Unfortunately not. If you took all the devs, artists, and other staff from ALL the game dev companies in SA you wouldn't have enough of a team; and as for the budget, I don't even.
I need a team to build me a good aaa mmo action game, does sa have the man power i need?
Do you have the budget? You'd be looking at around $100 - $200 million dollars. You'd also likely need to bring in some more talent. Also as someone else mentioned what your time frame?
Well. The Witcher 1 and Torchlight are somewhat sizeable games developed by a few small teams that grew. I personally think the talent exists. But budget is something truly mad. and MMOs are notorious for being too big and unsupportable to reach a successful conclusion.
If you have the budget to make a large game project, Mobas and MMOs are literally a bad idea to chase at the current moment
As I understand it, Torchlight 1 outsourced a lot of their work (which allowed the company to stay quite small during it's development and still make a largish game) and the core members of Runic had Diablo experience.
Like everyone said, it really depends on the scope of the MMO action game. Realm of the Mad God is an MMO (and from what I understand a profitable one) and it has a really tight scope. http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/
And something like Robocraft (which is kind of similar to World of Tanks) is relatively doable (it was made by 5 VERY experienced developers apparently). http://robocraftgame.com/about/
But World of Warcraft (or a competitor to World of Warcraft) needs more expertise than South Africa has.
Not exactly sure what was meant by "AAA MMO Action Game".
I need a team to build me a good aaa mmo action game, does sa have the man power i need?
I'm not really sure what an action MMO is. But AAA MMO is a big easier to go on. So I'm looking at things like: Wildstar, Guild Wars 2, WoW. Because those would be AAA MMOs.
In which case I'd say no. Absolutely not. You could round up every dev in the could and there probably wouldn't be enough. Also you would have to be a billionaire to finance it. The average AAA game costs in excess of $100 million, MMOs are probably a bit more, and you would need a marketing budgeting quite a bit higher than your dev budget to try and pull in players, and that's not counting the maintenance and upkeep of the server and game patches.
@vintar In terms of "man power". If we're assuming AAA MMO means Wildstar, Guild Wars 2, WoW etc
Firstly, man power surely means "available man power". These people have to be available to hire. So it's not the entirety of SA game dev we're talking about, just the people who could potentially join this project instead of their own projects or where they currently work.
But secondly, how does one spend $50 million (or so) on salaries? If every person on the project was earning R90K a month, and worked for 4 years, you'd still have to hire 115 game developers. There's a crazy amount of labour that goes into a game that costs $100 million.
There are somewhere under 500 professional game developers in South Africa (the last census had the number a bit above 200). Almost none of them with AAA experience, let alone AAA MMO experience. The AAA MMO market seems very competitive, with a lot of high profile projects failing, and many more failing before we ever hear about them. A new game absolutely has to have a highly skilled team to stand out above the competition.
I can't see SA coming even close to adding up to enough man power (if we're using @Karuji's definition of a AAA MMO game).
Unless I'm missing something about building an AAA MMO, or not aware of how much game developer man power South Africa holds.
@SUGBOERIE I believe that the $500 million includes marketing (I think the figure was technically the entire budget of the game, including marketing and maintenance).
That kind of gives an idea of how monumental the marketing and post-launch costs are. Activision is budgeting twice it's Destiny development budget on things that aren't the initial development of Destiny.
By all means, dream big, but it's so important to *really* understand what those big dreams *really* entail. These guys are the top of the industry in this country, the REAL industry. So listen to them, learn, understand.
Two to four hundred million dollars is pretty common in AAA for a combined dev and marketing budget. I had to laugh at the list that @bischonator found on Wikipedia since those are rather small budget compared to what you hear AAA producers and leads talk about. If we actually knew budgets for more games I'm pretty confident that the top 25 most expensive games would be 300 million+ in terms of budget.
Like most you high technicality FPS games have $100mil in dev and $200mil on marketing. Though this does come with a caveat of the game will have a number at the end. Publishers generally don't risk that kind of money on new IPs unless is from a highly experienced studio/team ala Respawn, Bungie or Naughty Dog.
Ya know, even for an experienced AAA studio backed by a major publisher I'd advise against making an MMO unless you are willing to throw away that $300m+. You won't know if it'll be successful until after it launches and you already spent all that money.
I'd just like to point out that nobody in this thread is talking about management and production skills. We're super Dunning-Krugered on those, because we have so few of them locally, but you'd need a huge amount of people capable of doing both to run any AAA project. So even if you had the budget AND magically got the manpower here in SA, there's still a lack of co-ordination - that would kill the project even harder.
I just want to emphasize @dislekcia's point. Scaling up to a 50 person (or more) team, and being even moderately efficient at that size, is something just about no-one in South Africa has experience with.
I just want to emphasize @dislekcia's point. Scaling up to a 50 person (or more) team, and being even moderately efficient at that size, is something just about no-one in South Africa has experience with.
@bischonator yes I know it's from Star Trek. I just don't know how it's supposed to relate/contribute to the discussion at hand. As it is a command given by the commanding officer(Picard) to his second(Riker).
My question still, however, stands. How does @vintar replying to @BlackShipsFilltheSky with "Make it so Number 1! :D" contribute to the discussion at hand? If you can answer that then I welcome your input, otherwise it's best to leave it at this, since it will only draw a rather interesting discussion more off topic.
There's nothing wrong with asking a question to clarify something. I didn't understand how it was relevant either, I'm glad someone asked.
@vintar, you got asked nicely, don't be weird about it.
@bischonator, I'm pretty sure everyone knew it was a trek reference. What people didn't get was why... Asking a question isn't usurping anything, calm down?
Just wow. @dislekcia I don't think a joke is weird at all. What I do find weird is all the fuss its caused. And in the light of all this hubbub, I'd say this place needs more humour.
I agree. I shouldn't have to justify anything. I was just amazed at how I get accused of " not adding to the conversation" after a small quip. Hell, if it is always off topic to make a joke then this will become one boring place indeed. I already find it tough to hang around here as a new member, lets not make it boring too huh?
Aggression, no. Defensiveness problem? Yeah, I think so. The issue with defensive reactions is that they cast everything in response to them as aggressive, when that's hardly ever the case. You're right in that we're all on the same side, as such, it's worth not accepting justifications that assume other people aren't.
I agree. I shouldn't have to justify anything. I was just amazed at how I get accused of " not adding to the conversation" after a small quip. Hell, if it is always off topic to make a joke then this will become one boring place indeed. I already find it tough to hang around here as a new member, lets not make it boring too huh?
Nobody accused you of anything. If something didn't add to the conversation, it didn't add to the conversation. If you want to take that as an accusation, well, okay then. But realise that all that does is make you more uncomfortable due to insults that don't exist outside your head. Remember which side everyone's on here.
Heck, you just learned that the very people you're trying to make laugh didn't get your joke. Rad. Use that, make better jokes. Make better jokes that are ALSO on topic! Everybody wins :D
@dislekcia thanks for the predictable condescending reply. Ok don't make jokes, I get it. I could never know if people would "get it" so best not at all. Back in topic then... Can we make a AAA mmo : Yes Would we : Hell no.
@vintar: Hey, I get that you're feeling put upon. Don't worry, that's not actually happening and nobody is out to get you... Maybe just consider what this reply would have been like if I were reacting defensively too. Practicing handling criticism and feedback is super useful for game development, you don't have to feel negative about it - it's actually super awesome of people to take the time to ask what you actually meant ;)
Comments
Just add AAA budget and we're all good!
I'd be keen to sit-in on the design of a modern MUD. I wonder what could be adopted from nearly a decade of MMO evolution?
With enough cash to throw at the problem, you could find a team and get it done.
If you have the budget to make a large game project, Mobas and MMOs are literally a bad idea to chase at the current moment
Like everyone said, it really depends on the scope of the MMO action game. Realm of the Mad God is an MMO (and from what I understand a profitable one) and it has a really tight scope. http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/
And something like Robocraft (which is kind of similar to World of Tanks) is relatively doable (it was made by 5 VERY experienced developers apparently). http://robocraftgame.com/about/
But World of Warcraft (or a competitor to World of Warcraft) needs more expertise than South Africa has.
Not exactly sure what was meant by "AAA MMO Action Game".
It starts off expensive and then keeps on costing you money.
I would not put MMO in the box marked "Good Investments".
EDIT: But if I absolutely had to build an MMO in South Africa, I'd aim for something like DOFUS and Wakfu. Still not a small undertaking.
Ok I just really needed to post that. I'm not really sure what an action MMO is. But AAA MMO is a big easier to go on. So I'm looking at things like: Wildstar, Guild Wars 2, WoW. Because those would be AAA MMOs.
In which case I'd say no. Absolutely not. You could round up every dev in the could and there probably wouldn't be enough. Also you would have to be a billionaire to finance it. The average AAA game costs in excess of $100 million, MMOs are probably a bit more, and you would need a marketing budgeting quite a bit higher than your dev budget to try and pull in players, and that's not counting the maintenance and upkeep of the server and game patches.
That changes the answer to 'no'.
Firstly, man power surely means "available man power". These people have to be available to hire. So it's not the entirety of SA game dev we're talking about, just the people who could potentially join this project instead of their own projects or where they currently work.
But secondly, how does one spend $50 million (or so) on salaries? If every person on the project was earning R90K a month, and worked for 4 years, you'd still have to hire 115 game developers. There's a crazy amount of labour that goes into a game that costs $100 million.
There are somewhere under 500 professional game developers in South Africa (the last census had the number a bit above 200). Almost none of them with AAA experience, let alone AAA MMO experience. The AAA MMO market seems very competitive, with a lot of high profile projects failing, and many more failing before we ever hear about them. A new game absolutely has to have a highly skilled team to stand out above the competition.
I can't see SA coming even close to adding up to enough man power (if we're using @Karuji's definition of a AAA MMO game).
Unless I'm missing something about building an AAA MMO, or not aware of how much game developer man power South Africa holds.
That kind of gives an idea of how monumental the marketing and post-launch costs are. Activision is budgeting twice it's Destiny development budget on things that aren't the initial development of Destiny.
Like most you high technicality FPS games have $100mil in dev and $200mil on marketing. Though this does come with a caveat of the game will have a number at the end. Publishers generally don't risk that kind of money on new IPs unless is from a highly experienced studio/team ala Respawn, Bungie or Naughty Dog.
My question still, however, stands. How does @vintar replying to @BlackShipsFilltheSky with "Make it so Number 1! :D" contribute to the discussion at hand? If you can answer that then I welcome your input, otherwise it's best to leave it at this, since it will only draw a rather interesting discussion more off topic.
@vintar, you got asked nicely, don't be weird about it.
@bischonator, I'm pretty sure everyone knew it was a trek reference. What people didn't get was why... Asking a question isn't usurping anything, calm down?
ie @karuji was just asking you what you meant by what you said. He didn't say humour was disallowed. I didn't see that in anything he said.
I'm not a trekkie. I didn't get the reference nor the meaning. I must be *really* humourless :)
Or is there the need to defend @Karuji or @Dislekcia or the need to make @Vintar justify his offhand remark that was followed by a " :P ".
We're all on the same side (that of trying to make awesome games in South Africa).
Heck, you just learned that the very people you're trying to make laugh didn't get your joke. Rad. Use that, make better jokes. Make better jokes that are ALSO on topic! Everybody wins :D
Back in topic then...
Can we make a AAA mmo : Yes
Would we : Hell no.