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Former Visceral Games Dev Speculates at What Went Wrong
It’s no surprise that the demise of Visceral Games stings on numerous levels. The studio gave us an awesome “John Carpenters The Thing in space” series of games with the Dead Space franchise, and now that’s probably going to be stuck in EA’s closet for the next while. Not to mention the talent that was at the studio that brought the series to life. But thanks to a former developer at the studio, we have a clue as to why EA pulled the trigger on Visceral.
In a series of Twitter posts, Zach Wilson (who was at the studio while they were working on Battlefield: Hardline) stated an obvious problem with certain AAA titles these days:
cause you gotta spend 60 million dollars marketing it and you take a huge hit from MS and retailers taking their cut
— Zach Wilson (@covernode) October 17, 2017
Wilson goes on to explain that he’s “back of the napkinning” these numbers, but added that they’re close to the real thing. “I don’t know the exact marketing budget but they’re frequently close to the dev cost (I have heard this anecdotally)”. While this doesn’t explain why Visceral had to close, it does give you an idea of what was going on.
Later on, Wilson followed up his initial tweets with some clarification. Turns out that his numbers on Dead Space sales were “totally inaccurate”. The true number for the Dead Space 2 budget is closer to $47 million, while Dead Space had a $37 million budget. Even then, he’s “not 100% sure”. However, one thing he does reiterate is that the marketing budget is usually around the production budget as a “rule of thumb”. Regardless, the idea of revenue vs. cost is still the issue.
Dead Space 2 isn’t the only game to have suffered from having good sales, but with low returns. Square Enix’s 2013 Tomb Raider reboot had a budget approaching $100 million (not including marketing costs), and needed to sell 5-6 million units within the first month to generate a profit. The game sold 3.4 million units, instead. The game eventually broke even by the end of the year, but the game was still considered a loss for the company.
One could say that the videogame industry is mimicking the film industry in regards to problems with budgets. As budgets get higher, the demands for revenue become louder. It’s not hard to find an example of a film that did well at the box office, but was considered a failure due to its bloated budget and marketing costs. There have been rumblings for years about Hollywood potentially heading towards a crash with the continued reliance on summer blockbusters with inflated budgets to rake in the cash. Videogames already had a crash in North America back in the 80s (albeit for different reasons than budget). Could they be headed for another?
This story was originally posted on Plenty Dreadful. Head there for more horror video game goodness!
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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