Sam
@acertainsam.bsky.social
15 followers 26 following 109 posts
craveable and creative. varied, on-trend and artisanal. hand-pressed, sog-resistant. now in a more snackable format. ph.d. political science that i'm not currently using. www.youtube.com/@acertainsam
!["If the reported budget of $2 billion for GTA is true, they will have to sell over 28.5 million copies at $100 a pop in order to break even," he explains. "For FFF [cozy strategy game Flame, Forest and Flood], that number is well below 10k copies at a much lower price. Even if every single owner of a current-gen console bought GTA 6, their ROI will barely reach 5x. FFF gets there with around 30k copies sold. This raises serious questions about the sustainability of budget-blown AAA as a whole. How many games out there can confidently bet on selling 30 million copies? Elden Ring would barely recoup. Assassin's Creed does half of that on only some entries."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ijgpxgxpgbgteep7wqxx7gz6/bafkreie3evgirqjuhvtc6pc2a2h2e5wmpina75jjl2r6uot5tbj5soyszm)
![Excerpt from linked article:
"Not for lack of trying: around 2015 he brewed a plan for a complete reboot. It would be called Star Wars: The New Republic. He spent roughly six months compiling a basic design document, powerpoints explaining the game, and a mock-up trailer from Blur Studio, the visual effects company. "It was the chance to do Knights of the Old Republic online, it was a chance to [put right] everything I'd said that we'd messed up."
He convinced LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy and met several times with Dave Filoni, a director at LucasFilm including on Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. "He was like, 'if you set it a couple hundred years before the fall of the Republic, we can have a tie in.'
"I remember I got super excited because the big challenge was [EA exec] Patrick Söderlund, who I think is great but hates Star Wars: The Old Republic. And I convinced him … it was one of the greatest accomplishments of my career," he says.
His joy soon withered.
"We were going to be able to have a Star Wars: The New Republic, until the board of directors of EA, who all remembered the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and remembered spending $300 million," he says, laughing again. "They're like, 'Why the fuck are we gonna spend a bunch more?'"
There was no debate, no chance to plead his case, just a big, fat no."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ijgpxgxpgbgteep7wqxx7gz6/bafkreidztaszzubyq3evobhnxgi4h7s3xpmwgnosdqneqaqldxfufkahka)
