSP or PS3. You put any game on the DS or 3DS and you have to compromise quality of graphics and the game.

Lennis

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #23 on: August 26, 2012, 06:53:17 pm »
Dude, you think small. Do you really think that after the graphics and vast superiority of the PS3 and XBOX 360 systems that people AREN'T going to be willing to go down and shell out 400-600 dollars for the next systems to grace the floor? In a few years time, Chrono and Final Fantasy will still be pertinent; there will still be people who want it. Think more of Diablo III and the 12-14 years it took them to make that sequel. Do you see how many people were still interested and bought it purely for the sake of their nostalgia?

I want to believe that you are right, but with the state the industry is in right now, I do not have high hopes that this will happen.

As we are nearing the end of the lifecycle of the current generation of consoles, everyone is beginning to hype on just how much more powerful the new consoles will be.  I don't doubt that this will be the case.  Every console generation has been a quantum leap ahead of what came before.  The question few people seem to be asking is whether or not developers can actually make use of all of that power in a way gamers will be satisfied with and not go broke from the effort.  Square-Enix has gone on record to say that a remake of Final Fantasy VII on existing consoles would be prohibitively expensive.  Imagine how the cost would spike if you suddenly quadrupled the game's specs on a new console.  Plus, you have to take S/E's game design methods into consideration.  Square-Enix no longer uses third-party engines to drive their games.  They develop their own engines in-house, a process that takes a lot of money and time.  Speaking more generally to the industry at large, AAA games are getting really expensive to make.  So much so that a single failed title can completely break a company, and even a modestly successful one won't make enough money back to justify the expense (Kingdoms of Amalur being a tragic example of this).

In short, the industry is heading at breakneck speed toward a very solid brick wall - on a railroad track.  Just like the fighting game craze of the 90's, the current craze of the first-person shooter will last only so long.  Considering the enormous budgets put into those FPS games to keep players wowed, the damage from a sudden drop-off of interest in that genre would border on disastrous.  What good is having a $400 console if no developer can afford to use it to its fullest potential?  Sure, you can still make and sell less ambitious games on it.  I can also dig out my PS2 and have the same experience on something I already own.  With the worldwide economy being in the doldrums, can people really justify buying an expensive toy and getting only a fraction of that toy's potential value?  I think people will pass.  And then it will be 1983 all over again.

idioticidioms

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #24 on: August 26, 2012, 08:07:26 pm »
Dude, you think small. Do you really think that after the graphics and vast superiority of the PS3 and XBOX 360 systems that people AREN'T going to be willing to go down and shell out 400-600 dollars for the next systems to grace the floor? In a few years time, Chrono and Final Fantasy will still be pertinent; there will still be people who want it. Think more of Diablo III and the 12-14 years it took them to make that sequel. Do you see how many people were still interested and bought it purely for the sake of their nostalgia?

I want to believe that you are right, but with the state the industry is in right now, I do not have high hopes that this will happen.

As we are nearing the end of the lifecycle of the current generation of consoles, everyone is beginning to hype on just how much more powerful the new consoles will be.  I don't doubt that this will be the case.  Every console generation has been a quantum leap ahead of what came before.  The question few people seem to be asking is whether or not developers can actually make use of all of that power in a way gamers will be satisfied with and not go broke from the effort.  Square-Enix has gone on record to say that a remake of Final Fantasy VII on existing consoles would be prohibitively expensive.  Imagine how the cost would spike if you suddenly quadrupled the game's specs on a new console.  Plus, you have to take S/E's game design methods into consideration.  Square-Enix no longer uses third-party engines to drive their games.  They develop their own engines in-house, a process that takes a lot of money and time.  Speaking more generally to the industry at large, AAA games are getting really expensive to make.  So much so that a single failed title can completely break a company, and even a modestly successful one won't make enough money back to justify the expense (Kingdoms of Amalur being a tragic example of this).

In short, the industry is heading at breakneck speed toward a very solid brick wall - on a railroad track.  Just like the fighting game craze of the 90's, the current craze of the first-person shooter will last only so long.  Considering the enormous budgets put into those FPS games to keep players wowed, the damage from a sudden drop-off of interest in that genre would border on disastrous.  What good is having a $400 console if no developer can afford to use it to its fullest potential?  Sure, you can still make and sell less ambitious games on it.  I can also dig out my PS2 and have the same experience on something I already own.  With the worldwide economy being in the doldrums, can people really justify buying an expensive toy and getting only a fraction of that toy's potential value?  I think people will pass.  And then it will be 1983 all over again.

Pure and utter BS. Do you know how much it costs to design a game? Not much after you already have the initial equipment and people on hand. It's not like rocket ship parts. The only thing they would need to spend money on is peoples pay for the hours they work and the cost of discs. Not to mention that Squeenix is rolling in so much money right now as to just be obscene. Think Scrooge McDuck and his tower of Gold. The consoles themselves and the parts to make them aren't made from hard to find materials. It's not as if the parts of an XBox are entirely dissimilar to a computer.

If they were to completely overhaul the games into newer versions of themselves with the graphics to back them up, they already have the storylines and bestiaries and item/weapon/armor/etc. lists on hands. All they would realistically have to do is hire people to upgrade the graphics and the way you control your characters in the field. Add some extra content in. Yeah, the fans can go back and play the ones they already have; but we all know that they aren't satisfied with just that.

Every single fan I know has gone out and either bought a brand new copy; waited for the price to go down; or managed to play it another way. This holds true whether they like the remake or not. In fact, people that don't like a remake usually go through and play it again so they can make a proper list of what they didn't like about it. You can't tell me that sales aren't going to be there if they were to remake some of these really popular games.

Greedy sons of bitches. They say it's not cost-effective; they say the money isn't there; that way, when they act like they finally concede to the fans, they can charge whatever the fuck they want for it and people will pay because they waited for so long and fought hard for them to be made.

It's just good business.

And, right now and definitely in the future; people will find ways to save up money so they can have the things that entertain them. As things get worse, people will always look to the things that make their lives a little more fun. Christmas and birthdays is when people like to go all out. If they were to release any of the games I've mentioned around Christmas time on a new system; sales would skyrocket and then take a fall for a while; but the initial rake-in would be enough to cover production costs very easily.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2012, 08:11:05 pm by idioticidioms »

Lennis

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #25 on: August 27, 2012, 12:53:26 pm »
Pure and utter BS. Do you know how much it costs to design a game? Not much after you already have the initial equipment and people on hand. It's not like rocket ship parts. The only thing they would need to spend money on is peoples pay for the hours they work and the cost of discs. Not to mention that Squeenix is rolling in so much money right now as to just be obscene. Think Scrooge McDuck and his tower of Gold. The consoles themselves and the parts to make them aren't made from hard to find materials. It's not as if the parts of an XBox are entirely dissimilar to a computer.

Nothing I have heard about the industry paints the rosy low-cost picture you describe.  Do you have the numbers to back up this rather incredible claim?  I have numbers to back up mine - at least on one title.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-25-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-needed-to-sell-3-million-to-break-even

I DO agree that Square/Enix is too focused on the bottom line, but their budget on a major new title would be well in excess of what it cost to make Kingdoms of Amalur, and that cannot be discounted.  With the failure of Final Fantasy XIV, S/E is going to be a lot more careful with their dollars.

idioticidioms

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #26 on: August 27, 2012, 04:32:49 pm »
Pure and utter BS. Do you know how much it costs to design a game? Not much after you already have the initial equipment and people on hand. It's not like rocket ship parts. The only thing they would need to spend money on is peoples pay for the hours they work and the cost of discs. Not to mention that Squeenix is rolling in so much money right now as to just be obscene. Think Scrooge McDuck and his tower of Gold. The consoles themselves and the parts to make them aren't made from hard to find materials. It's not as if the parts of an XBox are entirely dissimilar to a computer.

Nothing I have heard about the industry paints the rosy low-cost picture you describe.  Do you have the numbers to back up this rather incredible claim?  I have numbers to back up mine - at least on one title.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-25-kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-needed-to-sell-3-million-to-break-even

I DO agree that Square/Enix is too focused on the bottom line, but their budget on a major new title would be well in excess of what it cost to make Kingdoms of Amalur, and that cannot be discounted.  With the failure of Final Fantasy XIV, S/E is going to be a lot more careful with their dollars.

No; what you have there is proof of a brand new game costing that much; creating everything from scratch. And again, it's a bullshit projected number based on factors in our society; key among them greed. Final Fantasy XIV is an online game and has no relation to console-based sales.

And, the real bottom line is that the link you posted is to a place that deals with the numbers that squeenix tells them. Meaning, there is no concrete evidence that that is what it costs to make a game. I'm sure they could spend that much if they wanted to; but when you consider the low-production cost of Star Ocean for the PS2 compared to the high production cost of Final Fantasy X; the quality of Star Ocean being way above that of Final Fantasy X; mostly due to brand-name recognition.... it's just bullshit.

I mean, I'm not saying for sure that Squeenix will put out those games; but I can tell you it would be smart of them to do so.

I can't say for sure that Squeenix will do anything; but then again; neither can you say for sure that they won't. I'd rather be the hopeful optimist while keeping a healthy tint of realism than the upset pessimist that bitches overly long only to find that what they waited for for so long wasn't actually what they thought it would be. Pessimists are never happy.

And, honestly; Squeenix has become overly confident in their sales. They needed to be hit like they were hit with XIV. Remind their asses that they should be putting out quality and not just quantity. Millions.... that's laughable. Squeenix makes billions of dollars a year. They can afford a couple million to make a game or two.

Come on, Final Fantasy XIII; the first 30 hours of play time were fucking tutorial. I understand it's a different system, but since when did we need 30 hours of fucking tutorials to understand the shit? Never. Jump right in and figure it out as you go. That's the true gamer code. Squeenix needs a lot of things right now; key among them being that they need to remember their roots and where they came from. Remember where their fan base lays. We don't need a brand new game right now. Let them save up the ideas until they make another game that blows all others out of the water. Remake some older titles that don't have as big of a production cost; keep old fans happy while bringing new fans into the mix like they did with the snes and nes titles. Get people ready and wanting the next installment of final fantasy; take the time to do it right and BAM; everyone is happy.

Lennis

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #27 on: August 28, 2012, 02:50:01 am »
Hey, look, I want the same things you do, but we have to at least acknowledge the reality of the situation.  Video game execs don't just twirl their mustaches and sit on millions and billions of dollars that could be invested to make more money for their shareholders - whom they are beholden to serve.  Static money does nothing.  You are letting your emotions cloud your judgement on this subject.  Their greed isn't manifesting from sitting on piles of cash.  Their greed (in the case of Square-Enix) manifests in cutting costs to the point of compromising the quality of their products.  I don't hate them for wanting to make money.  That's their job, after all.  I hate the way they have gone about it: insisting on short-term profits at the expense of long-term value and viability.  In short, they have become risk-averse.  (And they view an expensive remake of an older game to be a risk, even though it is the most sensible course for them to take - as you say.)

I don't know what you mean by "BS projected numbers" and my link providing no proof.  Sure, what a reporter or website is told by the company may not be true, but if the reporter investigates further and discovers a large discrepancy between the reported number and the truth, that makes the company look rather bad.  The gaming press, whatever biases they may have, has come a long way since the video-game magazines of the 90's.  They don't just report.  They follow up, and maintain pressure on companies and entities that may not be inclined to be completely honest with them or the public.  To take your argument at face value, the video game companies have complete control over the information being made available (or not) to the public, and so we cannot trust anything we read.  That may have been true at one time, but no longer.  A single article may not be 100% accurate in what it reports, but if you read a whole bunch of different articles from different sources that reach a similar conclusion, on balance it becomes hard to acknowledge the story as false.

Following is a story about development budgets for modern-day video games that supports my earlier argument.  You can declare it complete bunk if you want, just know that you put yourself on more unstable footing by doing so.  Reporters don't much care for making up numbers - lest the truth come back to bite them and destroy their credibility.  A link follows the story just to confirm the source.

Quote
The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen video game is currently around $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an averge of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier (think Modern Warfare 2, Gran Turismo 5, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, etc.). These figures have caused some concern within the game development community, as the pressure caused can be quite “frightening” as developers try to satisfy publisher investment and finish a game on schedule, under budget. “I think that’s one thing that the press, to a certain extent, is forgetting,” Krome CEO Robert Walsh told Develop.

“They’re saying sales have increased over ten percent since last year or whatever; I mean, dev costs have probably doubled or tripled in the console transition.” Combine such lofty figures, the current economic climate and actual retail sales, and you get a recipe for disaster should consumer demand fail to equal or exceed the initial investment.Sometimes it works, obviously: look no further than Modern Warfare 2 as an example. The game surpassed $550 million in sales its first five days at retail and has done much more since it's November 2009 release - making sure the publisher is recouping each and every development cent. Of course this is not the story with most video games; we have to think this is just another reason to stop pirating games, it's an expensive business we work.

http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_9268/Game_Development_Budget_Somewhere_Around_25_Million

Here are some more links to budget news over recent years:

http://digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-game-budgets-ever/

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/red-dead-redemption-needs-to-sell-4-million-copies-to-break-even-says-analyst/

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_video_games
(Note: Searching multiple sources, Final Fantasy VII had a production budget of between $28 - $45 million, plus $100 million for advertising.  Even at the low end of the spectrum that is a huge number, and in today's dollars it would be even higher.  This was the old Squaresoft going for broke on something that really pushed the limits of what was possible at the time.)

Bottom line, games are expensive to make - and becoming more so.  Don't make the fallacious argument that an old game can be remade cheaply because all the assets are already there.  Those assets are fifteen-years-old. (speaking of Final Fantasy VII)  You could save money on pre-production since the story is already well established, but everything else would have to be done again.  Static 2-D environments would have to be changed to fully 3-D.  Characters would have to be completely remodeled to approach the quality seen in FF XIII.  The midi music tracks would have to be rerecorded to modern norms.  Characters would have to be voiced.  And then you would need a game engine to handle all of this new stuff.  If you can use the FF XIII engine, no problem.  If you have to create another one, there's more money and time added to the process.  Yeah, Square-Enix can afford to take the risk, and I want them to, but $40 million is not chump change even for them.  (If this remade Final Fantasy VII cost only $40 million to produce, I would be shocked.)  And then you have to consider marketing, which can easily triple the overall budget to nine figures.  The result is a game that has to sell millions of copies just to break even, and that is not something to be taken lightly by even the largest of companies.  Personally, I believe a remade FF VII - if done right - could sell up to 7 million copies; a huge winner.  If it isn't done right and sells under a million, you have a problem.

We should probably wrap this up, since we're getting rather off-topic.  I'll let someone else have the last word.

idioticidioms

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #28 on: August 28, 2012, 05:21:24 am »
Hey, look, I want the same things you do, but we have to at least acknowledge the reality of the situation.  Video game execs don't just twirl their mustaches and sit on millions and billions of dollars that could be invested to make more money for their shareholders - whom they are beholden to serve.  Static money does nothing.  You are letting your emotions cloud your judgement on this subject.  Their greed isn't manifesting from sitting on piles of cash.  Their greed (in the case of Square-Enix) manifests in cutting costs to the point of compromising the quality of their products.  I don't hate them for wanting to make money.  That's their job, after all.  I hate the way they have gone about it: insisting on short-term profits at the expense of long-term value and viability.  In short, they have become risk-averse.  (And they view an expensive remake of an older game to be a risk, even though it is the most sensible course for them to take - as you say.)

I don't know what you mean by "BS projected numbers" and my link providing no proof.  Sure, what a reporter or website is told by the company may not be true, but if the reporter investigates further and discovers a large discrepancy between the reported number and the truth, that makes the company look rather bad.  The gaming press, whatever biases they may have, has come a long way since the video-game magazines of the 90's.  They don't just report.  They follow up, and maintain pressure on companies and entities that may not be inclined to be completely honest with them or the public.  To take your argument at face value, the video game companies have complete control over the information being made available (or not) to the public, and so we cannot trust anything we read.  That may have been true at one time, but no longer.  A single article may not be 100% accurate in what it reports, but if you read a whole bunch of different articles from different sources that reach a similar conclusion, on balance it becomes hard to acknowledge the story as false.

Following is a story about development budgets for modern-day video games that supports my earlier argument.  You can declare it complete bunk if you want, just know that you put yourself on more unstable footing by doing so.  Reporters don't much care for making up numbers - lest the truth come back to bite them and destroy their credibility.  A link follows the story just to confirm the source.

Quote
The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen video game is currently around $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an averge of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier (think Modern Warfare 2, Gran Turismo 5, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, etc.). These figures have caused some concern within the game development community, as the pressure caused can be quite “frightening” as developers try to satisfy publisher investment and finish a game on schedule, under budget. “I think that’s one thing that the press, to a certain extent, is forgetting,” Krome CEO Robert Walsh told Develop.

“They’re saying sales have increased over ten percent since last year or whatever; I mean, dev costs have probably doubled or tripled in the console transition.” Combine such lofty figures, the current economic climate and actual retail sales, and you get a recipe for disaster should consumer demand fail to equal or exceed the initial investment.Sometimes it works, obviously: look no further than Modern Warfare 2 as an example. The game surpassed $550 million in sales its first five days at retail and has done much more since it's November 2009 release - making sure the publisher is recouping each and every development cent. Of course this is not the story with most video games; we have to think this is just another reason to stop pirating games, it's an expensive business we work.

http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_9268/Game_Development_Budget_Somewhere_Around_25_Million

Here are some more links to budget news over recent years:

http://digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/top-10-most-expensive-video-game-budgets-ever/

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/red-dead-redemption-needs-to-sell-4-million-copies-to-break-even-says-analyst/

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_video_games
(Note: Searching multiple sources, Final Fantasy VII had a production budget of between $28 - $45 million, plus $100 million for advertising.  Even at the low end of the spectrum that is a huge number, and in today's dollars it would be even higher.  This was the old Squaresoft going for broke on something that really pushed the limits of what was possible at the time.)

Bottom line, games are expensive to make - and becoming more so.  Don't make the fallacious argument that an old game can be remade cheaply because all the assets are already there.  Those assets are fifteen-years-old. (speaking of Final Fantasy VII)  You could save money on pre-production since the story is already well established, but everything else would have to be done again.  Static 2-D environments would have to be changed to fully 3-D.  Characters would have to be completely remodeled to approach the quality seen in FF XIII.  The midi music tracks would have to be rerecorded to modern norms.  Characters would have to be voiced.  And then you would need a game engine to handle all of this new stuff.  If you can use the FF XIII engine, no problem.  If you have to create another one, there's more money and time added to the process.  Yeah, Square-Enix can afford to take the risk, and I want them to, but $40 million is not chump change even for them.  (If this remade Final Fantasy VII cost only $40 million to produce, I would be shocked.)  And then you have to consider marketing, which can easily triple the overall budget to nine figures.  The result is a game that has to sell millions of copies just to break even, and that is not something to be taken lightly by even the largest of companies.  Personally, I believe a remade FF VII - if done right - could sell up to 7 million copies; a huge winner.  If it isn't done right and sells under a million, you have a problem.

We should probably wrap this up, since we're getting rather off-topic.  I'll let someone else have the last word.

It's been off topic and on topic at the same time considering it's still revolving around Chrono Break and the possibility of another Chrono game.

But seriously, you're doing nothing to prove to me that it actually takes that much money to make a video game. Break it down for me into each individual part how much it costs at that scale. I want to know if it's the same as the US government expecting people to believe that a hammer costs over $100. I understand they have to pay for the equipment to design the games and pay the people that work on the games; which can be up to a couple years worth of work if not more.

I mean the work is impressive and they should achieve some recognition for it; but it's entirely ludicrous that a video game has that high of a production cost. People are too damn greedy. I'm really not going to argue this any further; you can believe what you want to believe.

Mr Bekkler

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Re: *false alarm* Square Enix registers "Chrono Bind" domain
« Reply #29 on: August 28, 2012, 04:09:30 pm »
Idioticidioms, I think you're looking at it from the standpoint of someone who may have the tools and skills to actually do it himself and be able to prove that a high quality game can be made for little to no money, which is true. Small studios and creative individuals can sometimes come up with amazing work, with the lack of a budget only adding to the "amazement". However, with larger companies (and we know SE is large, Square ate Enix and then Eidos or EA or something, I don't remember) everyone is a legacy employee and has a certain salary they are guaranteed. Combine that fact with the amount of time needed and the amount of people per project and then how many concurrent projects are in development at once, and a company's money is very quickly all gone, that is to say, tied up in investments. Not to mention investors, shareholders, producers, directors, supervisors, managers, security, IT, marketing teams, accounting, licensing, legal teams, and any other employee who isn't even working on a single game directly but is required and as such, on the payroll (it is a company first and foremost). To decide to make a game is extremely expensive for this company because it means every one of those people needs to get paid, most of them before there are even any profits from said game.

Remaking a game is a huge decision, because what they have been saying with their lack of a remake is that the original still holds up. That IS the game, definitively, warts and all. A remake says "maybe it could use some work". So they redo everything, new engine, new script, new 3d models, new music, as Lennis said.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that you guys aren't arguing really. You have complimentary points. Lennis is saying it is expensive, and he's right. You're saying it shouldn't be that expensive, and you're right too.

I think SE is ludicrously large and they're basically dooming themselves with unsustainable growth and limited output due to corporate and financial pressures.