Humble Indie Bundle V Generates Five Million USD

[mark45]

So basically you're looking for the bargain bin of major publishers. Which the Humble Indie Bundle is not, by definition.

They're definitely getting a lot of money, so by definition - they're not after major publishers, but by quality standards and the amount of money they raise - that's the natural target. If you stall you lose, that's how capitalism works.

[AnonymousCoward]

Quality rings a bell? Hello? I didn't play Left 4 Dead because it had a big budget, but because it's sophisticated and cool, that's what AAA games mean. I haven't seen such games on Humble Bundle.

So basically you're looking for the bargain bin of major publishers. Which the Humble Indie Bundle is not, by definition.

[johnc]

Looks like the Humble Bundle folks are looking for some Linux help if anyone's interested:

https://plus.google.com/103555773917939181320/posts/62V7koySnxS

[johnc]

What this world needs is more complaining about good news stories.

[directhex]

Misusing a label because you feel a different meaning fits better is not going to help you communicate with others.
Also "sophisticated" sure must be a subjective term cause i find LIMBO way more sophisticated then CoD.

"sophisticated" as in "large choice of shooty shooty bang bangs"

[directhex]

I'm sure you can create a good title with under a million $.

Well, not by your standards, since you're not happy with any of these ~$1m budget games, because they're not the almost-a-hundred-million-dollar-to-develop Call of Duty.

There are good free engines like doom3 and whatnot, so you don't really have to create a game from scratch.

Art assets are the expensive part. Most games today, including big budget ones, use off the shelf engines. Even low-cost engines.

[AJenbo]

AAA doesn't mean anything if you judge it solely by the budget. And when I say AAA I mean quality since I don't give a rat's ass how much they spent creating a game. That's why I played Call of Duty and stuff alike - because it's sophisticated and cool. There's nothing like this in the Bundle and since they have big budgets lately they can probably try to create and/or ship such a title. I'm sure you can create a good title with under a million $. There are good free engines like doom3 and whatnot, so you don't really have to create a game from scratch.

Misusing a label because you feel a different meaning fits better is not going to help you communicate with others.
Also "sophisticated" sure must be a subjective term cause i find LIMBO way more sophisticated then CoD.

[directhex]

Quality rings a bell?

Quality has nothing to do with an AAA budget. There is an assumption that there is a link between "money spent" and "quality of final product", but it's not a causal relationship.

Daikatana had an AAA budget.

Hello? I didn't play Left 4 Dead because it had a big budget, but because it's sophisticated and cool, that's what AAA games mean.

It really isn't.

Try reading an industry rag like MCV. It has adverts in it, not for end customers, but for retailers - i.e. "buy this game from your distributor, you'll sell loads of it". Every "AAA" game comes with a tagline for the marketing budget, since that's what defines an AAA game.

Left 4 dead had a marketing budget of 10 million dollars. L4D2 was $25m for marketing. Not a penny of that went onto the game, that's money for adverts. That's what makes a game AAA.

I haven't seen such games on Humble Bundle.

1) Psychonauts is an AAA title (from 2005) - however, unlike other HIB games, it was originally funded by a big-name publisher who spent millions on it.

2) A vaguely modern AAA game costs tens of millions of dollars to develop and the same again to market. The best selling HIB ever raised 5 million, which is split first between charity/developer/tip split, then again between developers. If you assume that 100% of HIB revenue went to the 8 game developers, then each got $600,000. That's a decent chunk of change for an indie, but it's a rounding error for something like GTA4 with its $100m budget.

[mark45]

Then state what you mean by AAA title. As far as I read your posting, it is like @directhex interpreted. And I agree with @directhex. The quality of one games doesn't always depend on how much money you put to produce that game.

AAA doesn't mean anything if you judge it solely by the budget. And when I say AAA I mean quality since I don't give a rat's ass how much they spent creating a game. That's why I played Call of Duty and stuff alike - because it's sophisticated and cool. There's nothing like this in the Bundle and since they have big budgets lately they can probably try to create and/or ship such a title. I'm sure you can create a good title with under a million $. There are good free engines like doom3 and whatnot, so you don't really have to create a game from scratch.

[t.s.]

Quality rings a bell? Hello? I didn't play Left 4 Dead because it had a big budget, but because it's sophisticated and cool, that's what AAA games mean. I haven't seen such games on Humble Bundle.

Then state what you mean by AAA title. As far as I read your posting, it is like @directhex interpreted. And I agree with @directhex. The quality of games doesn't always depend on how much money you put to produce that game.