日前，在拉斯维加斯举办的2011年DICE（Design、Innovate、 Communicate、Entertain）峰会上，传统游戏元老Mark Cerny在发言中表示他认为，高投入、大制作的游戏开发时代该结束了。

Mark Cerny-DICE 2011

Cerny表示，“坦白地说，投资成本高达5000万美元的游戏项目其实并不一定可靠，相反，如果是2000万美元的游戏项目，我就敢确信自己可以通过跨平台、国际化运营等途径收回成本，但问题是，我们真的需要花2000万美元开发一款游戏吗？”

据游戏邦了解，Cerny在这一行业中的资历颇深，已从事了30多年的游戏开发工作，目前运营一家行业咨询公司Cerny Games，他认为固定的高投入资金流将导致这一行业处于入不敷出的状态。

他的观点是，“我们在1994年的时候这一行的分工还没有这么明确，但现在到了2011年，我们不但有创意总监、游戏总监、角色总监、特技协调员、音频编辑、灯光设计师，甚至还有最近新出现的动作设计师。”

现在的视频游戏比过去更为真实，更像是电影大片的制作风格，比如《使命召唤》（Call of Duty）这种大制作游戏就是一个典型代表。动视暴雪旗下的《使命召唤7》（Call of Duty：Black Ops），在发行头五天就疯狂吸金6.5亿美元，发行6周后的总营收达到10亿美元，成了史上运营最成功的游戏。

尽管如此，Cerny仍然指出，这种成功的案例并不会驱使开发商为游戏项目砸下更多钱，开发商目前将针对Xbox 360、PlayStation 3和Wii等这一代游戏机开发项目。因为多数开发商对这些平台都已经很熟悉，所以他们最好想法节省开支，以免陷入收支严重失衡的困境，“这也就意味着我们必须花点时间研究自己的策略，找到值得投资的项目，摆脱那种动辄斥资超过500万美元开发下一款游戏的不良循环。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Industry vet: The $50 million video game must go

The time has come for developers to slash and burn the budgets of multimillion-dollar games, an industry vet says.

Mark Cerny, who has worked on everything from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to MLB 08: The Show, spoke yesterday at the Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (DICE) Summit in Las Vegas.

“Frankly, the economics of the $50 million game are looking a little shaky,” Cerny said, according to a transcript from GamesIndustry.Biz. “By contrast, with a $20 million game, I’m pretty sure I can make that money back–multiplatform, international distribution. But that raises the question: ‘Can we make the $20 million game?’”

Cerny, who has been in the business for nearly 30 years and now runs consulting firm Cerny Games, said that a steady influx of cash has steered the industry away from saving and toward unnecessary expenses.

“We had no specialization whatsoever in 1994,” Cerny said, according to GamesIndustry.Biz. “In 2011, we have the creative director, the game director, the director of actors, stunt coordinator, the guy who makes the plywood props, the audio scripter, the lighting designer, and the most recent of creations–the combat designer.”

Video games are more realistic and movie-like than ever, and blockbuster franchises, like Call of Duty, perform extremely well. Activision Blizzard’s latest Call of Duty entrant, Black Ops, generated $650 million in its first five days of availability, helping it become the biggest entertainment launch in history. It scored $1 billion in revenue in just six weeks.

But such success shouldn’t prompt developers to spend more, Cerny said. He pointed out that developers will be working with the current generation of consoles–the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii–for the foreseeable future. And since development for those consoles has been going on for years, developers at this point should know how to reduce waste and get what they want from the hardware without breaking the bank.

“And that means we can take our time and to learn our craft,” Cerny said. “To learn what is important to spend money on, and get out of the spiral where we spend $5 million more every year making that next title.”（source:news.cnet）